All posts by Michael Brewer

Retired Commercial Property Manager and Private Investigator. Disabled Combat Veteran of the U.S Marine Corps/ Vietnam. Raised in Dixon, Illinios and moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1959. Very happily married with 3 children and 3 grandsons. Blessed with treasured friends. LIfe long interests have been broad and exciting. Owned a semi-pro soccer team for 4 years. Freelance journalism has been stimulating. Civically involved with both municipal and veterans fraternal organizations. Moved to Apple Valley, Ca. in July, 2010 to be near children. Our daughter is a therapist in Santa Monica and son a multi-media digital ats maven. My wife loves her loom and us! Past Commandant of Apple Valley Marine Corps League,. Currently their Chaplain and Veteran Service Officer. Member of California Writers Club where we occasionally volunteer at the Federal Prison. An overall content hombre.

26th Anniversary of Nam Jam

 

Anyone remember the “Spirit of 106″? Hard to imagine that 1987 is so close but so far away. Nam Vets used to come out by the thousands. I am just now looking at some pictures from the glory days at Reid Park, where there were just over 15,000 in attendance.  It can be done again.

So head out to Rillito and bring 100o of your closest friends and help keep Nam Jam as one of Tucson’s most significant cultural events.  Attending this event can be your own way of joining in the National Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.

There are times when I think that Nam Jam could be a Southwestern Event. Chapter 106 does have the legal rights to the name. I say, go big!

Jammin’ For Vets Sponsor Packet      Jammin’ For Vets Vendor Form    Jammin’ For Vets Poker Run

Home      Application for Membership    Mission Statement    Contact Us
26th
Anniversary
Presented by

Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc.
Tucson Chapter 106

Contact Jammin’ for Vets Director Steven Kreamer 520-339-3493 or email: kreamersteven@hotmail.com
Donations are accepted or cans of non-perishable food.
All your gifts will be appreciated.
All donations will benefit transitional homeless Veterans shelters,
their families, many Veteran programs and the community.
**Please be advised that all backpacks, handbags, key chains and closed containers will be inspected by the EVENT’S SECURITY FORCE.
There will be no carry-in of alcohol, illicit drugs or weapons of any type permitted at this event.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION

Email for Jammin’ For Vets Information

 

2008 NamJam Thank You!          2007 NamJam Thank You!          2006 NamJam Thank You!

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Application for Membership      Mission Statement      Contact Us

Adjustment Disorder New Diagnosis From DoD

Be assured this one will be the buzz in cyberspace. With closer examination I am sure the critics will view this as a two edged sword, as it will also be used to deny benefits. As an infant, if you jumped out of your crib you therefore have a pre-existing condition! Have  it readers.

 

 

The Pentagon has changed its physical disability policy to include chronic adjustment disorder as a condition potentially eligible for disability compensation.

The Defense Department amended DoD Instruction 1332.38 in April to name chronic adjustment disorder as incompatible with military service, but possibly service-related and therefore eligible for disability compensation.

The change is notable because thousands of service members have been discharged for adjustment disorder, which had been previously characterized as a condition present before troops joined the military, and therefore ineligible for compensation or mental health treatment.

A Defense Department spokeswoman said the change was made to bring the policy in line with the Veterans Affairs Department’s schedule of rating of disabilities.

Critics have charged that the military services used the diagnosis of adjustment disorder in lieu of post-traumatic stress disorder to avoid paying benefits to troops who could no longer serve.

In 2006, 1,453 troops were discharged for adjustment disorder from the services. That figure rose to 3,844 in 2009. In the Army alone, 6,492 soldiers were discharged for adjustment disorders between 2008 and 2010, according to figures obtained by the Vietnam Veterans of America and Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic.

Lawmakers have pressed the Defense Department to examine the more than 31,000 discharges since 2001 for adjustment disorders and personality disorders, another group of mental health conditions considered to presage military service.

Efforts have been made to review at least some of the cases. Last June, then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the review of thousands of military mental health discharges for those whose diagnoses were changed to a non-compensable condition like adjustment or personality disorders during a medical evaluation board.

In August, the Pentagon’s top doctor issued a memo stipulating that an adjustment disorder diagnosis should not be given if a more specific disorder, like PTSD or personality disorder, also could explain the symptoms.

Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said separation for adjustment disorder for those who have deployed to a combat zone requires additional screening.

The diagnosis “requires an evaluation for PTSD, must be corroborated by a peer or higher level mental health professional and endorsed by the surgeon general of the military department concerned,” Woodson wrote.

In March, Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., introduced a bill that would have required the Pentagon to review all of the discharges for personality or adjustment disorders since Sept. 11, 2001. That legislation has not moved, but the fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill calls for the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the use of personality and adjustment disorder discharges by the services since Jan. 1, 2007.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the Wounded Warrior Project have pressed Congress to pressure the Pentagon to review the thousands of discharges of personnel for personality or adjustment disorders.

Women’s groups like Equality Now and the Service Women’s Action Network also have charged that the two diagnoses are being misused to discharge sexual assault victims.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Army Lt. Col. Catherine Wilkinson, did not disclose how many troops have been or would be affected by the change.

She added that the military services initially thought there would be “thousands of cases.” But a DoD review of the criteria necessary to determine a diagnosis of chronic adjustment disorder showed the standards the services used to for their estimates were only a small part of the overall requirements needed to determine a legitimate diagnosis, Wilkinson said.■

Compliments of Catholic War Veterans.

Vietnam Veteran Art Exhibition

This Saturday from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at the Arizona Military Museum at 5600 East McDowell (Papago Park Military Reservation)—Vietnam Veteran Art Exhibition.  Art related to Vietnam and the war presented by artists who are veterans of the Vietnam War.  It is special; it is unusual; and there are some really interesting and well-done works of art.  Free admission.  Free beverages and “eats”—and fine art for one to consider.  Buy some art and 70% goes to the artists and 30% goes to the museum.  The artists will be present. Even if you don’t want to buy art—come and see it.  Try it—you’ll like it!

