PTSD tears at the psychological state of the people that it affects, but the extent of what the general population knows about PTSD is quite lacking. Soldiers in brutal war zones tend to contract this disorder. The first time that this disorder started to be documented was during the First World War, at the time, it was called Shellshock because it was usually contracted from the consistent and undying nature of artillery bombings which would drive soldiers to the brink of insanity. Little was actually understood about the disorder when it was first documented and many soldiers went back home scarred by the things that they saw on the battlefield. Both Vietnam and World War One are the wars that sent a lot of soldiers back home suffering from PTSD in some degree. Through analyzing journals about PTSD, books, and other forms of media, this essay will go over what actually happens when one is affected by PTSD and the likelihood of contracting the disorder.

According to the journal article, “Comparing PTSD Among Returning War Veterans”, Vietnam veterans were affected a lot more by PTSD than veterans of modern wars. The fact that the wounded-to-killed ratio is that much higher when compared to that of the modern wars says a lot about how these soldiers contracted PTSD in the first place. A lot of these soldiers most likely lost a few buddies during combat and were deeply affected by the loss of them. Not to mention the Vietnam War was an extreme guerrilla war where the Vietcong would set up booby traps for soldiers to walk by or on. Vietnam veterans were also more likely to die than veterans of the modern wars because of the lack of the modern technology that we have today. Losses were also very high in Vietnam because when soldiers needed to get medical evacuations, it could take a very long time for the helicopter to get there, there was the dense jungle canopy, and a lot of the landing zones would become compromised by the Vietcong. Considering the data presented in the article stated above about how PTSD affected the groups of veterans from modern wars, most veterans from Vietnam were male and according to the data supplied by the journal, male veterans are more likely to suffer from PTSD than female veterans, so since this is the case, that means that a lot of Vietnam veterans suffer from PTSD. Most Vietnam veterans probably still suffer from PTSD because when they came back from the war, PTSD still didn’t even have a medical name, which suggests that the steps to care for such a disorder was very lacking.

In a popular book, Unbroken, regular people were able to read and therefore experience the lifestyle of someone that suffers deeply from PTSD. By the end of the book, readers follow Louie’s journey of  living civilian life with PTSD after his horrifying story of survival through one of the bloodiest wars in all of history World War 2. Readers could see how much PTSD affected his social life and how he took up drinking as a way of coping at least for a short time because he couldn’t return to his old life of professional running. After just about losing himself, he found religion and God as a better way of coping with his PTSD and he then dedicated the rest of his life to helping people. He gave up drinking and began giving back to the community that he wasted away in for a time after the war. This is an eye opener for civilians because it is the first time a reader can actually imagine what a veteran that suffer from PTSD goes through because they can actually see the thought process of a victim, in this case it’s Louie who fought in World War 2. 

A reader of Unbroken also experiences something that is typical for veterans who suffer from PTSD and that is picking up alcohol or drugs as a coping mechanism for the horrors that they experienced in their lives in the theater of battle. This fact is further proven in the book “The Things They Carried”,  in the part when they list some of the things that the soldiers carried on them. One of the many things that soldiers carried was drugs and according to the quote “Until he was shot dead, Ted Lavender carried 6 or 7 ounces of premium dope, which for him was a necessity, ”(O’Brien 2) it was essential because it made it all somewhat bearable that the soldiers will probably meet their inevitable death in the war. As civilian readers, one can tell that these accusations are probably true because the author Tim O’Brien was a Vietnam veteran and it is said that a lot of the things that he writes about are related to both his experiences in Vietnam and his PTSD. In the journal article, “Homeless Veterans' Utilization of Medical, Psychiatric, and Substance Abuse Services”, 83% of the veterans in the study were referred from the Homeless Chronically Mentally Ill Veterans Program, this shows that most of the veterans that suffered from PTSD or some other stress-related disorder were not utilizing services that could help them with Medical, Psychiatric, and Substance Abuse.  Most of the veterans in this study also admitted to over a year in their lifetime of either alcoholism or other substance abuse. The statistic given in this article, as well as the high probability of Vietnam veterans returning home with PTSD, which was presented in the article “Comparing PTSD Among Returning War Veterans”, suggest that Tim O’Brien is very likely to have suffered from PTSD and his claims of other soldiers carrying narcotics to help them cope are highly possible.

The journal article  “Homeless Veterans' Utilization of Medical, Psychiatric, and Substance Abuse Services” was also done on 429 male veterans in just the West Los Angeles Area. This suggests that a lot of veterans end up homeless and because of this, it makes finding help to cure or at least cope with their PTSD so much harder than it has to be because researchers can grab an accurate statistic of how many veterans actually need help with PTSD. It is already hard enough to find help for PTSD regularly and adding homelessness to that equation makes it even harder. Another main issue is a lot of these veterans probably do not even believe that they have PTSD because the medical world still doesn’t know absolutely everything about this disorder, which could leave a lot of these veterans questioning if they even do suffer from PTSD.

The main reason why PTSD is culturally important is because it causes veterans, who risk their lives in order to protect the people of their country or cause, to fall as men and suffer major psychological scars for their service to their country or cause without much help from the world that they go back to after their traumatic experiences. Veterans are likely to end up homeless on the street and suffer from addiction or other ailments in order to cope with the things that they saw in war. Civilians are generally unaware of what PTSD actually does to the sufferer, but it must be emphasized that these soldiers/veterans are in a deep hole and they need the help of their communities in order to get out of it. Civilians unintentionally avoid the issue because it is found throughout so many different forms of modern media, but what people think makes a good story, is actually a pressing issue throughout the world and is leaving international servicemen’s mental state in shambles. The books talked about in this essay are only two examples of PTSD stories that any soldier could relate to in some type of way. Unbroken was actually about a real person, while The Things They Carried is an interpretation of what the author was feeling and how traumatized he was after Vietnam. PTSD is a very real issue in modern culture and it needs to be addressed. Through analyzing journals about PTSD and books, this essay can conclude how much PTSD can impact a community and culture because the deteriorated state of veterans around the world.
