Vietnam, PTSD, USMC, Black-Americans and Me

By John H. Jordan

War is hell and, for many of the U.S. veterans who served in the Vietnam conflict, the psychological nightmares rages on even forty years after the last Marine left Saigon. Psychological surveys suggest that some 271,000 veterans of the war may still have full Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. For many vets, the PTSD symptoms are only getting worse with time.

Roughly 11% of Vietnam veterans, over a forty year period, continue to suffer from clinically important PTSD symptoms, either having the full diagnosis or very strong features of the diagnosis that interfere with function. According to new research, for some people it is a condition unlikely to ever go away.