 

Can 100% Disabled Veteran Work?

As a result of the number of 100% Permanent and Total ratings there are occuring,I am frequently asked about an earnings cap. Here is the simple answer.

Can I Work?

 

Veterans who are in receipt of Individual Unemployability benefits may work as long as it is not considered substantially gainful employment.  The employment must be considered marginal employment.

  • Substantially gainful employment is defined as employment at which non-disabled individuals earn their livelihood with earnings comparable to the particular occupation in the community where the veteran resides.

 

  • Marginal employment is generally deemed to exist when a veteran’s earned income does not exceed the amount established by the U.S. Census Bureau as the poverty level for the veteran only.  For more information on the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds, see http://www.census.gov/hhe…ut/overview/measure.html

Speech of General Le Minh Dao- South Vietnamese General- At 50th Anniversary of Vietnam War

It is rare opportunity to be able to congregate with the very people for whom we fought in Vietnam.  The ARVN soldier was of many ilks. General Dao was a Ranger and one of the most dedicated of all soldiers. The Rangers and the Vietnamese Marines were well trained and could be trusted to complete their missions. They are also the ones who continued fighting the Communists forces after we pulled out. We promised them supplies and bullets in 1973-73. Yet the new Congress in 1974 cut off all aid of any kind, resulting in an onslaught of boat people, many of whom reside in Tucson to this day. General Dao was in  a re-education camp for 17 years.

Catholic warriors that we are, the swapping of rosaries was a bit tearful.  Now we swap oil exploration technology of the South China sea.

I always knew that war was not for rice! It is no wonder China, Russia, France and yes Japan are all showing interest in Vietnam’s oil. So it is not over yet.

 

 

 

 

REMEMBRANCE ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR
By: ARVN Major General Le Minh Dao (Ret.)
General Anthony Zinni,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
First and foremost, I would like to thank the Organizing Committee for this event for giving me the opportunity to return to this great state of ARIZONA, and most importantly for allowing me to meet the Veterans of the Viet Nam War and my fellow Vietnamese soldiers of the ARVN: I always respect and appreciate all of you.
The great President Ronald Reagan, who forced the Soviet Unions to abandon the arms race, brought down the Berlin Wall and ended the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefields, had this to say about the Viet Nam War:
“The Viet Nam War was not so much a war as it was one long battle in an ongoing war, the war in defense of the freedom which is still under assault. This battle was lost not by those brave American and South Vietnamese troops who were waging it, but by political misjudgments and strategic failures at the highest levels of Government”.
I value and agree wholeheartedly with Col. (ret.) Joseph E. Abodeely on his remark on Vietnam:
“Viet Nam veterans were treated like war criminals and made “scapegoats” when they returned home after risking life and limb and psyche for their country. The media and Congress contributed greatly to this, but they have never admitted their guilt and have never treated the Vietnam veterans as the heroes they really were. Instead, they made “heroes” out of the victims of the war such as draft dodgers and anti-war protestors”…
2
During my 22 years serving in the ARMY, I had many opportunities to fight alongside the American troops, in the 3rd and 4th Tactical Zones, and I had witnessed the bravery of the American Troops. They fought like lions and they died like medieval warriors. At their return to the rear base, to continue with their civic duties in the pacification tasks, in various Rural Development Programs, the American troops had accomplished above and beyond the regular soldier’s mission. The American Troops were the ambassadors of Peace, of Love and of Humanity. They had won the heart and mind of the People. The People of South Viet Nam are forever grateful to the American soldiers, who embody the Values of a True American.
I would like to mention a very important point that we want to remember: The American Soldier had won all the battles in the Viet Nam War!
During the Anti-War period happening under Nixon’s presidency, the media had poisoned public opinion with these defeating slogans of “Bring Our Troops Home”
When the U.S. soldiers came home from the War they were treated unfairly: they were insulted, ignored, and they never had a welcome home parade!
But the Veterans of the Viet Nam War had suffered through all this with great DIGNITY.
For the Vietnam Veterans, some had continued their military careers, becoming Leaders in their fields, some had risen to be valued Officers, Generals! Some had retired from their military careers, and started new careers in Politics, becoming Leaders in the Administrative, Legislative and Judicial branches. The American Viet Nam Veterans are contributing to this country tremendously.
We shouldn’t forget the Veterans of the Viet Nam War who were traumatized by their experience in that far away land: they couldn’t adjust to this “new country” that had sent them there by the draft system, and had rejected them after they accomplished their duties…
3
These Veterans had faded from the News. They suffered in silence, losing their spouses, their families, their childhood friends that they had left to go to war. They became homeless or just were forgotten! NOW is the time to recognize the True Value of the Veterans of the Viet Nam. It’s better late than never to request the American people to show their appreciation of the sacrifice of the Vietnam Veterans.
They are our true Heroes!
About the Soldiers of the Republic of Viet Nam
The majority of them are farmers, honest laborers in an underdeveloped country. Even though these soldiers are poor in material things, they are rich in their LOVE of the Motherland. They fought against the Communist aggressors from the day the Communist Movement had taken hold of North Viet Nam in 1945 until the whole country was invaded by the Communists in 1975.
Until the American and Allied troops came to Viet Nam they had fought side by side with the ARVN.
The ARVN usually went to battles with a half full stomach. Their sacrifices were enormous: around 270,000 soldiers were killed; more than 700,000 were wounded, in a country with 21 million people during that period.
Just as the American soldiers, the Vietnamese soldiers didn’t lose any battle.
When the Paris Accord was signed in 1973, very swiftly, to allow the American troops to withdraw from Viet Nam and to bring the P.O.W.’s home, the Communists from the North had still remained in the South. Then the U.S. Congress had voted to end any kind of AID to Vietnam, they had signed the DEATH Penalty to Viet Nam.
4
The Vietnamese Soldiers had continued to fight to the very end, up to April 30, 1975. With the collapse of South Viet Nam, the whole country fell in complete darkness.
The ARVN were punished severely in the so-called Reeducation Camps.
President Ronal Reagan remarked:
“…Ending a conflict is not so simple, not just calling it off and coming home, because the price for that kind of Peace could be a thousand years of darkness for generation’s Viet Nam born”
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I came to the U.S.A. to re-unify with my family on April 1993, after suffering for 17 years of extreme revenge in the hands of Communists from North Viet Nam!
At Dulles Airport, VA, a female news anchor asked me about my impression when coming to America. I answered right away “I just escaped from Hell on Earth and reached Heaven on Earth”
Three weeks after that, I went to visit the Viet Nam War Memorial at Washington, D.C. I strolled around the Black Wall for many hours, the Wall that commemorated over 58,000 Fallen Heroes of USA. I remembered their bravery during their fights for my beloved country. I remembered these P.O.W.’s and M.I.A’s still in Viet Nam, without a chance to come home…
I stood in front of Col Jack Taylor Demsey who was killed in 1967, and Captain Lyell Francis King, killed in 1966. They were my comrades-in-arms at the 4th Tactical Zone and I whispered:
” I will never forget you, my friends. Viet Nam will always remember and admire you”. Saying those words, tears streamed down my face.
Peace be with you all. God bless our great nation, the United States of America.

