Post-traumatic Sress Syndrome
...over a child, killing her”(Egan). These experiences that haunt veterans after war have been referred to as demons because of the mental anguish they would project. Rick Bragg’s father claimed to see his demon as “a dark angle at the foot of his bed”(Bragg 7) when he was near his death. Substance abuse is a way to ease the pain of the war memories for many sufferers of PTSD: “A lot of men were damaged deep inside by the killing and dying of wars, then tried to heal themselves with a snake oil elixir of sour mash and self-loathing (Bragg XII)”. Many veterans afflicted by PTSD become addicted to alcohol or other drugs to ease the pain. Unfortunately these substances can add to the psychological suffering, though it may relieve it for a short term. Substance abuse often enhances feelings of guilt and anger. Speaking of his father’s alcohol addiction Rick Bragg remarked: “The devils rode his back flogging him. He was free of them sometimes, for weeks, for months, and he lived upright, then, mostly sober. But when they descended shrieking on him the only place to hide was in the bottom of the bottle but instead of freeing him it only fed them (Bragg 63)”. Tortuous flashbacks, with alcohol or other substances to enhance the anger, can act as a catalyst for violent actions. Feelings of unreasoned guilt for having survived and anger toward the government provoke violence for traumatized veterans. In one such case “[a Vietnam veteran] was so enraged at what he perceived as government indifference to his plight that he drove his car through the front door of a Veterans’ Administration hospital” (Egan). Domestic violence is also prevalent; the afflicted are often irritable and take out their anger on their family. Rick Bragg’s father would yell and shout at his family then leave them for months at a time. Another “veteran named Michael Dean took the lives of his three children and his wife, then his own. The whole plan was laid out in six letters containing a reason: “We the veterans, widows and children of veterans are a forgotten group”(O’Connor and Doherty). Over time the psychological toll can become too much for one man to handle. If help is not found through therapy such as “behavioral techniques, administration of sedating drugs, group therapy and individual psychotherapy”(Figley) the results can be tragic. Many veterans become suicidal. One man became so empathetic towards his own life that “he would sleep with a loaded .38-caliber pistol in his mouth, if he would wake up the next morning, he would feel that he deserved to live another day”(Egan). In another instance a Vietnam veteran named Lewis Puller Jr., who had bee...