Letter to the Editor: Fireworks can be harmful to those with PTSD

Dear Editor,

We all love the display of fireworks. To celebrate our independence. Also to honor all those who fought for our independence.

But those who fought have come home with injuries no one sees. They are silent. Deep seated. And come out during times like the 4th of July.

We love our town of Cowley, but it was Vietnam overload for my husband. He had nowhere to go. I voiced it on classifieds, and a couple of people said, “Well, it’s only 30 minutes.” No, it was four hours.

These comments had to have come from non-service personnel who have never seen combat, mama’s babies, as my husband calls them. See, he got his draft papers before he even graduated from Cody High School. Arrived in Vietnam. Was given a gun. Told to kill. No training.

Then he started flying missions, saw stuff he wished he would have never had to witness. 18-year-old boys drafted into a political war. Seeing children killed with bombs attached to them. Soldiers losing limbs by stepping on land mines. He picked them up. In the midst of fire fights. Shot down twice.

He sleeps in the living room with the lights on. TV. By God, don’t touch him while he’s sleeping. His PTSD dreams are real, so real. But just not his alone.

Ask any veteran from Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran. They will tell you all the same.

My husband attended the first class held in the area of “REBOOT.” It saved him. He was able to talk. He attended the second one and on that one I went with him. Came home and cried from the stories of my husband’s and other veterans in the class.

PTSD is real. Who picks up the pieces? The wives. Our men need understanding.

We need to show them love but give them space when needed. A lot of younger soldiers and Marines have been divorced once, even twice, due to their PTSD. It tears families apart.

Us Vietnam veteran wives, we love our ol’ vets. We’ve fought VA for their disability rights for they are dying from the Agent Orange chemical agent.

President Johnson assured our troops it was non-lethal to them. My husband’s chopper dumped it. Tons of it. His health is affected by it.

So we stay and struggle, fight the VA every day for their health issues. Just to keep them healthy. We wake up hearing them still, after 43 years, yell out from a dream.

My husband’s is the firefights at night. He said that’s when the worst of it hits. Being sound to sleep. Children hitting the wires.

But these off-color remarks by those who have never seen combat is horrible.

Susan Aagard

Cowley