RSVP Form For Dinner In Honor of Arizona Vietnam Veterans

In Honor of Arizona Vietnam Veterans
I (we) will attend the event In Honor of Arizona Vietnam Veterans on October 5, 2013 at
Scottsdale Plaza Resort, 7200 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, AZ 85253. The tables are
rounds of ten people each. List the names of all ten people at your table; otherwise, you
will be seated space available. If you desire to be seated with someone in particular, please
register together on the same RSVP. Business attire/casual or Army Class A or service
equivalent is appropriate for the dinner. Registration and no-host bar are at 5:30 to
6:30pm when the program begins.
Please legibly print names, addresses, and contact phone numbers of attendees. No tickets
will be issued. Attendees will be checked off a list when they attend the event. For
questions, call Joe at 520-868-6777. Enclosed is (are) check(s) for the following listed
attendees:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Event is $45.00 per attendee. Enclosed is my payment in the amount of $___________
for members in my group.
Make Check payable to: Arizona Military Museum.
Mail check to:
Arizona Vietnam Veterans’ Dinner
Joseph E. Abodeely, Director, AZ Military Museum
9014 North Wealth Road
Maricopa, Arizona 85139

Dinner To Honor Arizona Vietnam Veterans

Today is Labor Day, and I hope you all had a great weekend.  Now we’re heading into the fall events and holidays and of course the Dinner in Honor of Arizona Vietnam Veterans on October 5 at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort.  It is only $45.00 for a double entre at a top notch hotel, and this year General Anthony Zinni will be our guest speaker.  We will also be honored to have Major General Le who was the South Vietnamese commander at the battle of Xuan Loc, one of the last major engagements in Vietnam.  We will honor our Arizona Vietnam veterans AND the Vietnamese service members who fought for their country against Communist aggression.  For those of you who already sent in your RSVP with a check or are otherwise committed, thank you; but many who I know plan to attend have not sent back the RSVP and check, yet.  Some tables were bought and I still need the names of those sitting at those tables ASAP as the event is a month away. I have to give the head count around the end of the month. If you have told your friends about the event, make sure they have THIS year’s invitation AND the RSVP so I can record the names of the attendees. Attached are the docs for the event and info relating to the Vietnam War. If you have any questions, call me at 520-868-6777.

Joe

We have a table of ten of which 7 seats are taken. If you elect to attend and want to join us, just put Mic Brewer on your RSVP.

War Poetry Never Loses Currency Part 1

T.S Eliot once asked, “how much reality can humankind handle?”  One may now ask how much war can humankind handle? Maybe more than we expected, particularly if the reality of it remains abstract and blanketed in ideology. Poetry removes that blanket, and exposes us to the cold of war. The chill is all yours and the blanket can be draped back at anytime..yet the shivers remain.

The following poem is referencing a use of chemical weapons on a fellow soldier in World War 1, the ‘war to end all wars.”Somewhat bizarre that 100 years later the topic is back on the table in Syria and in the souls of the elected officials and military leaders of America. Their decision tree tonight and the days to come, may well define the balance and equanimity of this nation for decades to come.

With social media now permeating all our waking hours, the citizenry often mimics little Pentagon’s. The commentary is ubiquitous and the ME-dia, (funny how that could almost be Latin..”through ME”), give their obsequious, obsessive need for ratings and dollars over to any one with a confabulated resume who will speak the same message for 24 /7 cable news. Few have ever been to war. Never have there been so few of our members of Congress and the Senate that  have ever served in the Armed Forces. Fewer of our citizens have ever served than the last 100 years.

So how will we ever grasp the meaning of war..just or otherwise, if not through the eyes of “old eyes and grey souls,” of  the soldiers who have bled and served in harms way.

The  phrase, “old eyes, gray souls,” is the title of a book of poetry by former Army Platoon Officer  in Vietnam: Bill Black. A few more  of his poems will follow.

The next selection is the poetry of a former Marine mortarman  Pete Bourret, who served with the 7th Marines in Vietnam in 1967-68

There will be more poems to follow, in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, to be held in Scottsdale,(named after General Winfield Scott) on October 5th at Scottsdale Hotel Resort.

“DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)”

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 – March, 1918

“Old Eyes, Grey Souls” by  former Army Lt.Bill Black

The old man was sad as he walked away/ He should not have seen what he saw today/ He hoped this group would escape it some way/ He knew it well from days gone by/ He knew the anguish would not die.

