The New York Times reports that a new study, financed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, show that most Vietnam War veterans who had persistent post-traumatic stress a decade or more after serving have shown surprisingly little improvement since then, and a large percentage have died.
A vast majority of veterans learn to cope.
Yet most of those who do not — 11 percent, in the Vietnam sample — could live with traumatic stress for the remainder of their lives. An estimated 13 percent of current active-duty soldiers and 10 percent of Marines have post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, characterized by disabling flashbacks, hyper-arousal and sleep problems, and about 120,000 sought treatment in 2012, according to government figures.
Read Combat Stress Among Veterans Is Found to Persist Since Vietnam