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 PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  The program at the Tumpalega VA, in Alabama, is for the veterans of the Viet Nam who suffer from PTSD. I am a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, from the Bronx and Israel, and the clinical director of the PTSD  program.      

     I run  a 5 week in-patient program to treat  the Viet Nam vets who suffer from recurrent   nightmares, flashbacks, rage reactions with frequent violent outbursts; they also suffer from severe anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies; more than ninety percent of them have made at least one suicide attempt.  Most of them have histories of alcohol and drug abuse and more than half of them have been arrested and jailed on more than one occasion. More than half of the patients have been married and divorced 3 times. Their average age is around forty.  

     In  Nam they  faced death and destruction almost every day; they lost close friends as well as comrades-in-arms in tragic and dramatic fashion. For example, two marines were  bringing supplies on to the shore in the Mekong Delta  when one of them had his head blown off, spraying his buddy, standing  next to him, with blood, bone and brain.  Many of them have killed enemy soldiers along with innocent civilians,  such as some Viet Cong shooting at them from village huts with women and children in them.   

     When in doubt some who have killed civilians whom they suspected of belonging to the Viet Cong  but weren't sure:  one vet lost two of  buddies to a booby-trapped Coca Cola sold by  a nine year old girl.  The next time a Vietnamese girl came near  his squad to sell the thirsty G.I.’s a cold drink, she was cut down by three of the squad when she was  15 meters from them.  A few committed possible atrocities such as running over civilians who slowed them down while in a convoy.  One technique the VC used was to push civilians, including women and children in the path of a convoy to stop it for an ambush.  

     These  horror-traumas are alive and kicking  in their conscious minds, and repeatedly haunt them in their nightmares. During their waking hours they have flashbacks, (nightmares occurring in the form of a violent daydream,)  triggered off by any loud sudden sound or someone suddenly coming up behind them. If they go to public places such as restaurants they sit with their back to the wall, facing the door; they do their shopping at 2a.m. when there are few people in supermarkets.  One vet was cruelly taunted at his place of work when a group of his co-workers would drop a large piece of metal.  He invariably ducked for cover or ran out the factory in panic. He was a quiet, introverted, good worker but had to quit because management also thought it was a lot of “fun to see him run.” 

     They are survivors in real or imagined situations where they feel the least threat, showing  it in their cursing, in the  threats of violence so easily elicited from them, and in fact in being violent.  A common way for some of them is to release their rage and anxiety by  knowingly  going into a bar to pick a fight, very often winding up the loser, punched out, or in jail.  I treated three vets who went to jail for manslaughter because of bar fights that ended in murder.

     Now you know a little about PTSD.  Who is Dr. Bronsky?  Let me tell you about myself.  I am Itchy Bronsky from the Bronx, a long time sufferer with PTSD. When I was three years old I was run over by a speeding car and I suffered a serious fractured skull. The doctor told my parents  that I have a fifty- chance to live. I survived but I paid the price.  I was hospitalized for one month, tied down to the bed for the first two weeks: "for bed rest," they said. 

     The "accident" was the  label applied to me by my family  to describe my behavior when I did something wrong or they thought I misbehaved. "Sure, it's the accident that made him crazy."  Sometimes there was an additional zinger:  "I think we should call the ambulance to take him to the Bellevue Hospital crazy ward." Before the accident I was a curious, bright child nicknamed Little Jack Dempsey. When I came home from the hospital I was hyper-active, frightened, a nail-biter, and had recurrent nightmares about dying. 

     I'm sixty five years old, bald, with a handlebar mustache, a straight nose and hazel eyes.  I'm six foot two, overweight, and I have an ease and confidence about me that is prominent when I work with patients individually, and especially in groups.  In the second World War I served for three years, two of them  as a radio operator  in the Army Air Force in the Central Pacific.  

     I studied medicine in Geneva Switzerland and in my senior year, 1955, I did an externship in a Tel Aviv hospital.  I met my future wife there, a sabra, a native-born Israeli, during that six week period;  in 1956  I returned to Israel and we were married. I finished my psychiatric training in 1966 and immigrated  to Israel  with my wife and 3 children. I have lived and worked in Israel for the last 24 years. I am a veteran of four Israeli wars and I was in the active military reserve until I was 55 years old.

