'The Vicarious Power of Traumatic Stress'{Updated}

The following is a report from ABC News tonight, 4-02-06
Father’s War Became Daughter’s Nightmare
Vietnam Vet Shared Too Many Horrors With Daughter

Danielle Trussoni says her father’s post-traumatic stress disorder affected her. (ABCNEWS.com)

The following quote is further in the story
“At the time she only knew that his scars had become her own.”

The title comes from a comment on what Danielle experianced excepting her fathers confidence of releasing his own demons on her and her exceptance, help and love.

April 2, 2006 — Danielle Trussoni hopes her children will remember fun and happy times. It would be a stark contrast from the memories she has — of a war she never fought but that irrevocably shaped her life.

Father’s War Became Daughter’s War

Dan Trussoni eventually came back to the United States but brought the war’s horror home with him. In 1973, he started a family, but his nightmares eventually drove his wife away. Danielle, Daddy’s little girl and namesake, chose to stay with her father while her brother and sister went to live with their mother.
At the age of 12, she became her father’s confidante.

The years Danielle Trussoni should have spent socializing with friends, shopping and going to parties, she spent in dark bars, listening to war stories and taking her father home when he’d had too much to drink.

Visiting Vietnam

Seven years ago, Danielle Trussoni decided to confront her father’s demons, now hers too. She traveled to Vietnam, even climbing into one of the tunnels where her father had faced constant terror 30 years earlier, hoping that in some way this would release her from reliving her father’s past.

What finally did free Danielle was the decision to write about her father. She interviewed him on tape and documented the conversations about the Vietnam War in a new book called, “Falling Through the Earth.”

Her father died of throat cancer at age 61 and was buried last month, the weekend her book was published.
“He and I made peace about it,” Trussoni said. “I think there is no way that I will ever totally make peace with it. This is something that is with me for the rest of my life.”

Video From News Report:Dad’s War Wounds Haunt Daughter

Continuing Video Beyond Report: Coping with Dad’s Past

There are other links, on PTSD, and the Broadcast at ABC News.com, which you will see once visiting and reading the rest of the story of Danielle, in the links above.

I put this together in rather a hurry as I wanted to get it out there and I’m abit tired!

As I’ve stated, in remarks on these sites, This Country Had Better Be Prepared and Give Back To The Now Returning Vets and Their Families This Time, It Didn’t Want To Before!!

This Country also better be Prepared for what may come from the Children Now Actually Living those Tragic Experiances, in Iraq and Afganistan!!
For we waged War, and are Fighting, against many who were the Kids of the 1st Gulf War, the bombings, the highway of death, the loss of family members and others…………..!
And in Todays World will they Lash Out as have some Leading Up To This, think about it!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Never again shall one generation of veterans abandon another.”

4 Comments

jimstaro on April 3, 2006 at 5:36 am

That ‘Hardball’ will be covering PTSD on todays show.

In an ad for the show yesterday they mentioned it was going to be about PTSD.

I don’t usually watch it but will try and connect tonight.

jimstaro on April 3, 2006 at 5:53 am

U.S. Plan to Build Iraq Clinics Falters
BAGHDAD — A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.
(By Ellen Knickmeyer, The Washington Post)

Clinics not only for physical injuries but mental as well

sybil on April 3, 2006 at 9:36 am

It was a terrible burden for a country to impose on a man and then for a man to impose on his child, now grown up to be a courageous woman. I shudder to think of what the veterans from Iraq have witnessed.

jimstaro on April 3, 2006 at 3:00 pm

At My DKOS Diary Posting of this ABC Story:

