Quote:
Originally Posted by JiriHrdina
WW2 pretty much destroyed my mother's father. I never met the man as he died before I was born. He went to the war as a stable, happy person and came back a shattered, bitter man incapable of supporting his family, holding a job, or pretty much living a normal live. As many did - he turned to the bottle for comfort and drank himself to death.
I don't think many of us really have any clue of the sacrifice that generation made, both in terms of the number of deaths, and the number of other lives that were broken beyond repair.
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One of the biggest casualties of war happens after it ends and these kids come home after experiencing the greatest horrors possible.
Up until after Vietnam Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn't even recognized.
during the Second World War it was called Battle Fatigue, but it wasn't enough to get you removed from the field, it was enough to get you 24 hours of enforced bed rest then back out to the field. At worst it got you accussed of cowardice and slapped in the face by someone like Patton.
After WWII we took a bunch of 20 years old that had seen every horror, were exhausted, angry, mournfull etc and threw them out on the streets with little to no post war assistance. We did the same after Korea and Vietnam and because of that the casualty counts didn't end when the treaties were signed.