     I learned to treat PTSD by working with hundreds of Holocaust survivors and their families, and with the Israel Defense Forces soldiers, some of whom suffered from PTSD.  A few months ago I was invited to come  to the Tumpalega VA hospital to set  up and run the PTSD  program and to be an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama Medical School.  My assistant in the group and a participating observer is Chaplain Mike Dills, the administrator of the PTSD program at  the  Tumpalega VA hospital.  He is a pastoral counselor, a  pilot, a Viet Nam veteran, and a colonel in the US Air Force active reserve.   

     Mike started this morning's group as he usually does, by collecting the attendance forms from the 15 patients and signing them. He is a gentle man, in his late forties, slim build, pleasant of face,   his wire-rimmed glasses set low on his nose are his most distinctive facial feature. He is polite in manner, graceful in movement and modest in his behavior. But - -  from time to time he can be tough in  his speech and behavior. 

     He is that way now, as he signs the attendance form and talks about the rules of  the program. He looks up occasionally to talk to them about  maintaining discipline in the program, some of the rules of the program.  It is Friday morning and some of the patients had been complaining that  they aren't allowed to leave for the weekend home visit before two p.m. Swinging his finger-pointed arm around  the group and speaking crisply with his soft southern accent he says, "Listen up you guys.  Friday is a therapy day and we don't want you to lose it, you hear?  There's precious little enough time as it is, with only five weeks to the whole darn program."

     He signs the last of the forms and looks sternly around the group, then frowning,  he says, "And you all know you've not been policing up the  room after groups.  Dr. Bronsky and I don't want to go around picking up after you guys, cause you leave your coffee cups and soda cans behind you."  I  am sitting quietly, watching and thinking about how I will start the group.  Mike is a participating observer in the group, helping over the difficult cultural transition because the American PTSD is different  in some ways than the Israeli  form of PTSD. 

     In working with Israeli vets I found they  never suffered the humiliation of being rejected and neglected after they fought for their country.  They were not scapegoated for political reasons, they were given good psychiatric treatment very soon after they began to luster from PTSD. There are significant  cultural, religious and social differences between the southern American veteran and the Holocaust survivors and the Israeli soldiers. 

     I did my pre-med  studies at Tulane University in urban New Orleans I am not really familiar with the culture of Alabama.  These vets grew up with an abundance of violent activities: hunting, fishing, sports, drinking, fighting.  Many  of them were frequently and beaten as children. “My daddy made me go out and cut a big switch to bring him so he could beat my but.  If it wasn’t big enough then he’d go out a get a really big one.  Most of them were raised in strict Protestant (Southern Baptist) families; before they went to Viet Nam they  attended church regularly and almost all of them went into the service believing in God.

     Suddenly, I am  aware of the silence in the room, embedded in the loud thrumming of the air conditioning.  Out of the corner of my eye I notice that one of the vets is  nervously tapping his finger on the notebook sitting in his lap. Mike asks the vet, T.J., "You all ready to talk about your flashback?" Today is T.J.’s third session in the group and he has yet to speak of his PTSD symptoms.  Yesterday afternoon he was watching TV on the back porch of the wards with the rest of the group,  watching a cowboy picture.  When the shooting started he acted as if he was back in Nam, crying and  in panic, hiding under the table, shouting “Incoming, incoming.”   

     The other vets calmed him down and took him to the nurse.  She sent  him to see me and I worked with him in an individual therapy session.  Four days before I had seen him on admission:  he  was in his early forties, had been a pre-med student who quit the university more than twenty years ago to enlist in the marines so he could fight for his country.  In the admissions interview  he was anxious, cooperative but very reluctant to go into any details of the traumas he suffered in Nam. 

     Now, in the group, T.J.'s hands are shaking and his body  is very tense.  He is a small man with big spectacles, a shaggy mustache which partially covers his mouth and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard.  In a voice crackling with tension and rhythmically wringing his hands, he says, "Yes, I do.  I had a session with Dr. Bronsky yesterday and we talked about it."  He pauses, takes a deep  breath and lets it out slowly, putting the pen and notebook down on the floor besides his chair. He takes off his glasses, wipes them slowly with a crumpled, soiled handkerchief  that he  pulls out of his back pocket. Putting his glasses back on and clearing his throat quietly he says, "I saw how some of the guys got help when they talked about some of the stuff they're hung up on and I think it helped them.  But I'm a little afraid."