i dug listening to my dad’s

and grandfather’s war stories.
Now, learning how to kill some one during hand to hand combat at age six, waking 2 hours before school started to do chores and then dreading going home after school because of what happened if i didn’t pass my old man’s inspection, crawling through the riverbed at night when he was boozed up and flashbacking, walking around the house on pins and needles because it was always just a matter of time before I’d be getting my “maggot trainee” ass-chewing and associated ass whipping, dealing with the rage that comes along with secondary PTSD not knowing why you feel so angry all of the time, unable to have deep friendships because you always kept those close to you at a thousand yard distance, being unable to relate with your peers because living with PTSD’d daddy made you wise beyond your years, having naive child shrinks trying to “fix” your head with their psycho babble (and heaven forbid they try to dose you with drugs. PTSD isn’t curable by medicine and shrinks contrary to what the dr.s say. Drugs don’t cure the damaged soul and neither do the empty words and mind games of a shrink), and the whole slew of other shit that came with having a PTSD’d dad who did 2 tours in vietnam with a 49 confirmed body count, and 1 year as a D.I. (not mention whatever secondary PTSD he got from his father/my grandfather (wwII vet) I could’ve had definately down without. It didn’t kill me ( though I’m sure it did others since I came across a study that took place in Austrailia that stated children of vietnam veterans had higher suicide rates that regular kids in the population), and it sure made me a hell of a lot stronger and wiser. I’d exchange the strength and wisdom for normality in a heartbeat.
it’s why i hate war. It doesn’t stop with the veteran. It trickles its poison down the family line working it’s wonderful magic. At 33, I still deal with the impact of a crazy ass childhood. I’m fortunate since I was able to extricate myself to some degree out of the secondary PTSD funk and live a somewhat well adjusted life. hell, i bet i (and people like Danielle) got more PTSD than peacetime serving vets.
I’ve had the chance to met with vets of kids and it amazes how we connect instantly like two war veterans from the same unit meeting long after the war ended. I bet if I were to meet Danielle, we’d click like two old war buddies in a matter of seconds.
The fucked up thing about it is that we didn’t get “medals” and we live in the shadows. Our fathers had a war to pin their fucked-up-ness on. We have nothing. We are not only ghosts in this society, but ghosts to ourselves. But hey, in America its “tough-shit” and “get over it”. And so we do. yeah right.
I’m a pretty hard mo-fo with extremely thick skin, but there is one thing that breaks my fucking heart. It’s knowing with a 100% certainty that there will be many children that will go through the same shit I went through as a kid (and I’m sure much worse). Many kids will not have childhoods and will grow up in fear, anger, isolation, violence. The childhood of a combat vet kid is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but yet we have wished it on another generation.
Gotta love war.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I answered the above but don’t think I made much sense as I was extremely tired, and reading his post just plain grabbed me and left me speachless!
Shutdown puter and went to bed. Kept thinking about what was said ‘Openly’ and couldn’t sleep. Got up, turned this back on, and wrote the following, which I always think about as to War and PTSD:

I Wanted To Add….

And couldn’t sleep untill I did.
As you and Danielle have Experianced and Spoken on the Demons, this Country also better be Prepared for what may come from the Children Now Actually Living those Tragic Experiances, in Iraq and Afganistan!!
For we waged War, and are Fighting, against many who were the Kids of the 1st Gulf War, the bombings, the highway of death…………..!
And in Todays World will they Lash Out as have some Leading Up To This!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

His reply to the above shortly after:

yeah, that’s a good point.

it’s its something i used to think about when i was a kid going through this shit. I would wonder how the kids in Vietnam were dealing with it since I knew their experience with PTSD was 10000x worse than what I probably dealth with (we’re whimps compared to the shit other people can take on the chin.) It’s probably why i got along pretty well with vietnamese/cambodian kids when i was in elementary/jr. high school. Though I was a chicano kid from east l.a., there was shared meta-experience that i felt i was connected to.
Anyhow, from my experience, secondary PTSD gives you one mean ass grudge against the circumstances that created the chaotic environment in which you find yourself in (if you have no cultural system that allows for mitigating PTSD a la thousand years of hitory like China or Japan). My guess is that we created a whole slew of kids in the middle east that are going to feel like they have a score to settle against the “invaders”. I’m sure the blowback from this won’t be pleasant in the long run. The funny thing is that one way to diffuse this sort of thing to some extent would be for the U.S. to offer a publica apology for its destruction. Recognition can go a loooooooooooooong way in calming the rage born of injustice that exists in those that have been screwed. I doubt that’ll happen though coz we Americans to apologize to no one. We have more of a “pretend it didn’t happen and sink into denial and repeat the same mistake twenty years later” frame of mind.
About the Danieles book, I probably wouldn’t have the nuts to read through it. I’d either get pissed or depressed all over again. I lived it and it’s something that’s taken me decades of painful introspection and self-therapy to wipe away from my memory. heck, i just get all worked up reading guest book entries from the Children of Vietnam Veterans website.

There are Sooo Many things about War and why it should never happen, but PTSD of the Military and never thought of Civilian Populations should be Front and Center as to it Being The Absolute Last Resort!!

jimstaro on April 3, 2006 at 5:36 am

That ‘Hardball’ will be covering PTSD on todays show.

In an ad for the show yesterday they mentioned it was going to be about PTSD.

I don’t usually watch it but will try and connect tonight.
jimstaro on April 3, 2006 at 5:53 am

U.S. Plan to Build Iraq Clinics Falters
BAGHDAD — A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.
(By Ellen Knickmeyer, The Washington Post)

Clinics not only for physical injuries but mental as well
sybil on April 3, 2006 at 9:36 am

It was a terrible burden for a country to impose on a man and then for a man to impose on his child, now grown up to be a courageous woman. I shudder to think of what the veterans from Iraq have witnessed.
jimstaro on April 3, 2006 at 3:00 pm

