ANZAC day provides us with the opportunity to say thank-you for the sacrifices that were made so that we can live in freedom.
For some of us, it is also a reminder that the ravages of war are close to home.
My grandfather was born in 1898. The first world war started in 1914 when he was 16. By the time the war ended in 1918 when he was just 20 years old, he had fought in the war and been shot. It is hard to imagine how a teenager could cope with the psychological ravages of war. As a child, I remember my grandfather every year on ANZAC day walking 10 kilometres into my hometown of Ingham and he would march on ANZAC day. Every year I would wonder why my Italian born grandfather would march with his Australian counterparts particularly when you consider that during the second world war, he was imprisoned by the Australian authorities in the internment camps. I know now that he marched because he needed to be with people with whom he shared an experience that only they would understand.
My father was born in 1922. The second world war started in 1939 when he was 17. By the war ended in 1945 when he was 23, he had fought in North Africa, contracted malaria and survived, was in hiding in Greece while the Germans were massacring the Italians and was captured and then became a prisoner of war. He came back to his native Abruzzi which had been heavily bombed by the Germans and with their crops and livestock destroyed, he came back to starvation and even more despair.
There were no conversations about the war in our house, only fleeting comments. While there were no conversations, as an adult, I can now see that the remembering never really ended.
A study by Yoram Barak, MD and Henry Szor, MD entitled, Lifelong posttraumatic stress disorder: evidence from aging Holocaust concluded that:
Despite the fact that 50 years have passed since the Nazi regime and the Holocaust the psychic sequelae are far from being overcome. The majority of Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans still list their experiences as the “most significant stressors” of their lives. The literature provides ample evidence that posttraumatic stress disorder among survivors persists into old age.
After the second world war, there was an entire generation of soldiers including my father who were both in combat and who were imprisoned who came back with psychological scars that were never treated and persisted into their old age. The scars were just exacerbated because survival mode didn’t end with the war, they just came back to even more surviving just to eat.
I know first hand that the remembering that never ends isn’t just part of the experience of war veterans but also the experience of their children. There is also an entire generation of the children of soldiers for whom the scars of the war live on through the experience of PTSD in their families.
While it is so right to remember the sacrifices of the men and women who fought for us and to be forever thankful, we cannot forget that for some veterans and their families the war never ends.
In February 2020, a permanent National commissioner for Defence and Suicide Prevention was appointed to address the mental health issues of war veterans. Hopefully, we can stop the remembering in our war veterans so they and their families can start instead to live without the burdens of war.
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