Forgotten Children of World War II

I have recently been made aware of an entire group of forgotten children of World War II. These are the tens of thousands of children fathered by American GIs during the war in countries such as England, France, Netherlands and post war in Germany and Austria. Many of these children grew up fatherless - in many cases, their American fathers either died in the war or returned home not aware of the existence of their child. Over the years, there was little or no notice in the mainstream press of the existence of these now aging children, some of who still continue to search for a link to their biological families. More of the mythologizing of World War II as "the best war ever" without recognition of the 183,000 American children left fatherless by the war and the multitude of children fathered by American servicemen on foreign soil.

Flashback - WWII and lobotomies

The book Flashback by Penny Coleman deals with PTSD and suicide. Even though the focus is on Vietnam, there is a small section about WWII. I am quoting for educational purposes. "Fully 60 percent of the postwar VA patients were psychiatric. Limited funds and limited space opened the door for one of medical history's most obscene experiments: the ice pick lobotomy" (p. 54). The vast majority of lobotomies in the 40s and 50s were "hysterical women" with the main exception being traumatized veterans.

Julia Collins book - My Father's War

This 2002 book was the first one that really focused on the combat trauma the WWII generation suffered and what it did to a family. Collins' father had left Yale in 1943 to join the Marines and returned after the war "emotionally and invisibly scarred". He never lived up to his early promise. She notes that the young boy who went to war came back a "soul weary man". Like so many of the children of the WWII generation, the author's realization of the impact of the war on her dad and her family did not come until her adulthood. The full understanding didn't occur until after her dad's death. This is a great read for insight into post war family dynamics and the effect on the children of a traumatized vet.

In The Shadow of the Greatest Generation

Tom Matthews' book , Our Fathers' War - In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation, outlines the difficult relationships between sons of combat vet fathers of World War II. He intertwines his story with that of 9 other sons who have the same strained, tense relationship with their fathers. I don't know if the WWII fathers were tougher on their sons than their daughters, but from the description in this book, it seems like they wanted their sons to keep the same tight control over their emotions that the fathers themselves had to exhibit to deal with the aftermath of combat. By the end of the book, Matthews comes to an understanding of his father's psychological scars as he states, "my bet would be that anyone who's seen real combat would have for the rest of his life something going on inside him. Some wound. Some secret".

Civil War and PTSD

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060206233356.htm

A 2006 study done by investigating Civil War records at the National Archives demonstrated that war trauma can be documented in this country back to the Civil War. It was called "irritable heart or soldier's heart" and was connected with a lifetime of higher rates of physical and mental disorders in those who had seen combat. The factors that had the most significance were the youth of the soldier, intensity of combat (represented by percentage of soldiers killed in a company) and finally, prisioner of war status. This study is especially important because researchers were able to analyze the soldier over his entire lifespan.

Support group for elderly WWII vets

http://www.sunjournal.com/story/185009-3/MaineNews/World_War_II_vets_learning_to_not_suffer_in_silence/

At this Maine vet center, there are support groups for surviving veterans of past and current wars. There are 2 groups for WWII veterans who are now in their 80s. Many of them have been living with unexpressed trauma for decades. Mental health programs were not available to anyone except Vietnam era veterans at the vet centers until 1991. A debt of gratitude is owed to the Vietnam vets for bringing the issue of war trauma to the forefront. The WWII vets were a product of the era where men had difficulty asking for help for emotional issues, because society would consider them to be weak.

A Nurse's Perspective on PTSD in the Aging WWII Combat Vet

In a 2003 American Journal of Nursing article, Charles Kaiman discusses the therapy group he ran for elderly WWII veterans with delayed onset PTSD. Aging can cause the intrusive memories, survivior's guilt and unresolved grief of the combat vet to appear after many years of repression. Exacerbation of PTSD in elderly veterans is common. This should be taken seriously since there are many generations of combat veterans following their WWII fathers and grandfathers in having to deal with effects of combat.