The young guys were still sitting where/ no talking just drinking he could swear/ They each remembered some personal,”there.”/ They were easy to tell from the other guys/ They were the young guys with old eyes.

His own,”there” had been along a riverside/ In an area so low it had a high tide/That had colored rust brown from the blood/ From the bodies from friends that had stood/ As part of a team,his buddies on each side.

Their lives and times were shaped in a way/ That if they mentioned the place few could say/ That they had heard or knew of the place/ Or what the group went through/ A look, a word, a face/ Or a scene was it took for the memory to race.

So they sat with a stare, so far away while memories replay/Places and days they wish would go away/ The eyes mirror a soul locked on a scene from that day/ Tears that they could not cry were frozen behind old eyes/ Chilled from the depths of the souls already grey.

The old man sighed as he remembered other guys/Who looked this way as their nightmares flowed into the day/Long lost, dead but never escaping the way/ The eyes showed their souls/ So young in years but already grey.

“Existential Angst ” by former Marine mortarman  Pete Bourret

Stars everywhere/ Cricket chatter/ Cold beads of sweat/ meet my hand/ as it roams the geography of my face/ The thought is back/ Someone in the darkness wants to kill me.

“The Secret Law of Physics” by Pete Bourret

Mortar round exploding….shrapnel racing…tirelessly..aimlessly..endlessly…through dozens of  Decembers/ Until the grunt’s child feels the burning metal shards of yesterdays war/ made unfairly present by daddy’ s sentence in his prison of pain.

Shrapnel has no ears/ to hear a child’s whimpering under the covers.

Shrapnel has no eyes/ to see the vacant stare of a childhood stolen.

Shrapnel has no lips to count the thousand smiles that never were.

Shrapnel only has perpetual velocity/ And too much time on its hands.

This one is not a poem but very poetically written and startling when you look at the author and the time in history it was penned.

About Face..

by Smedley D. Butler, Major General, United States Marine Corps, 1936 Two time recipient of the Congressional Medal Honor

“Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken from the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to ‘about face’ , to regard murder as the order of the day.They were put shoulder to shoulder, and through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years, and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed. Then suddenly we discharged them and told them to make another, “about face.” This time they had to do their own readjusting without mass psychology, without officers aid and advice, without nation-wide propaganda. We didn’t need them any more. So we scattered them about without any speeches or parades. Many too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make the final, “about face, alone. 

General Butler is referring to the men of World War 1! Now knowing what we do about head injuries, many of these men had been permanently clocked, in the trenches of  France, from artillery fire. And we just thought grampa was a little, “touched.” How sad, we never really knew. And now the signature wound of the War on Terror is traumatic brain injury. And it is permanent. Sort of like a collective slow drip form of torture.

Again, not really a war poem, but one that always fit the bill for me and my battle buddies.

“Oh many a peer of England brews/ livelier liquor than the Muse/ And Malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s way to man/ Ale man, ale the stuff to drink/ For fellows whom it hurts to think/ Look into the pewter pot/ Too see the world as the world’s not/ And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past; the mischief is that it will not last.”

“The dogs bark the caravan passes.” Carry on!

Mental Health Summit

I post material like this from others, with their permission, so as to avoid the problem with toxic links. I am not skilled enough to know how to avoid them. So enjoy the read, say what you like, and see you in the comment lounge!

 

 

Want to join the discussion on the Intergalactic web cast sponsored by the Energy Medicine Consortium for the Greater Good?

This Alternative Medicine Model has been in effect in the United States since 1935 and has been effective with a variety of mind-heart (brain-body) whole system healing.
Facilitator:  JC Himself

Research and Development Team:
Albert Einstein, “The Relativity of the Relatives as they Relate in Relationship.”
Carl Jung
Carl Jung,  Bill Wilson and Bob Smith, M.D. aline with Infinite Wisdom and envisioned a different way of approaching an old human health dilemma.  In 1951 AA  received the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation Award, administered by the American Public Health Association, for exceptional achievement in the field of medical research and public health administration. William Griffith Wilson, “Bill W.” was a World War I vet.

Bay Pines V.A. Medical Center
Post-Traumatic Spiritual Alienation
AND Recovery in Combat Veterans

1984-1985 :Dr. Joel O. Brende, M.D., Psychiatry
AND Elmer McDonald, M.Div., Chief of Chaplain Service
Bay Pines V.A. Medical Center, Bay Pines, Florida.

At the Bay Pines V.A. Medical Center, we have recognized the moral and spiritual needs of combat veterans. Working in collaboration as psychiatrist and chaplain, we first introduced a moral issues group into the ninety-day hospital treatment program for PTSD patients in early 1985.

There veterans could discuss their guilt feelings, loss of conscience, hopelessness about finding peace of mind and alienation from God, although ten percent of the patients initially resisted participation out of fear that “God would be pushed on them.” Eventually we developed a structured approach to integrate psychological and spiritual topics by using twelve themes and spiritual steps which were presented to interested combat veterans over an eight-week period.

The steps were patterned in a small way after (AA) Twelve Step Program.  Additional themes and steps were devised specific for combat veterans.

One day it will be realized that men are distinguishable from one another as much by the forms their memories take as by their characters.  Soldiers deeply wounded in spirit by the violence and evil of the war are able, through moral and spiritual reintegration, to recover meaning and value in life.   Bay Pines,  Research and Development
Trauma, Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Recovery

Steps AND Themes

1. Power vs. Victimization: We admit we are powerless
AND our lives have become unmanageable.

2. Seeking Meaning in Survival: We come to believe that a Power
Greater Than Ourselves  can restore us to sanity

3. Trust: We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the
care of Our Higher Power, as we understand Our Higher Power.

