If you know anything about Veterans, then you know about the Bureau of Veterans Affairs. It is an agency designed to provide support and benefits to our country's veterans. For as long as I have been aware of my family's situations, I can remember my father constantly appealing for 100% disability from the V.A.. My father is clinically diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It is defined as an "anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat." Over time my father has been awarded 35% and 70%, but no 100%. It has been a symbol to our family. A goal that once reached would solve so many of our family's problems and answer all of our unanswered questions. Receiving 100%, to our family, was the government finally owning up to the fact that their war, a war that in no way should have affected my father, ruined his emotional and mental health and would affect every avenue he chose to take for the rest of his life. As It is in no way about the benefits that come with being 100% disabled by the V.A. what matters, to me it is the governments 100% recognition that every mile of jungle my father trekked through, every grenade launched, every time he was ordered to open fire on a village of women and children, every moment he thought would be his last directly impacted the man he is today. I am convinced that there is no human being that can witness that carnage, cause that much death and know that they are the ones inflicting it, that can home and sleep soundly. To live through a war, you must simply arrive back in the U.S. alive. But to survive a war, you must carry on in society as if those days in the jungle never occurred. You must not show weakness just as you were instructed in the army. You must be a good father and forget about the blood. I will never forget the moment I saw my father stumbling drunk. He confessed through slurred words that, "You don't know what I have seen or the things I have done... And I don't want you too. That's my burden." From that moment on, I never doubted my father's mental state. I saw Vietnam as vividly as he saw it every day in his mind and I knew that it was simply something one could not erase.
On August the 28th, 2009, My family finally escaped the legacy of the Vietnam War. We can finally turn the page, finish the chapter and close the book. Looking back, I realize that my father is not the only "war hero" in our family. My mother is the bravest, captain of them all. She stood by a crazy, Vietnam Vet, diagnosed with PTSD and a family verified alcoholic for 20 years. She remained an anchor for my father and I when we all thought we couldn't handle our situation for one more day. When the nights seemed insurmountable for us, we would wake up to biscuits and gravy; over which we would become a family again. She handled herself with grace, bravery, and dignity. There are times when any normal human being would cut their loses and call it "every man for themselves", yet she continued to fulfill her duties as a mother and a wife. She went above and beyond the call of duty and for that she deserves every medal offered.
I have never been more proud of my family in my life. I have yet to see my father since we received the news, but the many times we have spoken on the phone since, I hear a change. There is a spark in his voice that wasn't there before. To me it's a spark of hope, but at the same time, it's the sound of absence. It's the absence of years of pain and misguidance finally sealed and closed. Time to move forward together, Mom and Dad.
