PTSD:Mini-Viet Nam? I was reading an article about 121 recent war veterans being linked to killings in the United States. This sort of thing was much worse after Viet Nam. The killings, the wife beatings and bludgenings etc. Many of those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Viet Nam are the ones begging for money and food on the streets ever since Viet Nam of major cities across the U.S., especially Los Angeles and San Francisco. Many of them left their families before they injured or killed them or served their time in jail for killing or abusing their family or friends and now live on the streets. That's the legacy of every war: Destroyed men and women.
Though the death and carnage that visits itself on the United States from its latest veterans will be much less than those that came back from Viet Nam there is much less in the form of social services to protect both them from harming themselves or others and to protect society from their unintended harm.
The biggest single cause of this problem other than witnessing carnage and death is when a soldier(male or female) has to kill in the line of duty.
In the general populace there is only a small fraction of people who have actually killed someone intentionally or otherwise. However, once the precedent of killing occurs it is a lot like not being a virgin anymore, the killing is much easier to do than for those who have killed and much harder to stop for someone who has killed.
Many of my friends were in the Viet Nam war and I have learned to always be careful what I do and say when I'm around these friends. If one of your relatives is a recent veteran please understand that they don't want to kill you but I must warn you: Don't piss a veteran off or it might be the last thing you ever do!
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