Violence, death and destruction leave persistent marks in the mind. 50 years ago, a study with Vietname veterans in the US expanded the vision of the true dimension of horror.
The last shot was exactly 50 years ago, on April 30, 1975. But the war is not over there.
The Vietnam War was one of the most prolonged military conflicts of the twentieth century. Started in 1955, shortly after the defeat of the colonialist power France, it only ended in 1975, with the victory of the northern and southern communist forces and the defeat of the South Vietnam, supported by the United States, leaving a balance of 3.8 million dead.
What was written about the Vietname War and its consequences fulfill entire libraries. However, José Brunner, emeritus professor at the University of Tel Aviv, highlights a particular aspect: the recognition and understanding of the psychic and social impact of the wars.
At least since World War I, it is known that soldiers continue to suffer due to experiences of violenceoften for a long time after the end of conflicts. Some were affected by intense tremors and panic attacks, others refused to feed. Medicine had no answers and, according to the spirit of the time, the patients either discarded as liars or delivered to self -healing.
At this point, the Vietname was a watershed: In 1972, psychiatrist Chaim F. Shatan, who treated war veterans, published in The New York Times a report on “”. He described how patients were tormented by feelings of guilt, how they had been brutalized and were deeply alienated to other human beings.
“The most poignant feature is the torturous doubt in the ability to love others and to accept affection. A veteran said, ‘I hope to learn to love as I learned to hate. And I hated it! But love is a very big word.’
Post-traumatic stress: And the Vietname?
Shatan’s article was vital to understanding what war causes in humans, explains Brunner: “It was, in fact, the first finding that The war does not end when the last shot soundsbecause the soldiers continue to take it, invisible, with you. ”
In the 1980s, the American psychiatric society officially recognized as the disease Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A study conducted in 1983 by order of the US Congress revealed that 15% of veterans – a total of 400,000 men – suffered from the disorder.
In a repetition of the research, 40 years later, the conclusion was that one fifth of them still had the disorder, and that the mortality rate among those affected was twice that of the other veterans. With therapies and medicines, it is possible to cure or, at least, alleviate the PTSD, and in most cases gravity decreases over time.
However, on the other side of the Pacific: “I am sure that the number of Vietnamese soldiers suffering from trauma was very large,” estimates Vietname Martin Grossheim, from the University of Seoul. “However, this was never approached in the country.”
The main reason is that the Vietname Communist Party prescribed exactly – and prescribes to this day – What to say or not about the warand “psychic problems did not fit the official image of heroic war against Americans,” explains the Vietnamologist.
However, proof that the trauma existed is the example of former soldier Bảo Ninh, author of The Sorrow of War (The Pain of War), 1991whose protagonist seeks in alcohol refuge of war memories and suffers deep alienation in relation to society. Originally published on Vietname in a mimeographed version, in 1987, as nỗi Buồn Chiến Tranh, The work was immediately prohibited.
Four Dimensions of Post-Trauma
Overcoming trauma is not just a personal matter, Brunner emphasizes: “It’s not just about individual therapies. It is not enough that all the affected ones are laying on the couch, to be treated and everything is fine. The question is how society deals with war. And that, in turn, affects individuals.”
In the expert’s opinion, social confrontation has at least Four dimensions.
Firstly, there are Memory Rituals. Are crowns of flowers deposit in the cemeteries? Are there public memorial events? Are the soldiers honored as heroes, or rather seen as criminals-like the Vietname American veterans, who were post-war in their country as “babies killers”?
The second dimension is that of popular narratives: How the conflict is represented in school books, movies, novels. The third is whether the countries involved came to reconciliation. And the fourth is whether society recognizes the crimes and psychological torment of the soldiers, or if it denies them.
Speaking from the point of view of a historian, for whom decades are not much time, in such a process, Grossheim stresses that “In the early decades, denial is perfectly normal.”
Professor Brunner adds that – both on the individual and social level – the repercussion of a war takes decades. In Vietnam, 50 years ago, the end of the struggles was celebrated in parades, auditorium programs and political discourses-but always within the parameters established by the Communist Party, for which what it told was to self-guarantee as guaranteeing the success of the nation, except Grossheim.
“After the victory over the French comes the victory over the ‘American imperialists’ and the successful reformist policy.” The Vietnamologist refers to reforms that, since the late 1980s, have transformed the Vietnamese economy into one of the fastest growth around the world.
Asymmetrical reconciliation
There was also a kind of conciliation, although with a very peculiar asymmetry: while Americans are welcome, with Sul-Vietnamese antagonists, they are not openly talked about what happened.
The suffering of southern soldiers is only recognized unwillingly, so that the war is over, their cemeteries are desecrated and later neglected. Family members, expressly prohibited from taking care of graves.
That only changed in 2009when the government again allowed access to the cemeteries. “It was an important contribution to national reconciliation,” says Grossheim. However, “an even greater step towards reconciliation with the old enemy would be the Vietnamese authorities to allow family members to seek the remains of the fallen and the missing soldiers.”
The whereabouts of the remains of hundreds of thousands of soldiers remain unknownfive decades later. In Vietnam, where ancestral worship continues to be part of living culture, many believe that, only with a funeral, the spirit of the dead will rest and find peace.
