PTSD

When the average American thinks about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) they probably think about soldiers who experienced difficulties dealing with things they experienced, witnessed or did in the heat of battle. Though I am not a doctor, that pretty much sums up what I believe to be PTSD.

It never really occured to me that my wife could suffer from mild PTSD until just a few days ago. I should have recognized the signs before, and I will go into that, but it sort of hit me the other day when she said something that struck me as odd. It happened when she was looking through my facebook photos of the C-17 military airlift cargo plane that carried teams, cargo and remains back to the U.S. after our most recent field activity. She said that she was frightened by the color of the plane. For some reason it clicked this time that certain colors, noises and objects will put her in a heightened state of alert, or even fear.

During her first Blue Angels air show a little over ten years ago, I saw the first signs of this fear. At the show, she was initially okay with the F-18s and enjoyed the smaller aerial acrobatic single engine turbo prop, but when the CH-47 Chinook came out she jumped and was visibly shaken. Not long after the appearance of the "two headed airplane" (máy bay hai đầu) she had seen enough and made us leave a little over halfway through the show. As we were headed back to the car, an F-18 did a pass 500 feet off the deck and she was on her hands and knees kissing the ground.

Once we were in the car, she shared with me her fear of the Chinook. She explained that as a little girl whenever they heard the distinctive sound of an approaching Chinook, her grandmother would yell at the top of her lungs for everyone to get in the bunkers. I imagine this was pretty serious business no matter which team you were playing on as a villager on the outskirts of Saigon. I don't think a lot of discrimination was exercised by door gunners who took on small arms fire from below. Diep's father was an ARVN armored vehicle driver, but I don't think anyone would know that from the Chinook. I am not sure if she ever saw a Chinook in action, or if it was just the fright and flight everytime one appeared that causes her to react like this now, but the fear is very real.

Diep's family suffered as much as any in the war. Her father was ARVN but many of her cousins were VC. It was a fairly even split between her parents siblings. She tried to explain to me how they would ignore those differences within the family as much as they could, but after the war the differences were more apparent. The memory of seeing two of her uncles shot, laying dead on a bridge down the street from her house seems to be still very vivid to her. She also remembers her father in re-education camp and the second-class education she was afforded as the child of the puppet regime.

No doubt, the 1980s in Vietnam proved that no one was truly a winner. The implementation of communist idealogy and communal cooperation in agriculture failed to a large extent and not until Doi Moi Policy or the Renovation in 1986 did things even think about getting better. If the situation was hard in the north during this "Thời Bao cấp" with ration cards and endless food lines, you can only imagine how hard it was for the people who landed on the wrong side of victory in the south. By the way, I still say those ration lines where the ones at the end of the line often went without are the reason most Vietnamese don't believe in queuing to this day.

I didn't get to Vietnam until 1991 when things were just starting to get better. I remember how everyone, especially in Hanoi would react to loud noises. If a book fell from a shelf or a carbonated bottle of soda busted, the whole room would go into a squatting position. It occured to me then that this was probably a learned reaction; for many probably after the 1972 Christmas bombings on the outskirts of Hanoi.

Things are better now. I can't remember the last time I saw someone go into a squat after hearing a loud noise. Those times are behind the Vietnamese and they are moving quickly towards the future. Most of this youthful country cannot remember much about the war and that is probably a good thing.