Carol Forsloff - “They are our sons, mothers, husbands, and friends. The Veterans' PTSD Project aims to change the national conversation on Post-Traumatic Stress by collecting and publishing Service Members' first-person accounts of hope and victory over PTSD and sharing them with those who need to hear them the most - other Veterans.”
What are some of these stories? One of them is written by A.W. Schade and entitled, “The Demons of War Are Persistent.” Schade was an active Marine from 1965 – 1969. He joined the military at age 18 and experienced heavy combat in Vietnam. From the experience of watching friends and enemies killed, Schade’s struggle with PTSD began. When he returned from combat, the demons of his emotional hurts began in earnest, interfering with his daily life and even his dreams. He tells us the demons remain to this day, but he is finally able to cope with them and share his struggles with other veterans, to help give them glimpses of hope in a future that they may not be able to see at the outset of the PTSD diagnosis. He shares his journey in detail, from those nightmares to the reconciliation of his thoughts and ideas now coalesced into a framework that tells his story and recounts it in ways with a positive message.
Schade’s story is one of many shared on the website. His advice includes these admonitions to fellow veterans: “ • The longer you wait for treatment, the harder it will be to handle the demons. They do not go away and can lay dormant in your soul for decades.
• Understand it is never too late in your life to begin looking forward and achieving new objectives.”
In 1983 Congress mandated a study to determine the rate of PTSD of Vietnam War veterans. It was found that 15% of men and 9% of women had PTSD at the time the study was conducted. The percentage is decidedly greater for a lifetime risk as it was found approximately 30% of men and 27% of women will have PTSD sometime in their lives.
