The 1,000 or 2,000 yard stare was a symptom of battlefield stress and exhaustion. Many soldiers of World War II (the Greatest Generation of military veterans) would fall victim to the stare after numerous days of endless combat. During the war, the 1,000 yard stare was coined to describe the unfocused gaze of a battle weary soldier, who would become unresponsive and stare 1,000 yards off.
The stare is characteristic of Battle Fatigue
Syndrome which is related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The 1,000 yard
stare is a symptom displayed by soldiers, who have succumbed to the shock and
the trauma that allows the mind to distance itself from the experiences that
are too much for the psyche to process, at the time. It is a normal reaction to such abnormal
circumstances. Remember, what a soldier
has lived through is branded on their very souls. It is hard to fathom how they
dealt with, or reacted to, all of the things that they saw, felt, heard, smelt,
touched and tasted not even mentioning what they had to do just to survive. How much could a human being endure?
Today the World War II generation is leaving us at
the rate of a thousand a day. The generation that gave so much to each of us,
and to the world, is quietly receding into the pages of history. Just remember, they did what they did so
others may live….
I
recently read an interesting article by Aaron Glantz
stated how records show how suicide rates of
our greatest generation of military veterans our World War II vets is soaring
and older
veterans twice as likely to take their own lives as those returning from Iraq
and Afghanistan.
In the popular mythology, they’re practically invincible, rarely complaining about the trauma of war.
But an investigation by The Bay Citizen and New America Media shows there’s a massive amount of pain behind that taciturn exterior: In California, World War II-era veterans are killing themselves at a rate that’s nearly four times higher than that of people the same age with no military service.
The suicide rate among these veterans is also roughly double the rate of veterans under 35, those who are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The analysis of official death certificates on file at the California Department of Public Health reveals that 532 California veterans over age 80 committed suicide between 2005 and 2008.
“It’s logical,” said Ken Norwood, 86, a retired architect who was shot down during a bombing raid over Belgium and spent a year as a Nazi prisoner of war.
More than six decades later, Norwood said he’s still troubled by flashbacks. Norwood was tossed out of his B-24 only to wake up in a German field hospital and then be transported across Europe in cattle cars and held alone in an underground cell with only a trench for a toilet.
“Some little incident will trigger a recollection about some event in combat,” he said, “like a DVD playing back in my head. I just let it play until it’s over. I’ve gotten used to it.”
Norwood said he’s never contemplated suicide, but that the flashbacks have worsened over the years, especially since he retired.
“I have fewer activities in daily life now. I don’t have a professional career to pursue or a family to come home to,” he said. “My kids are grown. They have their own lives.”
Age has taken a toll on his short-term memory, but he still has a razor-like recollection of the past.
Kerri Childress, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said the high suicide for World War II veterans today is at least partially an outgrowth of the lack of understanding of post-traumatic stress six decades ago.
“We didn’t even recognize mental health as an issue when they returned,” she said. “Nobody was recognizing it and nobody was talking about it, and it was certainly not something that they could get care for from the VA.”
Instead of counseling, Patrick Arbore, the founding director of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention and Grief Counseling, said most World War II veterans self-medicated with alcohol.
“This was the only way they could contain the trauma,” Arbore said. “They never, never, never talked about it, but they would go to the American Legion religiously and get drunk.”(I always said they lifted weights 6-8 ounces at a time to kill their pain).
At Legion halls, “one would hope that they’d be sharing stories and communicating,” Arbore said, “but if you go there you see these older veterans sitting several seats away from each other, just sitting there drinking.”
Bill Siler, the adjutant of the American Legion in California, refused to comment on the high rate of suicide among veterans over 80. “I don't have any reaction,” he said.
“I was a corpsman in the Marines during Vietnam,” he said. “You get really hard against people who die and you just don't think about that.”
Arbore said the toll of the unprocessed trauma of war was evident in his father and uncle, both of whom served under Gen. George Patton. “My dad and his identical twin brother never talked about the war, but they were very, very aggressive with their wives, my aunt and my children.”
And when old age begins to lead to physical maladies and diminished mental capacity, “that defense that they have held on to for so many years begins to slip away.”
“That’s when suicidal plans can kick into gear,” he said.
Veteran Suicides by Age: Older veterans twice as likely to take their own lives as those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan
Source: California Department of Public Health
Compare Suicide Rate to Battlefield Deaths
We have already watched the greatest generation of veterans suffer; let’s not let the next ones follow the same path. Here are some 2015 current stats By , of The Fact Checker at the Washington post:
Every day in the United States, 22 veterans succumb to suicide — losing their personal battle to invisible wounds of war.”
–Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), news release, Jan. 13, 2015
“When you have 8,000 veterans a year committing suicide, then you have a serious problem.”
–Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), news article, Feb. 2, 2015
“Every day, approximately 22 American veterans commit suicide, totaling over 8,000 veteran suicides each year — I repeat, 8,000 veteran suicides each year.”
–Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Senate hearing, Feb. 3, 2015
Both chambers unanimously passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, sending the bill to the president for his signature. The bill aims to improve mental-health and suicide-prevention services at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is named after a former Marine sniper who committed suicide in March 2011 after struggling to receive mental-health care at the Houston Veterans Affairs medical center.
The statistic that there are 22 veteran suicides each day — or, more than 8,000 when multiplied by the number of days in a year — is a widely cited figure in reference to veteran suicides. It’s been used by Democratic and Republican lawmakers in both chambers, the VA, veteran groups and media outlets (including, in full disclosure, the author of this fact check).
Where does this figure come from, and what does it tell us about suicides among veterans? It is important to remember that suicide is already the tenth leading cause of death among Americans, so the question is whether the rate among veterans is significantly higher.
The Facts:
This statistic comes from the VA’s 2012 Suicide Data Report, which analyzed death certificates from 21 states, from 1999 to 2011. The report calculated a percentage of suicides identified with veterans out of all suicides in death certificates from the 21 states during the project period, which turned out to be 22 percent. (By point of reference, about 13 percent of U.S. adults are veterans, according to a 2012 Gallup poll.) Then the report applied that percentage against the number of suicides in the U.S. in a given year (approximately 38,000). Divided by number of days in a year, the report came up with 22 veteran suicides a day.
#thisflagfliesfree
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