After World War II ended, soldiers returned home to their families. However, not everyone’s return home went as smoothly as they had hoped. Some soldiers returned with psychiatric casualties and the media did not help them with a steady recovery. The media portrayed men in the military as strong and tough because they were masculine, so if you showed signs of weakness or psychological distress then your masculinity was put into question. Men in the military were not supposed to have emotional breakdowns because they were strong and did not deal with their emotions the way women did. The way of dealing with the veterans of WWII who had psychiatric causalities is much different than how veterans of WWI were treated. World War I veterans who were classified with a psychiatric wound were seen as having a legitimate injury and were able to receive treatment quickly. World War II veterans did not receive care for their psychiatric injuries until 1943 (Jarvis).
George Pratt wrote a book called Soldier to Civilian in order to help the public understand veteran’s psychiatric injuries so that they would be seen as legitimate injuries and more normal than what the media was portraying. Pratt’s book tells readers that society needs to adjust to the veteran’s injuries, just like the veterans have to adjust when they return home. He also comments on how their injuries are caused by “situational stressors rather than due to a weak ego or flawed personality” (Jarvis 103). Since Pratt is not taking away their masculinity in his evaluation of their injuries he is helping to show that emotional distress in returning veterans is acceptable since they went through a very difficult situation.
I think that Pratt’s book and other uses of media were helpful for the public and returning veterans once the idea of psychiatric wounds became a more open topic to the public eye. Once people realized that their heroes of the war were struggling they probably wanted to help them adjust and recover from their hardships they had to deal with during the war. I think that psychiatric wounds are still an issue today for veterans returning from the middle east and we should consider how we treated veterans from WWII in order to make sure that today’s veterans receive proper care and treatment. The public needs to be more accepting of psychiatric injuries because they do not know everything that the soldiers see when they are out fighting.
So why do you think World War II veterans were treated differently when they returned home from war? Have we treated other war veterans differently in other wars because of their psychiatric casualties? Do you think we need to change our views of psychiatric wounds in order to help veterans make a smoother recovery?
Sources
I believe that despite our greater understanding of the psychological issues that veterans may experience after returning from war, many people are uncomfortable talking about the issues. I think it is important that these veteran’s psychiatric wounds not be ignored – whether in the 1940’s or today.
I think this is an issue that runs way deeper than just wounded, both physically and psychologically, veterans. How our society views mental ‘wounds’ in general is flawed, so it isn’t surprising to me that this carried on with veterans to a more obvious extent. I don’t know specific examples, but over history mental conditions like depression, anxiety, etc. have been looked down on as things one can just ‘get over’ and less serious than physical wounds, so again it doesn’t surprise me that this mentality was extended to veterans. I love the source you found, and think it was a really great public resource at the time due to the severity of this problem. I wonder how much it helped the public’s understanding?
I think we’ve come a long in way understanding and treating mental health issues for vets but there’s sill work to be done. Greater awareness and education has made readjustment better for today’s soldiers but there is always more that can be done.