4. Self Inventory: We make a searching AND fearless inventory
of ourselves.

5. Anger: We admit to Our Higher Power, to ourselves,
AND to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

6. Fear: We are entirely ready to have Our Higher Power
remove our shortcomings.

7. Guilt: We humbly ask Our Higher Power to remove our defects
of character.

8. Grief: We make a list of all persons we have harmed
AND become willing to make amends to them all.

9. Suicide vs. Life: We make direct amends to such people whenever
possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Revenge vs. Forgiveness: We continue to take personal inventory
AND when we are wrong promptly admit it.

11. Finding a Purpose: We seek  through prayer AND meditation to
improve our conscious contact with  Our Higher Power, as we
understand Our Higher Power praying only for knowledge of Our
Higher Power’s will for us AND the power to carry it out.

12. Love AND Relationships:     Having had a Spiritual Awakening  as
result of these steps, we continue to carry this message to those
who still suffer   AND to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Research AND Development

There veterans could discuss their guilt feelings, loss of conscience, hopelessness about finding peace of mind and alienation from God, although ten percent of the patients initially resisted participation out of fear that “God would be pushed on them.” Eventually we developed a structured approach to integrate psychological and spiritual topics by using twelve themes and spiritual steps which were presented to interested combat veterans over an eight-week period.

The steps were patterned in a small way after the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Twelve Step Program,(17) integrating some of the following AA principles:
1) Recovery — an on-going process rather than a cure.
2) Education — how to live a meaningful life.
3) Inter-dependency of group members.
4) Dependency on God or a “Higher Power” —
to be interpreted in a personal way.

Additional themes and steps were devised specific for combat veterans which included the following principles:
1) Education pertaining to controlling target PTSD symptoms and self-
destructive, destructive, and revengeful behaviors unique to the survivors of war.
2) Discussion and sharing of traumatic emotions and memories.

One day it will be realized that men are distinguishable from one another as much by the forms their memories take as by their characters.(1)   Soldiers deeply wounded in spirit by the violence and evil of the war are able, through moral and spiritual reintegration, to recover meaning and value in life.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the problems of Vietnam veterans were too often ignored, misdiagnosed, and mistreated. Only a handful of mental health professionals became interested. Psychiatrists Robert Lifton and Chaim Shatan were among those few.

They and their colleagues established ‘rap groups’ for Vietnam Veterans against the War. Lifton’s account of these groups revealed the moral dilemma these men experienced as they found themselves suffering identity ‘splits’ — ‘both victims and executioners’ — caused by a war they came to believe was immoral.(2)  During the war, most Americans either remained detached from or protested the
‘Vietnam conflict.’ When American Soldiers came home from their one-year tour of duty, civilians greeted them with disinterest or disdain, an indication of how the war stirred up conflicting emotions and ethics.

Moral considerations may also have contributed to the slow response of the federal government to Vietnam veterans’ emotional and spiritual needs. For it wasn’t until 1979 that Congress officially mandated the Veterans Administration to provide special mental health services for these veterans. It wasn’t until 1980 that Vietnam veterans’ symptoms were given a name — “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD).(3)

And not until the early 1980s did V.A. hospitals begin to provide special hospital treatment programs for Vietnam veterans.  But even with the presence of special treatment programs, most mental health professionals have neglected to recognize and help Vietnam veterans with spiritual alienation and moral conflict. Although one of us (Joel Brende) had recognized in the early 1980s that these men suffered from identity ‘splits’ and personality disorders as a result of their war experiences,(4) no connection was made to moral conflicts.

Mental health professionals have given morality a place of little importance as a factor in the production of psychological symptoms. But unresolved moral and spiritual problems cannot be overlooked when an estimated 800,000 Vietnam veterans continue to suffer from guilt-ridden memories and festering emotional wounds that have never healed.(5)

Unresolved moral and spiritual problems must be taken into account when these veterans suffer from an unprecedented degree of destructive and self-destructive behaviors. Approximately 400,000 veterans were arrested or convicted of crimes by 1978,(6) and between 12,000 and 14,000 are estimated to be victims of suicide and self-destructive behavior yearly.

In 1984-86, while working as psychiatrist and chaplain in one of the designated treatment programs for Vietnam veterans in Bay Pines, Florida, V.A. Medical Center, we became very interested in the relationship of chronic post-traumatic symptoms to their unresolved moral problems. We became convinced that chronic symptoms were perpetuated by unresolved moral conflicts, guilt-ridden memories, and spiritual alienation.

Combat Veterans Identity Changes and Guilt

Little has been written about relationships of Vietnam veterans’ identity changes to their deep-seated sense of guilt and shame. Most will openly describe righteous indignation at having been victimized, denying that there is anything to feel ashamed of. Instead, they angrily cite the factors which contribute to their problems — inadequate treatment, loss of jobs, marriage breakups, a rejecting society, deaths of close friends, unstable environment, etc.

Clearly, these men have many losses to grieve but cannot.(7) If they break down and cry, it is only with tears associated with guilt and anger. Consequently, these combat veterans remain alienated when they appear to be normal because just under the surface are the unintegrated personality fragments that cannot grieve, cannot feel fear, and cannot express anger without something self-destructive happening.

Are they ashamed? Yes, they are. Those who seek help will eventually acknowledge their shame about many things: mainly losing the war, being rejected by society and family, and not being able to control their own lives. However, a close look at the origin of their guilt reveals a number of other factors.

We asked sixty-eight combat veterans to complete a questionnaire and rank seventy-eight different disturbing experiences on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the most severely disturbing). The six most disturbing (and presumably most guilt-ridden) experiences were the following: accidentally killing other Americans, seeing close friends killed, seeing Americans killed, placing American bodies in body bags, seeing atrocities committed against Americans, and holding a friend as he was dying.

