This is a continuation from and conclusion to my last post PTSD Awareness Month. As I mentioned there, I wrote the reflection in 1993 and this is the rest of that writing. I repeat the last paragraph from the previous post to connect the two: As I grew up, the mystery of Vietnam continued to grow in my mind as explanations for Dad’s changed behavior never surfaced. Dad drank heavily during the rest of my childhood. I instinctively never approached him about anything, let alone ask him why he was so different from the man I had known before he left for Vietnam. So I…
Month: June 2020
PTSD Awareness Month
June is PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) Awareness Month. A recent Facebook post on June 1 by a former student/now English teacher, Veronica Echols Garcia shows a picture of her late brother. Roni (as I called her when she was my student) shared that she will post a picture of him every day during the month of June. She wrote, “I am going to call out a military member I know and ask you to check on one of your battle buddies who has been on your mind.” Her first call out was to her husband asking him to reach out to someone he deployed with…