     After a brief silence my voice sounds very loud as I say,  "I know you're afraid because you're probably going to talk about something you kept bottled up in you for almost 25 years.  It was only yesterday that you spoke to me about it. I don't think you'll have a flashback and if you did, you'll get plenty of support from me and Chaplain Dills.  I'm sure the guys in the group will also be available "to protect your back."  Besides, I believe you have too much strength  to let it blow your mind."  

     He nods his understanding and agreement as does the Chaplain, along with most of the vets in the group.  Raising my hand slightly off my lap in a ‘stop sign’ I say, "Before you start, I'd like to ask the guys here I have already worked with  if they thought that sharing the experience of their traumas from Viet Nam was worthwhile."  I look around the group and make eye contact with each patient  who had taken the risk and talked about a traumatic experience in Viet Nam.

     Tim,  sad-eyed, slow-talking, clean-shaven and very neatly dressed, relived his experience of handling  many hundreds of  bodies, bagging them, tagging them, shipping them back to the U.S.  He had mind-promised the bagged bodies  that he would never forget them.  Since returning home he has been obsessed with his promise which has became intrusive and obsessive thoughts. 

     He describes them as being "like a like a broken record, going round and round in my mind, especially when I try to sleep."  He visualizes the bodybags a number of times a day but if he feels threatened by someone, he imagines  him dead and puts him in a  bodybag. Tim sits very straight in his chair, clears his throat and says to T.J.,  “Do it  man, I know it helped me.”

     Bobby  is small and thin with a high-pitched voice.  In Nam he had been a ‘tunnel rat’: he had the job of exploring Viet Cong bunkers and tunnels.  When he worked in the group he sweat profusely, often  gulping for air, as he relived the experience of being in the middle of a platoon, his two best friends  walking point, the lead man and the second man. They were ambushed  and the point man  was killed immediately and the other one seriously wounded.

     He was crying out to Bobby for help, but  he couldn't get to him because he was pinned down by the murderous cross-fire. It would have been sure death for him if he had tried to get to  his friend.  After his platoon broke the ambush Bobby found his second friend, dead from a bleeding wound in his leg.  If he had been able to get to him on time he could have saved him with a tourniquet.  He has  been suffering from survivors guilt ever since.  He barely raises his head to look at Tim and mumbles in a little voice,  “You done said it for me, okay?”

     Kyle, obese, sweating, was a marine corpsman, as T.J. was.  When he talked in group he cried, grimaced, walking around  as  he  relived the trauma of losing his best buddy in a firefight. He was unable to help his friend because he was too far away to answer his cries of "Corpsman," and  he was too busy caring for the many wounded around him.  The next day he  found his dead friend with bamboo sticks in his eyes and his genitals in his mouth.  He leans and looks toward T.J.,  then points with his head in my direction,  “Trust the man.  You’re my brother.  We were both there.  We’ll watch your back.”

     Don is grey-haired, very big,  muscular, very suspicious. His eyes usually are half-lidded and he glares aggressively at the person he is talking to. He often describes himself as a “trained killer.” He is very bright but hides his intelligence  by acting and saying, “I’m just a little old country boy.” He didn't allow himself to cry when he shared his experience with the group. He raged  and then crushed an empty soda can under his big foot before he stomped out of the room.  But he was back in five minutes to finish up.  His buddy he called  "The Wildman" saying , "We was both wildmen in them days.  You better believe it. When we come off patrols we’d get drunk, fight, tear up whorehouses."  He  was  gravely wounded because he took a grenade hit which tore off his face, leaving a pulpy red mass but his blond hair stayed clean and bright.    Don had the same bright blond hair.  “Shit T.J., you can trust this damn Yankee.  Just a little, hear?”

     Lonny,  tall, thin, chronic alcoholic, looked grim, spoke softly, his white-knuckled fists pounded rhythmically on the chair arms, talked about his buddy on the navy river gunboat. After the war they were going to his friend's home town, Chicago, to visit the Playboy Club. His  friend was a member of the club and often told Lonny  what they would do with the big-busted bunnies. The day his friend bought it, Lonny was at sick call because he had a high fever.  His friend, who was usually the after gunner,  replaced him at his forward post on the fifty millimeter gun. He took a direct hit with a rocket which neatly took off the top of his body and head.  Since that time Lonny sees his friend   in occasional flashbacks and recurrent nightmares.  He points his finger at me and looks at T.J.  “Dr. B. is okay.  He’s one of us.  Go to it.  It don’t mean shit anyway.” 