The most significant sources of guilt among these veterans were killing and death. Consequently, we have listed the following eight general categories of combat-related guilt, keeping killing human life at the top of the list:

First, there is the guilt about having taken human life.
As William Mahedy has observed, taking human life carries with it so much moral weight… [and] combat induced psychological stress involves a strain on the conscience… present in many cases even when a person has performed no acts for which he feels personally guilty. Just as psychological stress has continued for years after the war, so has the residue of moral strain. It is still another source of desolation of the spirit.(8)

Second, veterans suffer significantly from the guilt of having lost prior moral values, permitting them freely to kill and commit atrocities. Many of these combat veterans had believed in God and the Ten Commandments during pre-war adolescence.   A survey of thirty Vietnam veterans at the Bay Pines V.A. Medical Center revealed that seventy-five percent came from a religious background, but combat experiences and the deaths of close friends often caused them to lose faith that God had any power to help. Mahedy comments, “[The] sense of an intimate tenderness is exactly what one loses in a combat zone or in the other wastelands of the world” (p. 206).

Third, when soldiers lost their moral values during combat, they generally developed a combat identity in the form of a ‘killer self’ which later caused them considerable guilt during civilian life. Young soldiers, potentially overwhelmed with fear, grief, and guilt, controlled their vulnerability by hardening themselves to the loss of friends killed by enemy fire and became conscience-less, taking God-like powers of life and death into their own hands. One veteran who recalled this feeling said, “I loved the ‘adrenalin rush’ of killing. The best high I had in Vietnam was the thrill of the kill. I ‘got off’ on the feeling of having power over life and death. My God was an M-16.”

Fourth, the enormity of unresolved guilt about past and present violent acts and wishes is a source of self-destructive symptoms about which they also feel guilty. Ninety percent of the Vietnam veterans surveyed believed they survived combat in order to be made to suffer, and forty-eight percent believed that suffering was a punishment for things they had done in Vietnam.

Fifth, the guilt of veterans is perpetuated by their inability to control violent thoughts and urges. A survey of thirty of the Vietnam veterans receiving hospital treatment for PTSD at Bay Pines V.A. Medical Center showed that many have persistent violent thoughts and behaviors: seventy percent had made one or more suicide attempts, ninety-eight percent had homicidal fantasies when angry, sixty percent had homicidal fantasies daily, seventy-three percent have been arrested for criminal behavior.

Sixth, soldiers in combat often permitted themselves to be instruments of evil forces, either knowingly or unknowingly.   Many have recalled making spoken or unspoken pacts with the devil to bolster feelings of omnipotence over death, and later felt guilty. As one veteran related, “I laid out in a field with twelve bullet holes in me for four hours and I have the feeling that I made a pledge to some spiritual power that I would do anything if he kept me alive. Ever since then, I have had a feeling of dread that I ‘sold out’ to the devil.”

Seventh, combat veterans often suffer the additional guilt of turning themselves against God and becoming spiritually hardened. One army soldier — a ‘born-again’ Baptist church member before military service — related, “Our whole unit was sent into a battle after receiving last rites because they didn’t expect us to come back alive. It was then that the God I had believed in no longer seemed real to me. When I came back from Vietnam, I cursed God and anyone that said they believed in him.”

Many, like this veteran, became spiritually and emotionally numb when the myth of a joint supremacy of God and America died in Vietnam. As Mahedy observes, they became victims of an unprecedented and totally unexpected deadening of the soul.   The spirit went numb. The reservoir of moral resources went dry. The ‘juice and joy’ feeling that Americans believe to be the essence of religion and spirituality was no longer possible for large numbers of Vietnam veterans.

A terrible bleakness had overwhelmed the soul. Moreover, Vietnam combat sowed seeds of doubt about the foundations of faith. Not only the American religious experience but authentic biblical faith was called into serious question. Where indeed was God in Vietnam? Why did God do nothing about the slaughter? Is religious faith possible after Vietnam? Can life ever have meaning again? (p. 32).

Finally, many felt the guilt of being part of a morally corrupt system. It was not only individual soldiers who lost their sense of morality, but a similar loss occurred at every level of society and authority in Vietnam: The most serious corruption went through all strata of authority — right to the top. The ‘war of attrition’ strategy required that everyone play the numbers game.

Body counts became a necessity. The troops in the field knew that enemy body counts were inflated, and they also suspected that American casualty reports were not accurate. They also knew from terrible experience that some aggressive commanders were willing to get their career tickets punched by leading troops into the right kind of combat action, even if this entailed a needless expenditure of their own men’s lives. The troops new also that individuals and corporations back in the world were making big money on the war. Body counts, the military careers of their leaders, and big bucks for the folks back home — this was what the war was all about (pp. 26-27).

Those who felt morally outraged when their leaders attempted to justify this war believed, like William Mahedy, a chaplain in Vietnam, that it could not be justified. As a young American soldier put it, “Chaplain,.. it’s all bullshit …. Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity” (p. 29).

Attempts at Resolving Spiritual Alientation and Guilt

What happened to many of these men when they returned to a civilian society? Emotionally and morally outraged, they became victims of a multitude of physical and emotional symptoms alcoholism, drug addiction, anti-social behavior (many became hired killers), and suicide.

Nearly a half-million Vietnam veterans have been arrested one or more times, are on probation, awaiting court appearances, serving sentences, or on parole. Many described their loss of human sensitivity and emotional and spiritual responsiveness by saying, “I lost my soul in Vietnam.” Rather than feeling guilt and grief, it was easier to express rage towards God, country, military leaders, friends, society, and the V.A. system.

A number of Vietnam veterans first sought relief from their spiritual alienation and guilt by seeking out ministers, priests, or rabbis shortly after returning to this country. Commonly, however, they found little relief, which only intensified their feelings of abandonment and betrayal by Church and God, about whom they said “Where was God when we needed him? He abandoned our friends, he abandoned us, and we have no use for him any more.”

Reports of spiritual transformations have been uncommon in guilt-ridden combat veterans. This may be because of at least two factors. First, the complex guilt of combat veterans requires interventions at several levels — psychological, emotional, and spiritual. Second, there are few personnel who are well-prepared to make those interventions, both individually and in collaboration.

