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ALMOST half of Australia’s Vietnam War veterans experienced extreme difficulty settling into a job after returning from military service, research has found.
By Roberta Mancuso
ALMOST half of Australia’s Vietnam War veterans experienced extreme
difficulty settling into a job after returning from military service,
research has found.
The study has been released a day before the 30th anniversary of the
war’s end, when Saigon capitulated to the communists and was
subsequently re-named Ho Chi Minh City.
James Cook University political historian Janine Hiddlestone said a
study of 40 north Queensland Vietnam War veterans found 44 per cent
struggled to "fit in" after finding employment in the civilian world.
She said many went through jobs at a rapid rate because of workplace
backlash to their involvement in war, battlefield injuries, a
sensitivity about their past and difficulty translating military skills
into civilian life.
"About 19 per cent of my group had initial problems, but all actually
got jobs," Dr Hiddlestone said today.
"It was later that some of the problems began, 44 per cent had extreme
difficulty settling down and fitting in ... and went through jobs at a
fast rate.
"This is a very common problem after war ... but it stood out a little
bit more after Vietnam because of the publicity they were getting."
Dr Hiddlestone said some interviewees were harassed by work colleagues
and clients for their involvement in the war. Others avoided veterans
altogether.
She said some returned soldiers developed a sensitivity to their time
spent in the military and regarded questions such as "How many people
did you kill?" as a personal attack.
"Because there was a public backlash they were often oversensitive to
things that were not meant to be insulting," she said.
The study also found high rates of job-hopping, with one interviewee
having 12 jobs in 14 years.
Dr Hiddlestone said about 60 per cent of interviewees had been affected
by post traumatic stress disorder, while the early onset of illnesses
and conditions such as hearing loss, back problems and landmine
injuries, which eventuated into severe arthritis, "shortened their work
time dramatically".
She said many veterans were bitter towards the federal government for a
lack of support services.
A 51-year-old interviewee said: "They wound us up and they didn’t wind
us down. I couldn’t settle into a job. Fifteen to 20 years of my life is
pretty much missing."
Forum posts
1 May 2005, 07:16
I don’t feel sorry for them. Approximately 3 million Vietnamese got killed for a phony theorie.
1 May 2005, 08:39
The Vietnam vets are victims of the Kleenex policy. Everyone knows how much we value a Kleenex when we need one, but after we have used it to satisfy our need we all dispose of them. The Vietnam vets are just used Kleenex to our government, and the Gulf War veterans too, about 50 thousand of them are sick and dying from cancers of every description, Gulf War syndrome (from radiation poisioning by D.U. ammunition) and the Iraq war victims are already getting the used Kleenex treatment with no armorement for their vehicles, etc., no protection from the dust being kicked up in their faces that is laden with D.U. contaminated soil, their benefits have been cut, they are treated like non persons by the government that will not acknowledge them by trying to hide their dead bodies and downplaying their casualties and totally ignoring the thousands and thousands of injured that are hidden away in Germany and other places where their maimed and ripped apart bodies can’t be seen here at home. But the government will give them a purple heart and hope they will go away quietly, back to the families who didn’t care enough about them to help them find alternatives to going over to do Uncle Sam’s dirty work for him.