Addiction is not an overwhelming or reoccurring theme that in present in "In Country" or any of our other readings this semester however I wanted to discuss it. Emmett smokes non stop on this road trip they are taking. This just reminded me of how many men have come home from war addicted to illegal drugs and/or drugs used to treat their wounds.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/507021
The above website discusses a study of veteran heroin addicts and their treatment.
This study found that Vietnam vets were more likely to have started using while in the service to ease their fears of the war. Veterans from other wars noted that their drug use usually began after the war at home in recovery.
Not only did these men come home battling drug addictions but alcoholism as well. While this was less common among Vietnam vets than others I do have a personal experience. My boyfriends father fought in Vietnam and came home a raging alcoholic. Andrew (my boyfriend) had told me about all the issues at home and struggles his father faced. His father had to spend a month in rehab while Andrew was in high school and that was a major changing point for his entire family. It is difficult for me to listen to certain stories about his childhood and how his parents acted knowing them as I do now. Seeing who they are now and hearing these stories really makes me realize that war severely changes people. No matter how they try and fight it it changes people and can affect their entire families.
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4 comments:
I would agree. War changes people, and we sit here as outsiders not realy reaizing the phycological implications it really has on ones mind. Personally I would be scared shitless if I was out in war, and would probably go crazy. I'm glad that his father has finally found peace at mind after a mind altering experience.
I hadn't thought about the addictions that war veterans can have after war. It is amazing what war can do to you. Not only can it kill you, it can change you phisically, mentally and emotionally. Veterans come after war with illnesses, with missing limbs, with addictions such as the ones that you mention, and other serious mental diseases. The more I read about war, the harder it is for me to understand why it happens.
Addictions have never crossed my mind when reading any of this war literature, so I am very glad you brought it up. Now that I think back, almost every war character we have encountered has had one vice or another. I imagine that you have to find pleasure in something while enduring a war, but the scary part is when that bad habit follows them home.
I think that addiction ( even if it is just smoking) is so common in veterans coming home that it is often overlooked. It seems like most people actually expect there to some sort of vice that a man coming home from war will have. Anytime I mention Andrew's (my boyfriends) father or any of my relatives being in vietnam, it is closely followed by questions of what they came home addicted to and how they kicked the habit if they had. It hurts me when people ask that as if it were no big deal.
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