Veterans have greatly improved our lives by helping fight for our country, shaping our policy on foreign affairs and protecting our rights and freedoms, but from all their hard work they’re left emotionally and physically stressed.
After men and women are done with the military, most deal with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which affects them daily, about 11-20 veterans out of 100 deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (How Common is PTSD in Veterans?), PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that can cause intense thoughts and feelings relating to a specific experience. In many cases, this can steam from a person seeing any traumatic events in the war, including death, bombings, wounds etc.
Other common symptoms veterans face from PTSD include, but are not limited to, nightmares, vivid flashbacks of trauma, severe distress and physical sensations like sweat, nausea, trembling and other physical pain. Veterans also experience other mental health conditions including Depression, Substance Abuse Disorders, and traumatic brain injuries which leave them with extreme emotional and physical effects as well.
Due to these effects, veterans face severe problems throughout their lives and lose many of their close loved ones because of how different they are when they come back from the military. They also commonly lose their relationship with themselves, as people struggle with a severe lack of purpose and identity after the military.
When they return from the military they face many struggles with finding work. Unemployment is an immense struggle for many veterans because most people join the military right after high school, this leaves them with a high school level education that simply isn’t enough for most jobs. From the lack of unemployment, this leads to homelessness. Over 30% of homeless people in the world are veterans.
Veterans deal with a colossal amount of trauma during and after the military, our government needs to focus and help those who have helped our country out and not leave them stranded.