ipl-logo

Vietnam War Mental Health Essay

1568 Words7 Pages

Mental Health Affects how We Carry Ourselves. Mental health includes our psychological, emotional, and social well-being. Mental health issues can occur at a young age or even older stages of life. Mental illness affects a large portion of veterans in the United States. In fact, millions upon millions of dollars have been funded to improve diagnosis and treatment for veterans who suffer from the most common mental illness on the battlefield PTSD. Additionally, PTSD affects many aspects of one’s life such as having many medical disorders, and an inability to work in personal, social and family life, and is greatly correspond with suicide and homelessness. In addition to the correlation between suicide and homelessness, this is due to the lack of aid with the transition of war lifestyle to civilians lifestyle. Therefore, the goal of this research paper is to survey veterans who have suffered the effects of war in the form of mental disorders such as PTSD, schizophrenia and bipolar disease as well as to gain a better understanding of the quality and effectiveness of services provided. Although The Vietnam War is over. Many are still suffering from the horrific experiences are several veterans who have …show more content…

As a result, many are suffering from PTSD due to traumatic experiences they have witnessed and experienced on the battlefield. During the war, you experienced a lot of stress, anxiety, pain, and hatred. Then you were sent back home with no aid to ease the transition from war life to civilian lifestyle. You are portrayed to the public as a crazed killer with no control of your anger. You find that there's nobody you can talk to or someone that could comprehend what you've been through, not even your family. Causing you to feel extreme loneliness the mind can go only so far to point of breaking. You can go insane with just one bad day. (“The Psychological Effects of the Vietnam

Show More
Related
1158 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell”, John Crawford shows how war can drastically change soldiers by having psychological effects on them and when soldiers come back from war they can feel like they are alone. Some psychological effects are post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, depression,

Read More
1908 Words | 8 Pages

After the Vietnam War, thousands of soldiers experienced confusion, survivor's guilt, post traumatic stress disorder, and various amounts of other psychological conditions. A little over a quarter of a million Vietnam soldiers have been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (Handwerk). This is a staggering number, and is increasing in today's day and age as well. Soldiers who had or still possess post traumatic stress disorder, would be exposed to: depression, angry outbursts, guilt, nightmares, paranoia, and many other similar symptoms (Hillstrom 182). All of these disorders may contribute one to feel guilty or confused, alongside the trauma of war itself.

Read More
2287 Words | 10 Pages

Marchesini describes how Vietnam veterans are different from veterans who served in different wars. She claims that the veterans from Vietnam had it worse than any other veterans. Most of these men were traumatized leading them to have schizophrenia while other veterans adjusted well to their treatments. “Vietnam veterans were unlike the veterans of other conflicts because they had to deal with guilt over war experiences as well as rejection by their parents and society for having fought in an unpopular war ( pg 74).” Vietnam veterans were not welcomed back when they were sent back home.

Read More
1053 Words | 5 Pages

When returning home from Vietnam he says that he was always on edge and paranoid. The war caused him to be on edge every second of every day, because that is what it took to survive in Vietnam. Many veterans experience this when returning home. Thomas R. Jones, like Mike A, experienced a hard time adjusting back to their normal life. Both veterans learned that the war changed drastically.

Read More
560 Words | 3 Pages

In Soldier from the War Returning, Thomas Childers writes that “a curious silence lingers over what for many was the last great battle of the war.” This final battle was the soldier’s return home. After World War II, veterans came back to the United States and struggled with stigmatized mental illnesses as well as financial and social issues. During the war, many soldiers struggled with mental health issues that persisted after they came home.

Read More
935 Words | 4 Pages

(Meyerson). This excerpt helps show how soldiers are rarely the same person they were when they left for war. Two point seven million young men went to war in Vietnam, and few came home as the same person who left. Many veterans after the war had to struggle with an unrelenting mental illness, such as, PTSD. While others

Read More
758 Words | 4 Pages

Vietnam was very damaging for a lot of people and affected a lot of people’s families. Many soldiers who were injured also suffer from PTSD. That makes the want to live even less for those people making them more likely to harm themselves or even kill themselves. Sometimes men in America are the only ones working in the family, or his wife might work only part time because of the kids they may have. For example, losing a leg would disqualify you from having most jobs in America.

Read More
492 Words | 2 Pages

(PTSD) also known as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,is caused be seeing or experiencing a terrifying event. The most common besides PTSD were: depression, anxiety, and alcohol problems. PTSD affected who experienced a traumatic events, including: war, sexual assault, natural disasters, also accidents. PTSD is defined as having flashbacks and upsetting memories, it remains a chronic reality of everyday life. Male veterans who had PTSD in 1987 were twice as likely to have died.

Read More
809 Words | 4 Pages

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in The Things They Carried During the turbulent times of the Vietnam War, thousands of young men entered the warzone and came face-to-face with unimaginable scenes of death, destruction, and turmoil. While some perished in the dense Asian jungles, others returned to American soil and were forced to confront their lingering combat trauma. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provides distinct instances of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and reveals the psychological trauma felt by soldiers in the Vietnam War. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD for short, is the most common mental illness affecting soldiers both on and off the battlefield.

Read More
1389 Words | 6 Pages

Years after the war, and after returning home to a somewhat normal lifestyle, a majority of veterans suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. Post traumatic stress disorder also known as PTSD is a delayed effect of the mind that includes severe cases of anxiety, regularly occurring panic attacks, and severe cases of rage. psychological disorders often led to divorce, drug abuse, and especially suicide. The war in Vietnam had the most cases of suicide amongst veterans than any other war in American history. More cases of psychological disorders resulted from Vietnam rather than World War I and II because unlike the two world wars, Vietnam wasn't a war with straight battle lines of back and fourth fire in which the position of the enemy

Read More
1599 Words | 7 Pages

Socially, it can be hard for veterans to maintain successful personal and professional relationships as not only drug abuse affect this, but diminished problem solving skills and aggression can be an issue in all areas of their lives. All of their relationships with others change in one way or the other. Veterans who had no one to begin with cannot develop anymore relations with people or receive the support system needed to survive after war. All these factors lead to a state of depression that becomes a big challenge overall for veterans. This also plays a large role in the increasing suicide rates for

Read More
1290 Words | 6 Pages

In the recent years, the number of mental health professionals providing for the military has dwindled, there is almost no combat-specific psychologists left, and the wait time to be treated for a mental health issue by the Department of Veterans Affairs has drastically increased. Examining MilitaryOneSource and the Department of Veterans Affairs, two of the most highly regarded military health providers, the lack of mental health services for veterans and active duty members has diminished and has resulted in a multitude of veterans going untreated or even ending their own life instead of receiving the help they

Read More
539 Words | 3 Pages

A constant watch over mental health issues of all military servicemen and women has gone under the radar in the past few years due to a lack of knowing how unrecognizable the problem just might be. The magnitude of this problem is enormous. A recent report finds that the estimates of PTSD range from 4 to 45 percent for those soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan (Cesur, Sabia & Tekin, 2012). Research suggested that other serious medical issues are likely to accompany the PTSD diagnosis, such as cardiovascular disease, and chronic pain (Frayne, et al, 2010). Compiling mental health issues, physical ailments along with family reintegration can prove overwhelming for a returning veteran.

Read More
767 Words | 4 Pages

Besides the psychological symptoms like re-living their experiences of combat, there was the problem of reintegration into society. Soldiers, especially

Read More
1881 Words | 8 Pages

Many soldiers have “recovered from their traumatic experience with the right care” and can

Read More

More about Vietnam War Mental Health Essay

Related Topics

Open Document