07-29-2009, 02:00 PM
My father served in the Army in the Vietnam era, one of his platoon-mates ended up being up being my science teacher for High School. As a PoW, he had experienced some of the Viet-Cong's most gruesome hospitality and had quite a few nervous ticks, quirks and so on. One day, as a joke, one of my classmates decided to put a surplus Vietnam-era grenade on his desk, with the pin barely in... When said teacher came in, I hear he kind of had a mental flashback/snap and proceeded to dive across the desk, hurl the grenade out the window, dive under his desk with his fingers in his ears and violently kick and bite at anyone who tried to approach. That was in the 90's, far after the close of our involvement there.
After seeing a bit of the military firsthand last year at Basic, I feel nothing but sympathy for the 4th. They were put in hell's mouth and came back pretty scorched. It appears so far that the stigma about seeing a shrink is in full effect as well as the usual military bravado approach to such matters. Given the bill that Congress is passing this week before the August recess (salary to families taking care of severely wounded vets who have had to quit their jobs to take care of them) as well as some other military bills, there might be hope that something specific can be done for them via the Colorado Senators, likely from Mike Udall (D-CO) or Representative Doug Lamborn (R-05).
As for the Vet Affairs dept... There's a lot of waste in that budget. From what I saw in the article and heard though, those soldiers weren't discharged. They were either still on active duty at home, or the period of inactive duty you are in if you serve less than 8 years active. As such, it would be up to Fort Carlson and the staff there to handle these things, if I remember correctly.
~Frag:(
After seeing a bit of the military firsthand last year at Basic, I feel nothing but sympathy for the 4th. They were put in hell's mouth and came back pretty scorched. It appears so far that the stigma about seeing a shrink is in full effect as well as the usual military bravado approach to such matters. Given the bill that Congress is passing this week before the August recess (salary to families taking care of severely wounded vets who have had to quit their jobs to take care of them) as well as some other military bills, there might be hope that something specific can be done for them via the Colorado Senators, likely from Mike Udall (D-CO) or Representative Doug Lamborn (R-05).
As for the Vet Affairs dept... There's a lot of waste in that budget. From what I saw in the article and heard though, those soldiers weren't discharged. They were either still on active duty at home, or the period of inactive duty you are in if you serve less than 8 years active. As such, it would be up to Fort Carlson and the staff there to handle these things, if I remember correctly.
~Frag:(
Hardcore Diablo 1/2/3/4 & Retail/Classic WoW adventurer.