Post-War+Problems+For+Nam+Vets

Coming home from a war should be a time of glory and honor. The Vietnam vets were greeted with hostility and shame. These soldiers were humiliated and there were many reasons why these soldiers weren't welcomed back home with hospitality. One reason is that Americans felt that the Vietnam War was a wasted effort and that we had no place being there. This was taken out on the returning soldiers and made the return from Vietnam even more stressful than it already had been. The stress from the war and returning from the war caused many problems in the soldier's everyday lives.

The Vietnam War so stressful for many different reasons. The average combat stress of war was magnified by the unfamiliar jungle surroundings. Another reason was the lack of clear progress because it was hard to tell what was actually going on. One problem caused by this stress was the inability to get a job. In 1975 there were 320,000 known unemployed veterans. Some contributing factors to this were the economic slump, difficult readjustment process, lack of skills, and lack of government programs. For veterans the quick switch from war life to civilian life was too much to handle and many couldn't handle it.

Suicide was also a big problem for veterans. Suicide rates for veterans were double that of a regular male. Veterans were 58% more likely to commit suicide with a firearm than nonveterans. A report said that 159,000 veterans had committed suicide since the end of the Vietnam War. Here is a link to more [|info on vietnam veteran suicide].

Another problem that veterans had to deal with when coming back from the war was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is a sickness that occurs due to some kind of highly dangerous, frightening, or tragic experience that a person has went through. The person will somehow re-live this experience causing them to be secluded from average everyday life.