Preview

War Stress and Trauma: The Vietnam Veteran Experience

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
556 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
War Stress and Trauma: The Vietnam Veteran Experience
References

Price, J. (01/01/2007). Findings from the National Vietnam Veterans’ Readjustment Study. United States Department of Veterans Affair. October 23.2012. http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/vietnam-vets-study.asp

War Stress and Trauma: The Vietnam Veteran Experience
Robert S. Laufer, M. S. Gallops and Ellen Frey-Wouters
Journal of Health and Social Behavior , Vol. 25, No. 1 (Mar., 1984), pp. 65-85
Published by: American Sociological Association
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2136705

Combat exposure and adult psychosocial adjustment among U.S. Army veterans serving in Vietnam, 1965–1971.
Barrett, Drue H.; Resnick, Heidi S.; Foy, David W.; Dansky, Bonnie S.; Flanders, W. Dana; Stroup, Nancy E.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 105(4), Nov 1996, 575-581. doi: 10.1037/0021-843X.105.4.575

Howell-Koehler, Nancy. "Vietnam: The Battle comes home." New Trauma of War: Stress and Recovery in Vietnam Veterans. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1985), p. 147.

Proposal Paper: The Psychological Effects of the Vietnam War.

The references I have chosen focuses on the way film has portrayed the Vietnam War. My film that I have chosen is; Born on the 4rth of July. I chose my film because they cover and portray aspects of the Vietnam War, and because the film is a popular well known film that is remembered by most people. Also to get the best view of what the audiences are seeing that’s portrayed about the Vietnam War that Born on the 4rth of July film portrays. My first primary source is the United States Department of Veterans Affairs because it’s the National Vietnam Veterans’ Readjustments Study (NVVRS). It is an investigation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other postwar psychological problems of the Vietnam Veterans. NVVRS shows me accurate prevalence rates of postwar psychological problems of the veterans. The United States Department



References: Combat exposure and adult psychosocial adjustment among U.S. Army veterans serving in Vietnam, 1965–1971.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The stories “For Many Returning Vets, ‘Moral Injury’ Just As Difficult” written by Rachel Martin, who got her information through Timothy Kudo, “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?” written by Tim O’Brien, and “A Horseman in the Sky” by Ambrose Bierce point out the psychological effects war can have on a person. These stories are very different from each other but they also support each other on a psychological aspect. These stories also give multiple examples of these long term mental effects. “For Many Returning Vets…” by Rachel Martin is a very good example of mental strife, provided by Tim Kudo, we learn that during a war there are very important decisions you must make for instance, deciding whether or not to save your group or let a…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Holbrook, Allyson L., Jon A. Krosnick, Penny S. Visser, Wendi L. Gardner, and John T.…

    • 3394 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine facing the horrors of a war at the young age of 19. In the real world as well as fictional novels, the Vietnam War was considered to be a war unlike any other. Many soldiers faced untold brutal challenges, and often wondered who the enemy really was. In many depicted pieces of literature such as Fallen Angels the fictional stories cannot begin to compare to the real traumatic ones. Research has shown that the traumatic circumstances have caused soldiers mental stress. Research shows the brutality that the soldiers of the Vietnam War went through, the novel Fallen Angels and the video series “Dear America: Letters Home” are very similar in this depiction, but also have slight differences.…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    War is a terrible thing. It has confounding effects on everyone involved. Some people take it well, while others have such horrible experiences that it scares them for life and affects them even after the war when they return home. Ernest Hemingway's Soldier's Home and Tim O'Brien's How to Tell a True War Story are two great examples of literature that express' what any particular soldier can go through upon returning home. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome is a very common sickness that soldiers come down with after returning from war. There are a few differences and similarities between the two stories; the way each soldier handles himself after the war and the way people look at each of the soldiers when they return home.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Health, I. ,. (2009). PTSD: A growing epidemic. Retrieved from National Institute of health: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/magazine/issues/winter09/articles/winter09pg10-14.html…

    • 1302 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ptsd in the Vietnam War

