The link to this story was sent to me by my beloved.
I have seen and heard many people wonder why PTSD is so common now, when in WW II, the soldiers seemed to come home without so many troubles. My answer has always been that no, they had troubles, but the country did not want to see them, hear them... they were heroes, and heroes never have problems.
It seems that Anthony Acevedo has lived that life.
For a soldier who survived one of the worst atrocities of mankind, the military's reaction is still painful to accept. "My stomach turned to acid, and the government didn't care. They didn't give a hullabaloo."
It took more than 50 years, he says, before he received 100 percent disability benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Despite everything Acevedo endured during the war, little had prepared him for his own father's attitude toward his capture. "My dad told me I was a coward," he says.
"I turned around and got my duffel bag, my luggage, and said, 'This is it, Father. I'm not coming back.' So I took the train the following day, and I didn't see my parents for years, because I didn't want to see them. I felt belittled."
Anthony's story is as appalling as it is needful to tell. He was a prisoner in Berga an der Elster, one of 350 or so held at this satellite camp of Buchenwald. And he watched many of the others die, some of them in his arms.
Acevedo shows few emotions as he scans the pages of his diary. But when he gets to one of his final entries, the decades of pent-up pain, the horror witnessed by a 20-year-old medic, are too much.
"We were liberated today, April the 23, 1945," he reads.
His body shakes, and he begins sobbing. "Sorry," he says, tears rolling down his face. "I'm sorry."
Yet, with all of that, Acevedo has maintained a philosophy that I think more people should hold - and if someone who has been through the hell that he lived can hold this, then anyone can....
Acevedo says the world must never forget the atrocities of World War II and that for killing 6 million Jews, Hitler was the worst terrorist of all time. He doesn't want the world to ever slide backward.
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His message on this Veterans Day, he says, is never to hold animosity toward anybody.
"You only live once. Let's keep trucking. If we don't do that, who's going to do it for us? We have to be happy. Why hate?" he says. "The world is full of hate, and yet they don't know what they want."
Let's keep trucking. Why hate?
Anthony Acevedo, I salute you. You bring nothing but honor to yourself and your country. As a former service member myself, I'm sorry that the Army and our country treated you so poorly after your service.
Thank you. Be well.
The full story is available at CNN
UPDATE: This is the obligatory "Rec List? My first!" comment.
Now that that's done (really thanks, but this isn't about me) push the Digg listing and send the story out to friends and relatives as well. I want to see it mentioned on Olbermann and Rachel's show at least, and it deserves to be on all of the talking heads - liberal or conservative. This is the voice of an American hero, and it deserves its hearing.
Godspeed to all of our veterans.
UPDATE: The stories people have posted below are full of memories and events that deserve publication on this Veterans day. However, I would like to call attention to this image link posted by user kishik. It may be the ultimate comment that can be made about the realities of living after the war.