     T.J. is different in his demeanor and speech than the others in the group.  Almost all of them grew up poor in rural areas, didn't finish high school, were driving farm vehicles, cars and motorcycles before they were sixteen years old.  T.J. came from a large southern city, his father was a college graduate and a high level civil servant.                                                                               

     He begins to speak tensely but clearly,  telling the group that he had been a pre-med  student but quit after two years to join the marines. "In those days I was a patriot and I joined up to serve my country.” He met his friend Richard who joined around the same time and they became fast friends.  T.J. took to calling him Dicky Lee, a  private joke between them, christening his Boston catholic friend into the southern Baptist faith.  In the individual session the day before, he spoke tearfully  and lovingly of Dicky Lee, whom he described as "my best friend, like a brother, the best partner anyone can have in life.  We went out bar-hopping, to whore houses.  We had plans that after the war that we'd go to medical  school together and open a private practice.  We were going to be partners”. 

     He continues, "For two years  we  were together all the time, studying and then working as medical corpsmen in navy hospitals.  We were really good and got to be qualified operating room technicians. When  we  got  our  orders to go to Viet Nam we made a pact. If one of us got  hit bad - " He stops speaking because he is choked up.  He gulps, resettles his thick glasses on his nose and then he says, "Like if one of us loses a leg or something, then the other one won't let the dying man suffer.  We had seen so many wounded marines, without arms, without legs, burned, blind."  Very quietly he adds, "Neither of us believed we would have to use this euthanasia agreement."

     In Viet Nam the two buddies separated and  corresponded regularly.  They didn't see each other for almost a year.  T.J. was stationed at a big field hospital that  received helicopter loads of wounded and dying.  Because there was a shortage of  medical doctors his main job was to be at the helicopter landing site when the wounded and dying came in. He did Triage.  He explains this to the group, saying, “This is a fancy word we use in emergency situations where usually the doctor has to use his clinical judgment to decide what to do with the f wounded. 

     We didn’t have enough doctors so I did Triage. There were three kinds of wounded: those you knew were going to die, no matter what.  We eased their pain and we left them to die; the lightly wounded didn't need immediate care and were ignored.”  He pauses for a moment, looking up at the ceiling and then says bitterly,  "It was the big in-between group we had to treat first  so that we could get them back to the killing fields as quickly as possible."                                   

     T.J.'s voice breaks and the dam of tears breaks and he cries.  There is some stirring to my left and I am handed the government issue tissue  box to pass on to T.J.  When the box reaches him he pulls one out and with a shaking hand wipes his eyes without removing his glasses.  He crumples the soggy tissue and carefully puts it into his lap. I ask him if he wants to stop and he responds by taking off his glasses, wiping them dry with a clean tissue, and says, "I'm going all the way."

     I speak in a voice that is slow, rhythmic and quiet, suggesting to him, "Why don't you take a deep breath...and then let go...slowly...as you breathe out." Yesterday I taught him a relaxation exercise which begins this way.  He starts to do it but then says  angrily  "I was playing God and I didn't want it, but what could I do. We had too many wounded and dying and not enough doctors.  They said I had to do the triage so I had no choice."  His anger is flooded away by deep sobbing. 

     Some vets make a move to go to him but I shake my head no.  They are angry at me but do nothing.  When he is composed I tell him, "Time out."  He looks up at me in surprise and then he nods in understanding.  In the private session  I taught him the meaning of a "Time out."   You stop whatever you are thinking about or  doing, and you regulate your breathing to be slower and deeper.  Then you relax any tense parts of the body you are able to. At that point you can choose to go on or to stop.

     There is no movement in the group and the silence in the room is almost perfect.  Through the closed window behind T.J. I see  a slow tractor lawnmower clumsily moving in and around the scattered trees, cutting the  weedy lawns. I hear the distant hum of the air-conditioning,  faintly intruding.    T.J. begins to talk and cry, talk and wipe, choking up with anger and helplessness. Slowly and steadily he describes what happened. Three medivac choppers came in together bringing many wounded and some dead.  T.J. is running from marine to marine, efficient and effective, smoothly triageing the wounded, and ignoring the dead and the  roaring whirlpool of the spinning rotor blades.