Theories and Therapists

Who is best qualified to make these interventions? Many clergy are skilled in psychological concepts and counseling techniques learned in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Programs.(9) Nonetheless, they were first trained to make spiritual interventions and provide spiritual counseling, a fact often ignored in the treatment of guilt-related emotional disturbances.

Perhaps Vietnam veterans’ complex problems might best be helped when members of the clergy work in collaboration with psychotherapists. Of course that would require that psychiatric personnel recognize the important role of clergy in the recovery process. Similarly, the former president of the American Psychiatric Association, Alan Stone, has suggested that psychiatrists consider matters of morality as they treat their patients:

Psychiatry does not stand outside history or morality …. Psychiatrists are taught to avoid value judgments in their dealing with s patients, but I do not believe I make a radical claim when I assert that history and morality are a presence in the therapist’s office …. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who makes the contrary claim that history, morality, and human values are all irrelevant to psychiatry ….(10)

Founded on psychoanalytic principles, traditional psychotherapy has been limited in its effectiveness because it lacks a comprehensive approach for resolving guilt. Psychoanalytic theory holds that neurotic guilt, caused by conflicts between id impulses and super-ego constraints, can be treated effectively. Indeed, traditionally trained psychotherapists apply this theory to resolve their patients’ neurotic guilt.
This theory has some applicability to combat veterans, particularly in regard to basic training, when recruits suspend the super-ego restraints of traditional moral values and collective guilt by believing they are fighting a ‘just war’ (like their fathers fought in World War II).(11) But this principle had limited effectiveness at relieving the collective guilt of American soldiers in a war that was neither officially declared nor sanctioned by the American people.

Other traditional psychological and psychoanalytic theories can be helpful in understanding the proper treatment of men with personality disorders. For example, applied object-relations theory can help therapists in their treatment of men whose symptoms are associated with persistent identifications with idealized dead comrades or idealized maternal introjects (the group of men they become closely identified with). For these persistent attachments can be partly understood to be a defense against unresolved abandonment depression.(12) Yet these theories still fall short and so not help resolve persistent and unrelenting post-Vietnam memories related to actual guilt and shame.

Less traditional in his approach, Lifton developed useful concepts related to survival guilt, which included the guilt caused by four factors: surviving while others died, invulnerability, destructive effects on others (the ‘death taint’), and failing to fulfill their purpose (winning the war and saving the South Vietnamese from Communism).

During the ‘rap groups’ which Lifton and his colleagues, Shatan and Shapiro, began during the early 1970s, many veterans made strides towards resolving guilt-related problems by talking about their experiences in supportive groups with other veterans.(13)

As they recovered, they were able to convert ‘lacerating guilt’ into ‘animating guilt.’ In doing so, many became free to move ahead in life, receive further training or education, and provide help for others, particularly other veterans.

The common factors which limit therapists who treat combat veterans are personal ones, unrelated to the theoretical bases for therapy. Commonly, mental health professions avoid treating these men. They are rarely able to ‘stomach’ their violent stories during individual and group therapy, and consequently avoid asking detailed questions.

Although many inexperienced therapists are willing to learn, they are unaccustomed to reports of atrocities. Hence, they are unprepared to explore veterans’ experiences in depth, a necessary step in resolving guilt. Marin has reported ‘vets groups’ where this problem occurred.

Therapists were unable to respond therapeutically to the descriptions of violent experiences: “the first was the planned slaughter of civilian village populations suspected of being VC sympathizers, and the second was the ‘recreational’ violence in which a GI might, for the fun of it, gun down a woman crossing a field or a child on the road.”(14)

Other young therapists have been overwhelmed with feelings they’ve never had before: The tales of such atrocities stimulated… feelings of anxiety and disgust [in us as group therapists].., so much so that one of us had nightmares about Vietnam.

We also experienced a kind of primitive admiration, awe, and even envy about the depth and intensity of their experiences with life and death, and at times found ourselves getting caught up in the excitement of their sadism.(15)

Guilt Resolution, Spiritual Transformation,
and Judeo-Christian Principles

In spite of empathic therapists who apply known therapeutic techniques and theories towards helping combat veterans, there is a limit as to the degree of guilt-resolution that be accomplished. Is it possible for combat veterans to find guilt resolution and spiritual transformation through Judeo-Christian spiritual principles?

We found several biographical accounts which suggested that this could happen. A very dramatic self-report came from John Steer, a Marine combat veteran in Vietnam, who wrote an autobiography in 1982 wherein he described his traumatic childhood and combat related experiences.(16)

Steer suffered from a personality disorder before entering military service; upon discharge he developed the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and alcoholism for which he sought psychiatric help with little or no help. Then, seven years after the war, he had a Christian conversion experience which brought about a remarkable change in his life.
His nearly broken marriage was restored and his recurring traumatic dreams, rage attacks, and alcoholism ceased to be problems. Furthermore, his sense of pervasive meaningless was replaced by a desire to help others. Since then he has maintained a normal family life and developed a self-supporting spiritual ministry for helping people in need, particularly other combat veterans.

In another example, a former patient of the Bay Pines Stress Recovery Program who left the hospital treatment program abruptly when he assaulted another patient, reported a Christian conversion experience nine months after discharge. His symptoms included rage attacks, nightmares, intrusive imagery, guilt feelings, emotional detachment, alcoholism, flashbacks, episodes of dissociation, and feelings that his body was possessed by evil spirits. He described lying in bed one night, fearful of going to sleep: “I felt that if I went to sleep, the Devil would get hold of me and I’d wake up in hell. So I called out to my wife and asked her to pray for me. She did, and I asked Jesus to take over my life. Within one or two days, I began to get a sense of peace and a new feeling of self-control that I had never had during the previous fifteen years.”

