University Daily Kansan, March 25, 1983
Page 9
Hospital stress unit helps Vietnam veterans find hope again
By JIM BOLE Staff Reporter
TOPERA — A large map of Vietnam hangs in a hall of the Colmery-O'Neil Veterans Administration Medical Center in Topeka Strands of red yarn connect the 24 patients' names to the places where they fought. The words "We Served" are tacked below the map.
One of those strands of red yarn leads to the name Don Humphrey.
Humphrey, 33, returned from VIetnam in 1971 and for the last eight months he has been a patient at Colmery'O'Neil.
"WAR IS HELL"; when you get back,
it means "Humans have had work
it's worse." Humphrey said last week. He is a patient in the hospital's pneumatic trauma unit. The unit helps keep veterans from problems that emerged after the war.
The unit, which opened last July, is the only one of its kind in Kansas, and is the second largest of six similar facilities in the nation, said Carroll Olble, psychologist and coordinator of the unit.
This month the staff is evaluating the performance of the unit to determine whether it can handle more than the current capacity of 24 patients and possibly offer out-patient service. Ohide said.
THE TREATMENT program for the veterans was originally envisioned to last from two to eight months, but the
staff is deciding whether the length of treatment needs to be changed, he said.
Craig Belt, 32, who has been a patient for two months, said he had begun to understand his problems and why he had them.
"You don't come back from war the same person," he said.
When he got back from Vietnam, he said, he became despondent and avoided responsibility, problems and the people close to him.
"Without realizing it, I had gotten into a frame of behavior where I wouldn't commit myself to anything," he said.
Obile said that in the nine months since the ward opened, about 50 Vietnam veterans had been helped. About 30,000 veterans and about 12 veterans are on a waiting list.
OF THE 26 who have left, about seven overcame most of their problems, eight left solving some of their problems, five left the ward prematurely and six have returned for treatment, he said.
Ohlds said that the staff of 20 tried to encourage veterans to uncover feelings and experiences about the Vietnam War that they had kept inside, and then helped them set aside the war and reign society.
"They have to grieve the loss, mourn the hurt and then let it go, knowing you can't change it and working toward accepting it," he said.
Veterans in the unit must be willing to undergo treatment and are required
THE WARD offers family-relationship counseling, relaxation and assertiveness training, vocational planning and physical exercise; he
The problems that Belt, Humphrey and other Vietnam veterans experience also face veterans from other wars and victims of other serious traumas such as the 1981 Hyatt Regency disaster, Olide said.
After someone goes through a trauma, emotions can become bottled up inside the person, he said, and sometimes traumas are covered up so well that those feelings do not emerge until years later.
The principal symptoms of post-traumatic stress include nightmares, flashbacks, depression, guilt, anxiety, hyper-alertness, stimuli reminiscent of the trauma, avoidance of contact with others, lack of concentration and rage, be said.
Those who fought in the Korean War and World War II experienced more stress disorders on the battlefield than after the wars, he said.
MANY VICTIMS of the Hyatt hotel disaster had counseling immediately after the trauma occurred, which resulted in a number of post-traumatic stress, he said.
A pamphlet by Jim Goodwin, a psychologist and Vietnam veteran, said that the percentage of those taken from the battlefield for psychiatric reasons
Vietnam veterans compose the largest group treated for emotional problems after a war because psychiatrists have recognized the problem only in recent years, and because the war differed from other wars, he said.
The average age of draftees decreased from 26 years old in World War II, to 19 years old in Vietnam, he said. In World War II, members of
THE AVERAGE soldier, sailor, Marine or airman in Vietnam was younger, went to war alone, returned to college, often scorned by the public, he said.
to attend individual psychotherapy and peer-support groups, he said.
Men who fought in Vietnam had a DEROS, the date of expected return from overseas, which relieved stress during the war. But they flow over home, joined a unit, fought for at least 12 hours and then went home alone, he said.
military units were sent over together but Vietnam veterans experienced the difficulties.
At 19 or 20, an age when ideas and values were still being formed, the Vietnam veteran was sometimes molded by the trauma of war, he said.
"THE WHOLE idea that life is for living is shattered to bits when you find a buddy laying in a bush, killed by the enemy," he said.
many_veritas_were_not welcomed home. he said.
When they returned from Vietnam
Oblide said, "They were dumped in a society that basically said 'Don't talk to me.'"
"You didn't like what you had done, but when you came home, you were treated like it was your fault," Belt said.
A poem by one of the patients rests in a glass case in a hallway of the unit, summing up the feelings of these war-torn men. It ends with this verse;
declined from 23 percent in World War II to 6 percent in Korea and to 1.2 percent in Vietnam.
"Ten years have only made the sounds and sights more clearer, and, if possible, more painful yet; This is the freedom we so unknowingly fought for, and still another night."
The Remington Honor Medal, the pharmaceutical profession's highest honor.
Higuchi, who has been at the University of Kansas for 16 years, will accept the award April 10 at the university's annual meeting in New Orleans.
TAKERU HIGUCHI, chairman of the department of pharmaceutical chemistry, is the 1983 recipient of the Albert M. Foster Award and Association's Remington Honor Medal.
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milestones
Kurt Kessler, fourth year medical student, received the Marshall B. and C. medal in the surgical field.
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FOUR STUDENTS at the University of
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Lyle Sinor, pathology graduate student, received the William Cooper and Kate Avis McPike scholarship.
Mark Redick, anatomy graduate student, received the Julie K. Eagle Memorial Scholarship, intended to assist cancer research.
Use Kansan Classified.
Larue Watson, graduate student in radiation therapy technology, received the Frank Dewitt Bennett and Zoe Burke Award for women involved in cancer research.
Kansas Medical Center have received scholarships through the Kansas University Endowment Association for the 1983 semester.
A KU SENIOR has been nominated by the KU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi to compete for the society's graduate fellowship.
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