Veterans, Homecomings, and the Mental Costs of War

In the United States, our veterans have seemingly always had a tumultuous relationship with the civilians and government to which they’re returning, and as society comes to better understand the human mind and the effects warfare has, the more people not directly affected by the return of a veteran realizes that the mythos of adoring festivals for the return of triumphant war heroes is just that – mythology concocted not just by the United States, but other governments and societies as well.

The key aspect to this is the extension of the “social contract,” in which there’s also a legal contract signed by men before going off to fight a war that could – and did – injure, maim, scar, and kill them. However, not all wounds, or all casualties, are physical, and Christina Jarvis’ essay, entitled “If He Comes Home Nervous” addresses and discusses how World War I and World War II veterans who were “shell shocked,” or suffered “combat fatigue” were treated by the military, government, and general populace. In the early 20th century, masculinity was (and to an extent still is) a vital part of the military’s culture, and included in that is the ability of a soldier to fight on if he is physically able – but only physically able, as if the only damage a soldier could receive in combat is to his body – and that a man rendered unable to fight while still sound of body is no longer a man, but a drain on society. Of course, seventy, eighty, ninety-plus years ago, society didn’t understand the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) the way it does now – and even then, it still doesn’t fully understand it – and a soldier suffering from it had not only that nightmare to contend with, but the foul treatment from the military and civilian realms. Fortunately, in the postwar era, progress was made (as it was in a multitude of fields) in society’s understanding of the mind and how it interacts with the ideologies of society, and the “boxes” a soldier is meant to fit into.

Despite that, soldiers suffering from PTSD, and other “psychiatric casualties” faced the same issues that all veterans faced upon returning to the United States, or Australia, or the Soviet Union – the latter two discussed in Crotty and Edele’s article, Total War and Entitlement: Towards a Global History of Veteran Privilege, comparing the treatment of Australian veterans from both World Wars and those of the Soviet Union. Given the fact that records of the Soviet Union were exclusively behind the Iron Curtain for so long, the comparison is very apt, and indeed deeply appreciable, as Australia (to my knowledge) is also typically neglected in the histories of the World Wars beyond their contributions to the British Imperial war effort and the Pacific Theater. Given the differences between the two systems during both World Wars, the Interwar period, and the Postwar era, such comparisons about the treatment of veterans also helps to move the discussion away from what is typically (from my experience) an Amero- or Eurocentric viewpoint. Australian veterans were venerated by their government and the civilians, and after the First World War even managed to obtain and utilize political leverage, which they ended up losing after World War Two when a second veteran’s group formed and competition between the two weakened both of them. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, the status a veteran had depended entirely on which of three (or apparently four) armies he served in during the World Wars, and Interwar period. Red Army troops, followed by the Tsar’s troops, and ultimately the White Army troops (not officers) were tended to, but without anything like special status, thanks to the Leninist-Stalinist communist state in which they lived, dictating that all people be treated based on their class, not their occupation or position within the state. This is ironic, and eye-opening, given the fact that the USSR spent so much on publicizing the celebrations of their heroic soldiers that never happened – part of the mythology (there’s that word again) Robert Dale wrote about in Rats and Resentment.

Ultimately, the assigned readings have me wondering more and more (as is Dr. Gitre’s intent, I’m sure) about the social aspects of the World Wars, Interwar period, and Postwar era, in particular for the “losing” side as well as the “enemy” side – in this case, Germany, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. To that end, I would entreat readers to look up the man whose picture is presented here: Hauptmann Hans-Joachim Marseille, of the German Luftwaffe from World War Two. After reading his story (or listening to it here), ask yourself the same thing I did, “how would Marseille have been treated in what became of Germany after World War II? With the country basically removed from political existence except as pawns, how were German veterans seen by the international community, as opposed to Nazi troops? Were they seen differently, by those distanced from the situation, and making the big political decisions?” Unfortunately, in the case of Marseille, we can never know.