Anyone can develop PTSD
Aformal surrender ceremony of the Japanese was performed in Tokyo Bay, Japan, aboard the battleship USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945. Two weeks later, my dad turned 19. He didn’t suffer the traumatic and horrendous events that soldiers did in Normandy and other war locations, but as a sailor, he did suffer. Like many others, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Navy before he turned 18.
Dad was getting frail, but we still enjoyed good conversation. About two years before he died in 2014, I visited him at his home. I asked him about a bayonet that I found in his dad’s shed in 1962.
He said that he became the cook on a small ship in the South Pacific after the ship’s cook was killed by enemy shrapnel.
The ship landed on what was supposed to be a deserted island. Dad said he was scouting around when a young Japanese soldier charged at him from a row of bushes. He indicated that he first thought he had stumbled on a movie set, but as the soldier came closer, he knew it was real. The young soldier lunged at him with the bayonet, and he somehow managed to dodge the blade. As the soldier spun by, Dad knocked him off his feet.
He said it wasn’t difficult to quickly snatch the bayonet from the soldier’s hand, but it was surreal and at a snail’s pace when he dispatched him with his own weapon. The more he spoke the quieter he became, and soon I could barely hear a word he said. His eyes swelled with tears, so I joined in.
I don’t know if Dad’s inaugurating senility played into his decision to talk. He said he had suppressed that horrible day through the years because he was horrified when he thought about the face of the dying soldier.
I never knew that he experienced flashbacks, nightmares, and disturbing thoughts related to his experience in WWII. I always thought it was a personality disorder that caused him to periodically retreat into quiet. He became a school principal, a public speaker, and a well-respected leader in the National Guard. After he passed, I learned about the tremendous effort he made in avoiding anything that might remind him of those horrible days. It never occurred to me how much we had in common.
In the last few years, I realized that we had similar issues brought on by totally different circumstances. His developed in a brief time, and mine developed during my career.
Once, it was thought that only people who experienced war could have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but experts have learned that people can also experience it because of disasters, rape, terrorism and more. Today, doctors recognize that there is also a high rate of PTSD among police officers.
For soldiers, law enforcement officers and many others, the past can be difficult to let go. Lots of men and women have suffered horrifying trauma, especially those fighting for our freedom carrying a badge or the red, white and blue. Praises to anyone who sacrificed or performed in any capacity so that priceless memories can be enjoyed.