Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    Are you a Libra?  Seriously, most of the Libras who I know tend
    towards not noticing what's going on around them, myself included.
    Sometimes, you almost have to hit me with a club just to get my
    attention.  This aggrevates the s**t out of my wife.  I've been
    in the same situation you described and found out about it several
    days later and I wished that someone had told me.
    
    Spence
    
    PS I'm not an astrology buff.

    
    	How did you guess I was a Libra??
    
    	Does it also hold true you send out the wrong signals as well
    	as reading them wrong?

    Eagle makes a good point about it being difficult to un-learn this
    kind of learned survival behavior.  
    
    War veterans, nurses and other professionals who deal with death
    regularly, and abused children all develop the same sort of pattern. It
    seems to be a common human reaction to pain.  (I shut off a number of
    my emotions during a period of childhood trauma -- nothing nearly as
    bad as what war imposes -- and I'm still having trouble getting them
    back even in a warm and supportive family.) 
    
    Professional counseling to un-teach these patters and to teach you how
    to respond once again might be the most effective way to proceed. 

    --bonnie

    re .0
    my dad was the case for two bro's not being in the same platoon
    in the R.A.F. 
    seems that his brother was killed in the same foxhole my dad was
    in.
    he never recovered emotionally from that.
    i never knew him before that but I am a very emotional person.
    and my mom swears that my dad was like me pre WWII......
    but all the years I knew him he had no emotion's whatsoever
    

    
      Ah yes, the old "1000 yard stare".  Very common among us Vets,
    and not very easy to unlearn.  Conventional therapy has not had
    any measureable effect in my case that I can determine, but it's worth
    a shot.
    Don't expect any support or help from the V.A. proper, but some
    of the Vet Centers have good people, all of whom have been there.
    

    May I recommend a book ? Try "The Disowned Self" by Dr.
    Nahaniel Branden. Sounds like your past has a hold on you
    and blinds you to the present. You are not alone. Good
    luck.

    
    	RE: .7
    	 Yeah, I already know about the V.A., seems they don't even
    	bother to take the time to acknowledge there are such people
    	as Viet Vets. Last time I dropped into a V.A. office the guy
    	there said he couldn't understand why we would think the V.A.
    	might help us. Something about him not seeing any area where
    	we needed it.

    Re: VA treatment of Vietnam vets . . .
    
    This really makes me mad. This makes me so mad that the ceiling
    above me is getting a dark spot on it from the heat. You guys went
    out there and wrecked your lives for the rest of us, and all you
    get is dumped on.
    
    Well, I, for one, am grateful, and I'm proud of you all, and if
    there's anything I can do, I will be more than glad to do it. (Is
    this the kind of thing you can write to a Congressman about????)
    
    --bonnie

    	My wife and children have a somewhat difficult time dealing
    	with my lack of emotion concerning death. I don't have any
    	answers, I just know that I don't feel something that they
    	think I should feel.
    
    	Thus, people look at me (and others) as very cold, heartless
    	individuals (which is not true in my case).
    
    	Scott (20 years that seem like yesterday)

    Re .10, like you I'm sorry that guys my age had to go to Vietnam
    and I think it's a disgrace that the VA doesn't appear to be responsive
    to their needs.  However, I don't believe that they were there for
    "us" and I don't feel "grateful", only sorry that it happened. 
    As Bruce Springsteen says in his "War" video, "Blind faith in your
    leaders or anything, can get you killed."
    
    Lorna
    

    There's a logical fallacy in .12:  Just because the war was wrong, it
    does NOT follow that the soldiers who fought there did not go in our
    stead (fight for us), nor does it follow that we should not be proud of
    their courage and their integrity. 
    
    The belief on the part of VA officials that the war was wrong has
    a great deal to do with why they're so unwilling to help Viet vets.
    The US shouldn't have been there, therefore that invalidates the
    sacrifice.

    --bonnie

    re .12
    The song I find more suitable is Paul Hardcastles "Nineteen",  which
    is like a short documentary put to electro-funk music.  Some of
    the lines...(from memory and paraphrased)
    
    "Not only was the fighting different from world war two,
    but also those who did the fighting:
    In WWII the average age of the combat soldier was 26,  in
    Vietnam it was nineteen."
    "-n-n-n-n-nineteen"
    "Often the vietnam dead would arrive home within 48 hours of
    jumping ship.  Perhaps the most surprising difference between
    WWII and Vietnam was the coming home.  None of them received
    a heroes Welcome."
    "None of them,  none of them"
    "N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-none of them"
    "All those who remember the war - they won't forget what they've
    seen.  Destruction,  of men in their prime,  whose average age
    was nineteen."
    "A crime survey shows that a Vietnam veteran has twice the
    chance of being arrested as a non-veteran of the same age.
    There are no accurate figures on how many of these men were convicted."
    "A Veterans Administration study showed that many suffered
    from what psychiatrists call 'Post-traumatic stress disorder'
    - eight to ten years later,  almost eight hundred thousand
    men were still 'fighting' the Vietnam war."
    - "All we want to do is come home.  There must something
       wrong somewhere."
    - "If they wanted us to be ashamed,  then why did they name us?"
    - "All we want to do is come home."
    - "Was it worth it?"

    Simon.

The problem is that there are no special cases, and the blokes who were in 
Vietnam will probably get just as little and as much help as veterans of other
wars... 