     Then he trips over a squirming, moaning marine and he falls to the concrete.  He begins to get up when he notices that it is a legless, dying Dicky Lee. A moan-wail is torn from   T.J.'s mouth.  The vets on either side of him reach out to him but he folds into himself, putting his head down, bringing his knees up a little, hugging them to his chest, rocking rhythmically.

     I fight back my tears hesitating about intervening, and then l remember that T.J. wants to go all the way, and I decide that he can make it.  I don't intervene. The group is restless, most of them tearful, some crying, none loudly.  Mike is concerned and looks questioningly at me.  I indicate that I am in control and he sits back in his seat, sighing.  l wipe my wet eyes, look around the group.  Most of them do  not make eye contact with me. The intensity of T.J.'s reaction has waned.  

     I speak quietly, emphatically.  "T.J.?  Can you look at me?"  He does.  I lean towards him  and ask, slightly more emphatically, "Here?  Now?" Slowly, he unfolds and looks up at me. I ask him if he knows who I am  and what's happening. He nods, almost imperceptibly.  "Do you  want another time out?" He shakes his head, no.  "Fine.  By the way, we are all here, if you need us." 

     I make a sweeping gesture which includes everyone in the room.  There is a responsive,  quiet chorus of yesses and heads nodding in support.       "Why don't you finish the story," I say and then pause... "Here...now...you...us...All of us together." I take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and let the air out slowly. He takes a deep breath and lets out the air, loudly, into the heavy silence. 

     He begins to speak,  unmindful of the tears raining steadily down onto his shirt-front. "Dicky Lee was semi-conscious but he knew it was me.  When I spoke to him he nodded.   I put him against a mango tree and then I did what I had to.  I gave him enough morphine to put  him out of his misery and  he relaxed right away.  Then he stopped breathing." He looks at me with unseeing eyes, sobbing hysterically.  Three patients go to him, one hugs him, the other two put their hands on his shoulders.  One of them whispers something to T.J. and he looks up, nodding his head, continuing to cry quietly.  Then the three return to their seats.

     He stops crying and looks at me, indicating he wants to say something.  I nod at him and he says,  "I wrote to his parents that he died quietly  in his sleep but I never told them the whole truth about  the injection.  Five times in the last twenty years I  went to his home in Boston.  Each time I got to the door but I couldn't ring the bell."  I say, "I've got an idea I'd like to share with you." He nods almost imperceptibly and  in a quiet, soft voice, says,  "I'm with you.  Go." 

     "In my imagination I heard you speak about God to Dicky Lee, in three different ways. In the first way you said to him, 'Thank God I was able to keep my part of our pact.'  In the second way you said, ‘Thank God I was with you so you didn’t die alone.’ And the third way, 'Thank God you've gone  to heaven and your suffering has stopped.'" In a little child's voice he says,  "Do you really thinks so, Dr. Bronsky?"

     "You better believe that I do." Then I say aggressively, "And I'll tell you something else.  I had a wild thought a few minutes ago and I'm  going to show you what it is.  I might get hurt but I'm going to do it anyway." I get up and whisper in the ear of  the patient sitting on my right, "What I am going to do has nothing to do with you.  I'm going to use you so be ready and above all don't feel guilty.  I know exactly what I'm doing."

     I take a step in T.J.'s direction, and I purposely trip over the patient's foot and fall heavily to the floor.  The rug cushions my fall and I roll onto my back, shaken up, momentarily confused, but unhurt.  I sit up, take a deep breath and as I let it out I say, "I purposely made myself trip to illustrate a point.  After the fall I know I can get up and I can stand on my own two feet."  I pause for emphasis and then I say,  "Dicky Lee, through no fault of his own, couldn't stand on his own two feet because his legs were gone.  But you can." 

     T.J. begins to cry and some of the group murmur about stopping but T.J. says, "No, no. Let him go on."    I pause for a moment and then say, "Your legs are okay, and you can stand on your own two feet.  I am asking you to use them to help me get up." He gets up, unsteady on his feet.  Hands reach out to support him. I say loudly from my position on my back, "Let him stand on his own two  feet."  He sits down heavily in his chair.  For a moment I have some conflicting thoughts about stopping but then I feel a big lump in my throat and my eyes flood with tears. 

