Veteran's Heart Georgia Blog

Something has been very interesting to me over the last several years & that is how the effects of PTSD seem to be generational. I realize that there are several articles and a few studies studying this phenomena, but when it hits home that is what makes it interesting to me. I suppose that returning to Viet Nam in 2001 brought the light of knowledge to my life and how PTSD was acting like a cancer in my life, my families life & my professional life. So, I discovered that I had PTSD from the traumas in Viet Nam. My reaction was anger and distrust. I tried to drink my way to health for a while, but found it difficult to function that way so I stopped.
I thought of my father and always wondered what he did in the Army in Algeria in WW-II. He was an alcoholic and heavy smoker, a hard worker as a landscape architect, a wonderful Dad, however he could not conquer his demons, divorced my Mom and moved away. A few years later he reappeared dried out and remarried my Mom just in time to die from cancer. I think the combination of having been in WW-II and also having a father who had been in WW-I, also an alcoholic, played an important part in the formation of his life.
His father, my grandfather, had been killed getting out of a car when was forty two years old. He was an alcoholic and like my dad I did not know what he did during WW-I nor where he served.
My great-grandfather did not serve in the military as far as I have been able to determine, however his death was grim and the death certificate, which I have, states very graphically, “Cancer eat out right eye. No physician in attendance.” His dad, my great-great grandfather, did serve.
My great-great grandfather was in the Civil War and may well have had PTSD. It is difficult for me to see how anyone serving then could escape it.

Just a thought.