Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Telly Halkias, an award-winnng freelance journalist. It originally appeared in the Bennington Banner.
Those who knew my father in his youth always described him as a fun loving boy, quick with a smile and gentle with the surrounding world. He maintained flashes of those traits until his death in 1996. But there was always something about him, a roller-coaster ride from light into darkness and then back that never made sense.
Perhaps it was because Dad spent a decade of his youth in the cockpit of a Spitfire as a fighter pilot in World War II and the Greek Civil War.
Something happened when his plane went down in flames with him at the stick and it changed Dad forever. With the benefit of hindsight, and a look through piles of medical evaluations, I’ve concluded, among other things, my father suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which went untreated.
Today, this condition and its consequences are well known and addressed. But as our war in Iraq winds down, and we are trying to extricate ourselves from the Afghan cauldron, questions persist for our veterans, their families and the myriad health care professionals serving both: Are we doing enough to address PTSD, and perhaps even more importantly, is there such a thing as enough?
The anguish of a combat veteran afflicted by the scourge of PTSD can’t be found on a template. Depending on someone’s personality, experience in battle and internal fortitude, symptoms and their affects can vary widely. The deceptive element to PTSD is that sufferers often appear as normal as the next person — externally.
What goes on inside, however, can only be described as a living hell, a man-made furnace put there by the most paradoxical human experience — war. Despite engendering traits such as loyalty, courage and selflessness, it also gives rise to cowardice, savagery and, worst of all, second guessing.
Treating this condition is a monumental task. But developing a strategy for funding research, considering experimental, particularly non-medication therapies, and addressing failures therein, requires visionary thinking from our elected leaders. It’s not about the technicalities of available and proposed remedies, it’s about hope for those who suffer as a result of executing their sworn duties to the nation in time of war — regardless of what we think of that war.
The current operational tempo thrust on our troops is difficult to fathom. The seesaw effect of entering a theater of war for the fifth, sixth and seventh time has caused a surge in the reported cases of PTSD. The uniformed health care services are bucking under that weight, and no cavalry is in sight. Just like it wasn’t for my father, whose generation’s response to PTSD was to clam up and live with it.
But now we have ways to tackle it. We don’t know everything and continue to push boundaries. But having that crusade stalled in the name of bureaucracy in unthinkable, and the recent lack of progress is disheartening.
Unlike the symmetrical wars of the past, hunting down terrorists and their accomplices, and dealing with counterinsurgencies, is a different breed altogether, a cross between the Information Age and the Stone Age.
Today, high-tech enabled Americans are in a cauldron where one moment they might find themselves laced with their best friends’ entrails and the next have no visible enemy on which to retaliate. What that does is bottle up pressure while still requiring 24/7, 360-degree vigilance. Physically and mentally, it’s an unbearable, if not impossible, task.
I gave a part of my youth to the armed forces. I was lucky and came out unscathed, or at least that’s what they told me. My father wasn’t as fortunate, and our entire family had a life-long, front-row seat to his torment.
The least we can do for these troops is give them hope at some future normalcy. Current PTSD treatments are acceptable but still carry the negative effect of having to relive trauma to gain results.
And the volume of cases is overbearing. Cutting through the red tape and conducting trials on benign, non-medication methods should become a priority for the Beltway’s armchair warriors, especially those whose suits have yet to see a crease.
