30
by affinois
I was a moderator at a heavily-trafficked depression support chat for some time. I talked to a number of younger veterans. It always broke my heart, pretty much the saddest I ever got on that chat was when talking to young teens and veterans. Here is a guy who literally got blown up, and his country isn't doing much of shit to get him treatment for his PTSD, severe depression, alcoholism, and chronic, extreme pain. If you're going to call them heroes, at least provide them with some heroic level of medical care.
And yeah, the other thing that really crushed me was when the veterans would come on to chat, needing some kind of support that they could not find elsewhere, but unless they were stinking drunk (and in most cases not even then), they would not speak about anything that happened to them. Not only because it would obviously be traumatic, but because they often expressed genuine concern at anyone else having to hear about - and therefore imagine - the kinds of things they had seen.