Quote:
Originally Posted by mikedavid
My father fought on Okinawa. 96th infantry, Dead Eye Division. He never spoke of it until a few years before he died.
|
Mike, my Dad was 9th Infantry, and fought in eight different campaigns in Europe. Over the years I got to know many of my father's friends who survived the European battlefields.
I have come to the conclusion that virtually all of them who saw WW2 combat first hand suffered from what would years later be diagnosed as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
In my experience, PTSD affected them primarily in one of two ways. Either they rarely or never spoke of their war experiences because the memories were too gruesome, or in the case of my father, he seldom spoke of anything else. It was like a pressure relief for him.
One of his closest friends, a mortar sergeant, never attended any reunions, but did send my Dad a Christmas card every year until his death. About 3 years before he passed away, by father and I drove to Kentucky to meet with him one last time...he had just turned 84 years old. At first, he was reluctant, because he said the memories were too hard to endure, but my father's insistence finally prevailed when he told him that he wanted ME to meet him. This guy who was 6 and half feet tall in my imagination because the bravery my father had told me about so many times turned out to be about 5 feet, 7 inches tall, was frail and walked slowly with a cane...
This is the guy who my father told me was awarded multiple valor decorations and multiple purple hearts. He had been in counseling every week since the war's end. He never even learned to drive. He never married. He lived with his sister, and took public transportation even to just go buy groceries. He never left his hometown again. Despite his heroism, the war had decimated him personally. I am grateful that you and I both got to know our fathers personally... They and men like them are, and always will be heroes of untold dimensions.
We are grateful for their unselfish service, what they accomplished and for their great personal sacrifices... but I know we will never be able to fully comprehend their personal losses. God bless them every one.
-John