When I started my nursing career I took care of many WW2 vets. I loved and appreciated every one of them. They are truly a great generation of men. They fought evil and won. They avenged America from a terrible loss and they rescued thousands from persecution and ethnic cleansing. They were labeled, the Greatest Generation and rightly so. They were solid and stoic. They buried their trauma so deep that it rarely surfaced. They walked into the face of evil and they won. The ones lucky enough to come home from war went back to work, raised their families, and built a wall between soldier and civilian life. As they aged healthcare providers like myself began to see that wall crumble. Age and dementia quickly broke a hole in the wall so carefully constructed. For these precious ones we hold their hands and offer comforting words in the night. Their war was never truly over.
As the WW2 and Korean War generation ages and dies I’m faced with a new group of soldiers in the ER age related medical problems. The Vietnam Vets of the 60s and 70s are now frequenting ERs like mine with heart disease, chest pain, COPD, cancer, liver and kidney failure and every other age related malady known to man. They also have emotional scars but this generation was expected to cover it up and move on like their fathers. Some used drugs and alcohol others used food, reckless behavior and other vices. They went for years trying to cover their trauma before there was even a name for what they experienced. A Vietnam vet once in the ER for chest pain told me he still suffered from “that PTSD.” He told me that the VA put him on a couple of pills for it. He said the pills helped him sleep. I told him I could not begin to imagine what he had lived through. He shrugged and told me that he would have done it all again even though no one threw him a parade when he came back home. He seemed embarrassed to talk about why he was on an antidepressant but at the same time he wears his veterans cap proudly. He carried on after his tour in Vietnam to retire from the army. I told him that I believed any service in the name of our country is admirable in my opinion. When he was discharged from my care I thanked him for all he has done and sacrificed. He shook my hand and looked me in the eyes and thanked me for thanking him. He thanked me. I still don’t understand but my heart was warmed with the gesture.
I see another group of veterans in the ER from time to time. These men and women are my peers. I look at their birthdays and am astonished that they are the same age as me because they seem older due to the emotional weight they carry. I see men and women that were in high school the same time I was. Our generation had not seen evil up close. We were sheltered and protected. When our country was attacked my friends along with men and woman our age across the nation were called to action. Some were already enlisted but so many went to recruitment centers just like our grandfathers did in the 40s.
The difference with those eager enlistees from the ones two generations before was that the nations love for them and the war they fought was flippant. We were totally dedicated to the cause one minute but before the mission was accomplished we at home had lost interest. Our passion for eradicating evil was quickly replaced with a passion for reality TV and the latest tech devices. When these men and women returned they weren’t met with ticker tape parades. They were met by a few family members in a lonely airport and expected to go back to life as they knew it before. How could we who have lived every day with every convenience offered in the first world begin to comprehend how these soldiers felt the first time they walked down the cereal aisle at a supermarket again?
The younger vets that I see in emergency situations are the ones that have been crippled by addiction or mental health crisis. They, like the embattled Vietnam Vets before them, were under appreciated and mistreated when they returned from combat. They couldn’t get the career placement or emotional counseling that they needed. Their country had moved on while they were fighting and wasn’t there for them when they returned. I respect and honor these vets just as I do the ones that are healthy. I respect these just as much as I do the ones who came home to a proud family and work environment. The ones who came home alone just as much as I do the ones that came home with their whole unit intact.
When your life is on the line there is no “level” of service. You all count. You all play a vital job. You all keep us safe. You are loved and valued by me. Thank you, Veterans. And God Bless the USA.
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