At My DKOS Diary Posting of this ABC Story:

i dug listening to my dad’s

and grandfather’s war stories.
Now, learning how to kill some one during hand to hand combat at age six, waking 2 hours before school started to do chores and then dreading going home after school because of what happened if i didn’t pass my old man’s inspection, crawling through the riverbed at night when he was boozed up and flashbacking, walking around the house on pins and needles because it was always just a matter of time before I’d be getting my “maggot trainee” ass-chewing and associated ass whipping, dealing with the rage that comes along with secondary PTSD not knowing why you feel so angry all of the time, unable to have deep friendships because you always kept those close to you at a thousand yard distance, being unable to relate with your peers because living with PTSD’d daddy made you wise beyond your years, having naive child shrinks trying to “fix” your head with their psycho babble (and heaven forbid they try to dose you with drugs. PTSD isn’t curable by medicine and shrinks contrary to what the dr.s say. Drugs don’t cure the damaged soul and neither do the empty words and mind games of a shrink), and the whole slew of other shit that came with having a PTSD’d dad who did 2 tours in vietnam with a 49 confirmed body count, and 1 year as a D.I. (not mention whatever secondary PTSD he got from his father/my grandfather (wwII vet) I could’ve had definately down without. It didn’t kill me ( though I’m sure it did others since I came across a study that took place in Austrailia that stated children of vietnam veterans had higher suicide rates that regular kids in the population), and it sure made me a hell of a lot stronger and wiser. I’d exchange the strength and wisdom for normality in a heartbeat.
it’s why i hate war. It doesn’t stop with the veteran. It trickles its poison down the family line working it’s wonderful magic. At 33, I still deal with the impact of a crazy ass childhood. I’m fortunate since I was able to extricate myself to some degree out of the secondary PTSD funk and live a somewhat well adjusted life. hell, i bet i (and people like Danielle) got more PTSD than peacetime serving vets.
I’ve had the chance to met with vets of kids and it amazes how we connect instantly like two war veterans from the same unit meeting long after the war ended. I bet if I were to meet Danielle, we’d click like two old war buddies in a matter of seconds.
The fucked up thing about it is that we didn’t get “medals” and we live in the shadows. Our fathers had a war to pin their fucked-up-ness on. We have nothing. We are not only ghosts in this society, but ghosts to ourselves. But hey, in America its “tough-shit” and “get over it”. And so we do. yeah right.
I’m a pretty hard mo-fo with extremely thick skin, but there is one thing that breaks my fucking heart. It’s knowing with a 100% certainty that there will be many children that will go through the same shit I went through as a kid (and I’m sure much worse). Many kids will not have childhoods and will grow up in fear, anger, isolation, violence. The childhood of a combat vet kid is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but yet we have wished it on another generation.
Gotta love war.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I answered the above but don’t think I made much sense as I was extremely tired, and reading his post just plain grabbed me and left me speachless!
Shutdown puter and went to bed. Kept thinking about what was said ‘Openly’ and couldn’t sleep. Got up, turned this back on, and wrote the following, which I always think about as to War and PTSD:

I Wanted To Add….

And couldn’t sleep untill I did.
As you and Danielle have Experianced and Spoken on the Demons, this Country also better be Prepared for what may come from the Children Now Actually Living those Tragic Experiances, in Iraq and Afganistan!!
For we waged War, and are Fighting, against many who were the Kids of the 1st Gulf War, the bombings, the highway of death…………..!
And in Todays World will they Lash Out as have some Leading Up To This!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

His reply to the above shortly after:

yeah, that’s a good point.

it’s its something i used to think about when i was a kid going through this shit. I would wonder how the kids in Vietnam were dealing with it since I knew their experience with PTSD was 10000x worse than what I probably dealth with (we’re whimps compared to the shit other people can take on the chin.) It’s probably why i got along pretty well with vietnamese/cambodian kids when i was in elementary/jr. high school. Though I was a chicano kid from east l.a., there was shared meta-experience that i felt i was connected to.
Anyhow, from my experience, secondary PTSD gives you one mean ass grudge against the circumstances that created the chaotic environment in which you find yourself in (if you have no cultural system that allows for mitigating PTSD a la thousand years of hitory like China or Japan). My guess is that we created a whole slew of kids in the middle east that are going to feel like they have a score to settle against the “invaders”. I’m sure the blowback from this won’t be pleasant in the long run. The funny thing is that one way to diffuse this sort of thing to some extent would be for the U.S. to offer a publica apology for its destruction. Recognition can go a loooooooooooooong way in calming the rage born of injustice that exists in those that have been screwed. I doubt that’ll happen though coz we Americans to apologize to no one. We have more of a “pretend it didn’t happen and sink into denial and repeat the same mistake twenty years later” frame of mind.
About the Danieles book, I probably wouldn’t have the nuts to read through it. I’d either get pissed or depressed all over again. I lived it and it’s something that’s taken me decades of painful introspection and self-therapy to wipe away from my memory. heck, i just get all worked up reading guest book entries from the Children of Vietnam Veterans website.

There are Sooo Many things about War and why it should never happen, but PTSD of the Military and never thought of Civilian Populations should be Front and Center as to it Being The Absolute Last Resort!!

‘The Vicarious Power of Traumatic Stress'{Updated}

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jimstaro

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