I think reading about this has made me recognise something in my English
grandfather that I could never quite put my finger on when he was alive, perhaps
that's why he was the way he was. (He did two tours "Up the line" in 1917 and
never ever once talked about it, even when I was a boy and I asked him). 
Interestingly, though, it was my grandmother (who was always loyal to Queen &
country) was the one who was angry about it, and not, or so it appeared,
grandad. 

Tarik.

    
    re: .15
    
    >...and the blokes who were in Vietnam will probably get as little
    >and as much help as veterans of other wars...
     
      It's not quite as simple as that.  in the U.S. at least the veterans
    of WWI and WWII were showered with benefits to a far greater degree
    than the vets of Korea and RVN.  The difference seems to be that
    the two WW's were supported by the vast majority of the populace,
    and involved a general mobilization which personally touched the
    lives of almost everyone.  When those vets returned home the general
    consensus was that there was nothing too good for them and the medical,
    emotional, financial, employment and educational benefits they were
    given were substantial.  Korea and Vietnam were relatively small,
    unpopular conflicts which involved relatively few individuals on
    a personal level.  When these vets returned they were ignored or
    scorned and the few benefits given them were, for the most part,
    meaningless, and given only grudgingly when forced out of the system.
    There seems to be a syndrome going around that blames the warriors
    for the war, when, in fact, the war was brought on by the incompetance
    and bungling of many politicians for a period of many years.  The
    courage, ability and self-sacrifice of the vets from Korea and Vietnam
    was no less than that shown by previous generations, their crime
    was merely to be members of the wrong generation.
      Given the situation, is it any wonder that a large portion of
    these individuals feel estranged from society  and drop out?  Seems
    normal enough to me.
    
    
     

    
    	RE: VET benefits
    
    	  WWI and WWII vets had a great number of benefits that were
    	not afforded to the Korea/Viet Nam vet. Take the education
    	benefits for example. The basic amount of the benefits now
    	barely cover the cost of the school, if that. Yet when someone
    	from the WWII era used them they would more than cover the cost
    	of school, plus their living expenses while in school. Try to
    	live now on $400 and change a month!!
    
    	 In my case, I was in the hospital from 1971 to 1975 more than
    	I was out and I tried to fight with the VA to get them to grant
    	me the extra time I lost in the hospital so I could finish school.
    	As might be guessed, no dice, I had my 10 years to complete
    	school, reguardless of the fact I lost four years due to my
    	being in Nam to start with. I would have been overjoyed just
    	to get the extra time to finish school.
    
    	George
    

Re: last two

Well, yes, I take your point fully about the veterans being blamed for the
stupid war, and about the scale of things in comparison to the world wars.
However, from what I understand of the post First World War period, most of the
"de-mobs" ended up straight on the dole, and stayed there. This happened to my
grandfather, after he came out in 1919. He was unemployed on and off for nearly
twelve years, and, according to my grandmother, he was no exception to anybody
else, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Now I know life was a lot tougher
in those days, but my point is still "so what's new?"... 

However history is history and this is 1987, and we really are entitled to
expect more for these people, wouldn't you all agree? 

Tarik.

    Apologies in advance if I'm stepping way out of line --- 
    
    But have you-all ever considered forming an independent support group
    to help each other out???? 
    
    Many groups who have been through emotionally destructive processes
    (adult children of alcoholics, for example) find these groups helpful.
    
    Just a thought . . . 
    
    --bonnie

    	RE: Educational benefits
    
    	A friend (WWII vet) said that he had enough benefits left
    	over to go to college for another four years.
    
    	When I went to school, I received about $300 a month for 42
    	months. That was with a wife and two children.
    
    	Scott

    Emmotions -
    
    I invite you to take a look at this from a point of where you came
    from.  Like most men, we are brought up not to show our emmotions,
    our fathers and grandfathers and great gf'd etc. were all brought
    up in the same types of beliefs.... that is men dont show their
    emmotions, they hide them someplace and never let them be seen.
    I sincerely beleive that unvented emotions show up in other strange
    way's - re: depression, frustration, anger etc. and sometimes result
    in psycholoical damage.
    
       There is a lot that you can do about it, if you want to know
    more  get in touch and I'll share my experience in overcomming
    what your experiencing.
       
    

    Late (I just started reading this file) but perhaps relevant:
    
    There are all kinds of counseling, and all kinds of therapists.
    Keep looking around until you find the one that works for you.
    I tried seven, with indifferent succest, until I walked into one 
    office, sat down and started crying, and knew I'd found the right 
    one.  It can take a lot of looking around.  There are no roadmaps.
    Just keep trying stuff until you find something that works.  There
    are some good workshops offered by places like Interface, Spring
    Hill, Rowe Conference Center (these are all in Massachusetts; I
    don't know where you are), and others.  Some of the workshops may strike
    you as weird, but if you go to a weekend workshop that just seems
    weird, chalk it up as "weird weekends I have had" and go on.  
    If you do go to a workshop though, try to suspend judgement while
    you're there, just jump in and DO it and see what happens.

    Robert Bly (he was on Channel 2 in Boston a while ago) leads weekends
    for men around the country.  A friend of mine went to one of his
    workshops and really liked it.
    
    In the end, it is YOUR quest for yourself; only you can find the
    path.  Just keep looking.