     With a voice near cracking, I say,  "Choose to do it, T.J., or choose not to.  Either way is okay with me."  What I am really saying is that I too need help from him, but it doesn’t come out that way.  He gets up, swaying, and then staggers towards me.  I reach out my arm and he takes my hand in his. I use his support to sit up. For a moment I rest my head against his thick thigh.  Then I look up at him and say, "Either you got the strength or you don't." 

     He takes a step back and still firmly holding my hand in his he pulls up strongly.  I am surprised by the ease with which  he helps me to my feet.  We hug, T.J. squeezing tight and patting me on the back.  I hold him gently and stoop down a little to rest my head on his shoulder.   Then I feel weak and begin to sway.  He tightens his embrace and I stand more firmly. He says loudly, "Thank you, thank you, Dr. Bronsky."  Tears choke me but I manage to say,  "Thank you, T.J., thank you."

After a few seconds we separate, he strongly squeezes my arm and he goes back to his seat, walking steadily.  I speak to his back, saying, “You’re coming home, T.J.  Welcome home.”

     I sit down, bent forward from the waist, my head down, staring at a small imperfection in the carpet.  My lips are quivering and the tears are filling my eyes but I can't let go. Don, big, muscular, ham-handed, (“I’m a trained killer”,)  gets up and walks towards T.J., saying,  "You're  a man, god-damn it. You sure are one hell of a man."  He takes T.J.'s small hand in his huge one, pumps it up and down several times, shaking the dry-eyed T.J. 

     They hug and rock, separate for a second and then hug and rock again. Don goes back to his seat and a number of veterans go to T.J. and shake his hand. He looks peaceful, breathing quietly. The tears in my eyes overflow and the chaplain asks me if there is something he or the group could do for me and I let go and burst into tears, deeply sobbing.  

     I have wanted to cry like this for many years but was unable to let go. Sixteen years ago our first born, a son, almost eighteen years old, died of leukemia.  Since then I've cried a number of times but I never let go as I do now. For a minute I have spasms of sobbing, and a growing sense of purging release. When I regain some of my composure I tell the group why I let go. 

     Don gets up and hugs me and I hug him around his waist.  Then Tim  comes to shake my hand, saying slowly, gently, "Doc, I got to hand it to you. You're okay.  But don't you think you have to come home too?"  The man on my left holds my hand. The  man on my right puts his arm around my shoulder and I put my head on his shoulder and a new burst of  wailing  sobs rack my chest. 

     After a minute I stop crying, feeling   peaceful and sad.  Chaplain Mike nods at me, says quietly that it is time to stop the group.  Everyone gets up except me.  Several patients come over to shake my hand, one tells me, "You're a man," another says, "Even though you ain't been to Nam you belong in the group."  I look up, seeing that Mike is the only one left and he's standing a few feet away from me, waiting. I get up and we hug and I cry some more.  Quietly I say, "Thanks, Mike."  He says, "God bless you, sir."

     Later that afternoon after I Finnish my out-patient clinic I  come out of my office, and T.J. is sitting in the  empty waiting room. I  am uncertain, begin to worry that something is wrong.  "What're you doing here, T.J.?  Are you all right?  "He smiles softly, saying,  "I'm fine.  I came to see if you are all right." 

     I sigh loudly, nod my head, tears in my eyes.  I say,  "I feel as if I've been walking around with a heavy weight on my shoulders and now it's not there anymore."  He takes my arm, holding it gently and says,   "Me and the other guys were talking about you. Like we were worried about you."

     We sit down in the waiting room and I tell him the details of my son's illness and death.  I cry quietly and so does T.J.  He offers me his hanky but I shake my head, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.  He takes my hand and wipes it with his hanky.   He says, "I'm glad for you Doc.  Another reason I came over was to tell you that I called Dicky Lee's parents, told them what happened and said I'll be coming to visit  them after I get out of the hospital."  He nods his head vigorously and says, " I feel much better.  How about you?"

"Me too." 

T.J.'s summary of his experience, twenty-four hours later.