Among references sought to provide guidance in helping combat veterans with guilt, the Bible may be the most widely used. Those who have found spiritual help believe that the Bible is source of comfort and direction for them. The story of the fall of Adam and Eve in the third chapter of Genesis contains a description of the consequences of seeking power for selfish purposes rather than obeying God which is applicable to the combat veteran’s experience of alienation from God from taking the power of life and death in his own hands (Gen. 3). In the Book of Psalms, the authors vividly describe symptoms that could easily come out of the mouth of a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, including death-related imagery, fear, tremors, and isolation:

My heart is severely pained within me and the terrors of death have fallen upon me,   and horror has overwhelmed me…
Oh, that I had wings like a dove.  For then I would fly away and be at rest.
Indeed, I would wander far off and remain in the wilderness. (Psalm 55:4-8)

Feelings of alienation from God are described perfectly:
O God, you have cast us off.
You have broken us down:
You have been displeased; Oh restore us again! (Psalm 60:1)

For combat veterans from Christian backgrounds (eighty-five percent of our patients) the New Testament has been suggested as a reference pertaining to the following themes: Jesus healing the sick (Matt. 4:24, Luke 3, John 5, Mark 5), the positive power which follows belief in Jesus (Mark 9: 17-29), the results of unbelief (Luke 1: 18-23), forgiveness (John 21, Mark 15:69-72) help for despair and loneliness (Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34, Luke, 22:39-47), and Jesus’ mission of forgiveness and healing (Mark 11:24-25, Luke 23:32-35, 42-43; Matt 5:17-26, 6:17-20).

William P. Mahedy, a combat chaplain who became a social worker in the Vietnam Veterans Outreach Program in 1979, was one of the first counsellors to recognize veterans’ spiritual desolation. In his book, Out of the Night, he successfully used Biblical references in his interpretation of combat veterans’ problems: “Having confronted God in the desert of their souls, the vets provide a contemporary model for the anguish of Job, the cry of the Psalmist, and even of the agony of Jesus himself” (p. 195). Combat veterans often remain enraged — yet helpless to combat evil: “Serious encounters with evils like hunger, poverty, homelessness, and war almost always result in a sense of personal powerlessness, emptiness, and spiritual darkness” (p. 201).

Mahedy has suggested that combat veterans seek spiritual transformation to gain “freedom from the violence of the soul which is a residue from the violence of war.” Their spiritual quest may be best guided by counsellors who have had similar experiences, even if unrelated to war: “Touched by evil on a much larger scale than that of mere personal suffering, these true servants of the Lord experienced a deep anguish, sometimes bordering on the despair” (p. 201).

He believes that Vietnam vets and others who have felt the desolation of humanity’s gulags have ample resources to negotiate their journey out of the night. Scripture, the writings of the mystics, and guidance from those with personal experience of winter in the spirit are sufficient maps for the journey as long as one remembers that God alone is the light at the end of the tunnel (p. 201).

Many avoid spiritual help or feel abandoned primarily because of their intense anger at God. Mahedy encourages these men to express their angry feelings to God honestly and then listen for God’s response. Such rage may be traced to the evil which surrounded combat veterans and made them victims of spiritual alienation, as Mahedy comments:

War is an explosion of hatred into systematic and ruthless violence. Its savagery is beyond description. War represents a complete breakdown in the virtue of love among those who share a common humanity under God. If we take seriously the passage from 1 John, we must admit that the love of God is incompatible with the
kind of hatred war unleashes. Cut off from love, we are cut off from God in the only avenue of access our limited nature really possesses.

Isolation from God under these conditions brings about a different kind of spiritual night …. [It is a] darkness that closes in upon us when our souls are pervaded with hatred… (p. 208).  Mahedy discovered that God’s help is important to combat the power of evil in the world. Recovery is not possible until these men are willing to “walk away from the anger, rage, and hatred that are the war’s continuing residue. One cannot make a lifetime career out of hating the Vietnamese — or Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jane Fonda, either” (p. 209).

Mahedy encourages veterans to seek God in a personal way, however obscure God may seem to be: The God revealed in the Hebrew Scripture is intensely personal but always obscure, and he is frequently encountered in a desert or on a lonely mountaintop. In the New Testament, Jesus is recognized as Lord in His resurrection from the dead, but the risen Lord always goes on ahead of His disciples into Galilee and then ascends to the Father …. I believe the journey in spiritual darkness ultimately brings one to perceive God in this fashion. Perhaps a more intimate and tender sense of divine presence returns for a time — I know a number of combat veterans who have regained or acquired for the first time a powerful awareness of Jesus as friend — but most often the Lord seems to be saying, as he did to Mary Magdalene, ‘Do not touch me’ (p. 206).

Summary AND Conclusion

Severe and intractable symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Vietnam combat veterans are related to entrenched guilt and shame. These symptoms include changes in self-identity and destructive and self-destructive behaviors.

Surveys of hospitalized combat veterans reveal many sources of guilt, including survival guilt, guilt from taking human life, guilt about losing the war, shame about losing prior moral values and enjoying destructive powers, guilt about being instruments of evil and being part of a morally corrupt system, and guilt about causing pain and destructive effects on their families after the war.
Veterans reporting atrocities and experiences of violence are difficult to treat and provoke mixed feelings of helplessness and awe in therapists who hear their stories. Moreover, traditional therapies are inadequate and recovery unlikely or even impossible without spiritual change. Therefore, we urged these men to obtain spiritual counseling as part of a comprehensive approach to treatment. And we incorporated a spiritual dimension to our own treatment, drawing strongly from William Mahedy’s work.

Many veterans were reluctant to become involved in anything that included the name God. Further, the Veterans Administration was cautious — even hostile — towards any program which incorporated Christian concepts.

But we found that these men were more likely to sustain their recovery when involved in a spiritual group similar to that found in Alcoholics Anonymous. Thus, the most significant aspect of our treatment was the addition of a special twelve-step program for combat veterans.

Next Mindfullness Class Free To Veterans

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