A tribute to the The Fighting Generation?

The innocent victims.

The military service system impacted the men that went through it. But there is a group of people that were also impacted that is often overlooked and mostly neglected. Even today some of them are still victims.

I am referring to the loved ones of the soldiers. The people that had to (and in some cases still do) cope with the fallout of what the men experienced in training and during active duty. What these guys dealt with had to be coped with mainly without any emotional or psychological support. This caused a myriad of problems. One of the least publisised problems in this context is how ex military men that suffer from PTSD and other disorders stemming from their military service have battled to adapt once they have to return to life in the civilian sector. And their loved ones are often on the recieving end of the violence, the trust issues, the inability to verbalise emotions, the nightmares, the survivor's guilt, the memories of dead and wounded buddies, the memories of people they killed, and ultimately the feeling it had all been in vain due to the percieved betrayal by their political masters. The people that were and are on the recieving end of all this have no idea about how or why their men changed in this way. They do not know how to cope with this. And mostly they feel responsible because they feel it is their responsibility to love and support their men enough so that the men would be like before they went to war.

But this is where they are wrong. As unprepared as the men were for the long-term effects of fighting in a war, their loved ones were equally unprepared to fight the demon's their men would be bringing home. The women that suffer because of the trauma their men were forced to face at a too young age, are truly the innocent victims of the fighting generation.

Mike🐕‍🦺

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