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Vietnam War was considered one of the bloodiest battles ever in the history of the United States. Not only were soldiers harmed physically during the war, but they were also wounded mentally. There are endless accounts of soldiers leaving the war and coming home not just with bullet wounds, but the memories that followed with it. These memories caused soldiers to not sleep at night and in some cases ruining their lives and forcing them to suicide. After the war, specialists came up with a name for this “disease” that was destroying the lives of many Vietnam veterans. They classified it as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. (National) The psychological burdens of war, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, have substantial effects on soldiers in the armed forces making reentry into civilian life challenging.…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the Vietnam war, hundreds of thousands of American troops were subject to very traumatic experience. Friends dying in front of them, near death experiences, witnessing very gruesome deaths of Viet Cong soldiers, just to name a few. This effected the day to day lives of many soldiers, as most now have a condition called PTSD. PTSD negatively affects the human psyche. This caused most soldiers to turn to self medication which often lead to alcoholism and abuse of heroin in many soldiers.…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) causes a painful recollection of a past harrowing event that haunts victims for the rest of their lives and often causes extreme anxiety, depression, and in some cases, drug abuse and suicide. The suicide rates have increased effectually among soldiers, with about twenty-eight veterans killing themselves each day (Rosenshield). Many veterans are diagnosed with PTSD, and are forced to live with it for the rest of their lives. It is hard to understand the shift in a person before and after serving in war because the change is not physical, but mental. Though a person may seem perfectly normal, their mental make-up is morphed in a way that changes them forever. As time progresses, medical advances increase. Less and less soldiers are being injured and killed on the battlefield, however the damage being done to soldiers is not controlled due to PTSD. Until the 1980’s, medical professionals did not recognize PTSD as an illness. This being said, many veterans traumatized in the Vietnam war did not get the recognition they needed from psychiatric doctors and suffered alone. This rings true for both World Wars as well,…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Vietnam Veterans Themes

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Page

    There are four major themes which emerge in early encounters with Vietnam veterans: control, integrity, ambiguity, and personal accountability. Theses themes indicate the presence of the disorder. Control is often the most significant issue in the initial session. “The depth of the therapy possible is largely determined by the extent to which the veteran believes he or she has self-control or the ability to predict emerging symptoms, outburst, or intrusive episodes.” (Dean 133) Integrity will always arise in the initial discussion with a veteran. It will usually arise in the form of blame or criticism of an institution or individual for a lack of integrity.…

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the face of abrupt danger, it is common to want to escape from the surroundings. Today, the results of Vietnam have scared many loyal soldiers who now suffer from PTSD. The events of the Vietnam war are rarely spoken of by vets and still affect many individual’s views of America today. The way the soldiers were treated after the war has gone down in history as one of the most dishonorable acts against our troops who proudly fought for America despite the conflicted views of the public. Our troops are deeply wounded from the war and from the way they were treated when they returned from the war. After the Vietnam war, many expressed their opinions and fictional experiences of it and addressed that PTSD had indeed effected many and was an issue that needed to be…

    • 1303 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Works Cited

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages

    "One In Five Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Suffer from PTSD or Major Depression." RAND Corporation Provides Objective Research Services and Public Policy Analysis. Rand Corporation, 17 Apr. 2008. Web. 13 May 2013. <http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/04/17.html>.…

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Annotated Biography

    • 671 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In this article, Raymond Scurfield addresses a healing journey of Vietnam veterans after Vietnam War. Soldiers are happy that they are home after war; however, there are many difficulties that most of them have to face. Raymond Scurfield describes the military hospital during the war and soldier…

    • 671 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnam War

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages

    References: Moss, G (2010) Vietnam: An American Ordeal (6th ed ) Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, N.J.…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    In the United States, combat fatigue was coined to describe the mental health issues of soldiers that had returned from Vietnam. Common experiences among veterans were an inability to concentrate, insomnia, nightmares, restlessness, and impatience with almost any job or course of study, as well as alienation, depression, mistrust and expectation of betrayal. About 15 percent of American soldiers who served in Vietnam were still suffering from war-related mental health issues fifteen years after the war, according to a government-funded report published in 1990. (Baran, 2010). In 1980, Vietnam veterans pushed for legislation and acceptance in the medical and psychology fields concerning combat fatigue. Later that year, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was recognized by practitioners and was returned back to the DSM as a mental health issue. Experts believed that up to 30% of Vietnam veterans were facing mental health issues and PTSD. (Baran, 2010) It is estimated that since the Vietnam War has ended, approximately 150,000 veterans have committed suicide.…

    • 3010 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnam Veterans

    • 1238 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Post Traumatic Stress Disorder seems far more prevalent in Vietnam War veterans than in those of other wars: fifteen out of one hundred Vietnam Veterans have combat-related PTSD as compared to one out of twenty World War II veterans, a ten percent difference (“How Common is PTSD”). Although it is nearly impossible to pinpoint the root cause for the rise in PTSD in this generation of veterans, there are many factors that could have contributed to this rising issue. Many used to believe that these veterans were simply young, immature boys dragged into the war by the draft and were unable to cope with the pressures of combat: the average age for a soldier in Vietnam was nineteen and in World War II it was twenty-six (Roark 838). However, every…

    • 1238 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays