Adjustment

[Deleted]

Three days after leaving Vietnam '68 I was walking down main street USA , this simply was not enough deceleration time , there were many others just like me , we felt like what the hell just happen doesn't anyone know there's a war going on , a month later I was working a demanding job , now this might been good therapy but I don't think so . Then around '72 Vietnam vet s started committing hari kari in large numbers even the VA was forced to take notice , the VA started opening up Vet Centers all over the Country to see what the problem was . I think a large part was putting the Vet back in society too soon , what could have been done , Maybe a few more days to adjust though I don't know how this could have been done .

[Deleted]

This might be the problem with the Afghan vet and his difficulty in adjusting , remains to be seen .

[Sir John]

The US seems to have far more 'tours' than we have, ours are 6 months each.

You?

[jerryfmcompushaft]

You probably have put your finger on, at least a contributing factor. But, when you were being discharged, how would you have accepted "Sorry John, we are going to have to extend your enlistment for another six months because we need to reacclimate you to civilian life"?

[Deleted]

Many of the lads , most you might say had some military time left when they returned to the states so that might have helped , then you had types like me who were dicharged from the service upon arrival , had they sent me home say a couple weeks before discharge and let me run down a bit might have been the ticket , who's to say .

[mcnoch]

It is very similar to what our development aid workers (>1 year in Africa) go thru here. We learned that it is best if they have about a cool-down phase of two months in which they write their final reports, give lectures and help in the training of the new development aid workers. These three strings of activities are done in parallel. It helps them a lot to feel still needed and their experiences and knowledge appreciated.

The adjustment problems are not restricted to that they have to live in our world again with a complete different set of "hot topics" and problems, which seem like a joke to the “hot topics” and problems of their past year. So while writing the final reports they are still in their minds in their old world while beginning to return physically into the normal world here. Over time they re-settle more and more in our world again. One big problem for them is that only few people in our world seem to care much about the world from which they are just returning. People here tend to believe that they know what life in a refugee-camp is like and don’t want more details. Their neighbors or shop-sales-persons are not interested in the experiences made by the development aid workers. So we organize the lectures with interested people where they can share their experiences and tell the people about the wonders and dramas they have seen. And the second – for many most important part of our program – is their time they serve as trainer for the next generation of development aid workers. Those people are not only interested in their experiences they also want to learn as much tricks of life to “survive” there better. If necessary they can stay longer with these training-activities and even return after years to meet people who just returned or will go over there very shortly. This works fine here, but we do this for about 80 development aid workers per year from the Bavarian Red Cross, that is not comparable to what a military would face in numbers and possibilities. In WW2 it might have worked with the soldiers returning home training the new ones en mass, but with the date of return the same date of discharge, I think it must be very difficult to accept that “this is over now” and so nobody is interested in your experiences and skills you learned. That is not the way our brain likes to work.

[Deleted]

I have been to any number of group sessions with fellow vets , I think these do more harm than good as most that attend these groups had traumatic experiences and talking about just brings back bad memories , the Vietnam Vet is saddled with the guilt of losing Americas first war .

[Deleted]

Mar 11, 2013 16:02:35 GMT -5 Sir John said:

The US seems to have far more 'tours' than we have, ours are 6 months each.

You?

Our guys range from 4 months to 13 months and many volunteer to have consecutive tours. Those are the ones that really need help when they get home.