     Much of yesterday's group is unclear in my mind.  I was mostly locked in on you and the pictures I was seeing in my mind.  During the early part I was only vaguely conscious of the other people in the room.  When you called a "time out" and asked if I would help you was when the group came back into focus.  When you fell to the floor and asked me if I would help you, I looked around the room.  There were many with tears in their eyes and others with concern.  There were a couple who showed anger but somehow I knew the anger was not directed at me.  I felt caring and kinship  and understanding.   I wanted very much to help you up but I had a strong feeling that I wanted to run.  I didn't know where I would go and something was telling me I had to stay and help you.   I think it was then that Tim  came to me and told me I should go to you, which I did.   When I got you up I felt like I was going to fall myself and I held on to you.  You  hugged me and it seemed all of my strength left me for a moment.  When I started back to my  chair, Tim,  and  then you, told me I was "going home."  I felt a release of tension and a strong feeling of support.  After I returned to my chair, members of the group came to me and offered support and  then I saw that you were broken up too and that the group was offering support to you as well.  This created an even stronger feeling of belonging in me.

A summary of the group experience written by a Tim, received several days after the group. (copied verbatim).

To Whom Concerned!,

     I am a VietNam Veteran and recent patient of ATU, [Addiction Treatment Unit], & the P.T.S.D. Program, would like too bring to the attention of, not only Patients trying to recover but to all concerned, that God has led me too this Hospital of the V.A. Medical Center, Tumpalega, Ala.   I would like too share an emotional experience that I  saw

yesterday with a friend and Dr. Irving Bronsky, while in Group (Vietnam).  This Veteran (T.J.) whom I found as a friend & a man suffering from an experience from Vietnam!, a Nightmare that like so many vets has  suffered and used too destroy there lives & there Loved ones!  Dr. Bronsky pushed T.J. into confession of that experience (The experience is of Great Importance too Release) A memory that has been haunting T.J.,  My emotions was at first too stop Dr. Bronsky, but I also know from my own experiences that this pushing must be done if We veterans are to begin to stop torturing ourselves!  Dr. Bronsky kept Pushing & and I began praying for T.J. to ask God too allow him the Freedom of this Nightmare!  & Immediately after Dr. Bronsky's attempt this was accomplished. God through Dr. Bronsky honestly was able too succeed!  I found afterward  that not only T.J. but myself and Dr. Bronsky, Chaplin Mike Dills, & the rest of the group was sharing Release of Pain & this was being shown by crying from most all of

us.  A event, that was truly a blessing from God.  Thru a wonderful man, very Concerned for all Vietnam Veterans & the human race!  I personelly Love & told this man, Dr. Irving Bronsky, a friend & a Professional that is truly sent to us from God!

Sincerely with God's Love   A friend, a Vietnam veteran

P.S.   Dr. bronsky  My Love & Respect goes to you.  From myself  A friend in Christ    

5 Years later,  May 1995.

     T.J. successfully finished the program, feeling much better.  He continued to see me in the Outpatient clinic for medication follow-up and crisis-intervention support.  Three months after finishing the program he traveled to Boston, met Dicky Lee’s parents and told them the truth.  They were very grateful.  Six months after he finished the program Dicky Lee’s parents traveled to Tumpalega on their way to Florida.  They stayed with T.J.  He arranged a memorial mass at the only catholic church in town which was traumatic, tearful but therapeutic for the three of them.  A year after finishing the program T.J. was accepted into the local college’s nursing school and graduated with top honors as a Registered Nurse.  He has been working at the Tumpalega V.A. hospital for the last four years, at first as a Nurse’s Aid and after graduation as an R.N. on the PTSD ward.  He has begun to study for his M.A .in nursing and counseling.

     I finished at the Tumpalega V.A. after five years and I am now fully retired from the practice of psychiatry.  I teach and train professionals how to cope with  PTSD in themselves and in their clients.  I lecture and teach non-professionals on coping techniques for stress situations.  In Israel there is a whole bunch of stress situations,  most of the time. I write, I go to the gym three days a week for a workout.  I spend a lot of time on the  Internet.  Every morning about 10:30 I go to have a coffee at the local cafe, sit in the sun and shmooze with the other guys my age.  I spend a lot more time with my children and grandchildren.  I even have time to drive my wife to work, and pick her up, three days a week.  My wife and I will be going to Viet Nam for a personal visit in the fall of this year.

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