Soldier from the War Returning - The Greatest Generation's Troubled Homecoming

Thomas Childers, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, has written a book, with the above title, from the heart. He details the truth about the return of World War II veterans. Using both his personal story, which includes his father's return from England and the death of his maternal uncle in the last bomber shot down over Germany before VE day (written about in Wings of Morning), he articulates the truth that many of we children of World War II veterans have discovered - that even if our fathers came home physically whole, there were invisible wounds from the war that we intuited, but were not able to put voice to for many years. He also thoroughly details the high unemployment and the high divorce rate after the war. A great read if you want to discover the not so rosy homecoming of the Greatest Generation.

The NPR show Here and Now broadcast an interview with the author on Memorial Day, May 25, 2009. (click on title for a link to the show's site.

Soft Spots - Universality of the Combat Veteran's Trauma

I completed Soft Spots by Clint Van Winkle. It is a wonderfully written book, weaving war experiences in Iraq with his continuing flashbacks after he returns home. I found especially enlightening what he wrote about his World War II grandfather, since it mirrors what my WWII veteran father told me about the lasting impact of war, even World War II, the "Good War"

Excerpt from the book:

My grandpa never talked about World War II to anyone. The family knew he had served in the Army but not much else. After I became a Marine, he started to tell stories about his war to me. It was a "good war" -- the other "war to end all wars" that didn't end any wars. I found out he served overseas for three years, dug fighting holes in occupied Berlin, got into bar fights in France, and spent time in Wales. He talked about going and coming, his Army buddies and training, but never got into the stuff I really wanted to know. Had he ever killed anybody....

When I got back from Iraq, and saw my grandpa, we talked about war again. However, we talked about it in a different manner than we had years earlier. We talked about the places we saw and the friends we gained. We bypassed the death and shooting. Our wars were sixty years apart but weren't really any different. It didn't matter how many years separated our wars or where we traveled to fight them. Blood still dried the same way around wounds and charred bodies still crusted over the same as they always have. It didn't matter that he'd fought in a "good war" and I fought in a controversial war; because the effect turned out to be the same: Neither of us could find anything praiseworthy about combat.

The Real World Brooklyn and Iraq

Today's combat veteran



A small-town Pennsylvania boy with a laid-back personality, Ryan has had his share of action. After enlisting in the army at the age of 17, he served in Iraq and got an eyeful. Now 23, he has returned from his duty with a newfound appreciation for life and a better perspective on the world around him, despite having lived through many near-death experiences, as well as the death of a close friend. A class clown who juggles his time between amateur filmmaking, guitar playing and pranking those around him, Ryan is currently in his first-ever relationship.

Soldier's Heart - The Movie

http://www.soldiersheartthemovie.com/

This is a touching movie about a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and the impact that the aftereffects of war has on his relationships. Soldier's Heart was the term originally used to describe the veterans of the Civil War and the symptoms they displayed, which included cardiac and anxiety physiological responses. This is an important film for returning veterans of all our recent wars.

Sleeping With Enemy - German Children of WWII American Soldiers

http://www6.dw-world.de/en/2099.php

This website details the large number of children born to German women post WWII who were fathered by American GIs. There were 67,000 by 1955 due to the occupation forces remaining in Germany. This is a little known story of children who often were raised in orphanages because of their paternal parentage. Those who remained with their mothers were taunted and mocked.
The legacy of World War II was long and harsh for many of these children.

Hand Me Down Hurt

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/ptsd/ptsdgen.html


Written by a physician, this article discusses second hand trauma and the mechanics of transmission of PTSD from parent to child. Some of the symptoms such as anxiety and hyperarousal are recognizable in the children of war veterans.

Soft Spots: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

An excerpt from a new book, out in March 2009, which is a poignant and shattering story of PTSD in our new generation of veterans.



From Soft Spots
Clint Van Winkle
March 2009

We’d been told it would be a good idea to write a “death letter” in case we didn’t make it home alive. The First Sergeant said we should write the letter to our loved ones: wife, children, parents, or whoever. It didn’t need to be long, just a memo that would give the family closure in case we died on the battlefield.

He was brief, just told us to write, address them, and then to hand the envelopes over to him. He’d make sure they made it to where they needed to go once you stepped on a mine, got shot by a friend, or were blown apart by a rocket propelled grenade. Eighteen-year-old Marines had to drop their superman acts and face the truth of war--people die. As if a letter was going to make anyone feel better. We were left to ponder our young lives, to sum it up on notebook paper, then seal it in an envelope. No stamp required. The government would pay for that.