SHOW LOW, Ariz.—In every war, combat veterans grapple with a profound and haunting question: Why did I survive while others did not?
Decades after the Vietnam War concluded on April 30, 1975, the weight of “survivor’s guilt” continues to overshadow many families, particularly those whose loved ones returned forever changed.
The war resulted in the loss of 58,220 U.S. soldiers. Thousands of emotionally scarred veterans returned home and were never the same again.
A Mother’s Burden
Karen Hook’s brother, Vernon Stearns, was a Green Beret in Vietnam, an elite special forces soldier coming from a family of “Army brats” who loved their flag and country.When the family went days on end without hearing from Vernon during the war, Hook could sense the effect it had on her mother.
Her mother would fall silent and try to remain strong.
Finally, the news would arrive that he was safe after another mission. The family rejoiced every time.
“It was difficult for the entire family,” Hook, 70, recalled, reflecting on the long-ago days of the Vietnam War.
“But I think it’s the mother who suffers the most out of everybody.”
In 1971, the war finally ended for her older brother.
Although he survived physically, he returned home as a changed person.
“He didn’t talk about Vietnam very much,” Hook, the director of Turn of the Card Community Center in Show Low, Arizona, told The Epoch Times.
“The only thing that was hard for him was that he came back with [post-traumatic stress disorder] and a few other things.”
Her brother had difficulty sleeping. He started having frequent night terrors that made him wake up screaming.
In his thoughts, he was experiencing the war all over again.
His wife struggled to cope with the emotional trauma and survivor’s guilt her husband experienced, but it was overwhelming.
The couple eventually decided to get a divorce.
Hook said that her brother, now deceased, never expressed his feelings about the war, as he kept them locked away in a vault of privacy.
A Recognized Condition
The Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes survivor’s guilt in veterans as a component of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).Its symptoms include recurring memories or dreams of the traumatic event, emotional numbness, irritability, and anxiety.
A corollary of PTSD and survivor’s guilt is the “moral injury” experienced by many returning soldiers because of the orders they followed.
Moral injury is not classified as a psychiatric disorder, although it shares many characteristics with PTSD, according to Veterans Affairs.
Moral injuries can arise from direct involvement in combat actions, such as killing or harming opponents or civilians.
Weight of War
On a broader level, survivor’s guilt is a terrible burden, as the soldier must also carry the weight of those who have died.“Survivor’s guilt is an often misunderstood yet profoundly impactful emotional experience, particularly prevalent among veterans,” according to Cumberland Hall Hospital in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
“Survivor’s guilt is a psychological response to surviving a situation where others have died or suffered. It is common among veterans who have returned from combat zones.”
The condition involves feelings of self-blame, depression, and sadness—powerful emotions that can be difficult to process or resolve.
Junior Garrison, 82, a veteran from Arizona, said he feels that the enduring psychological effect of war is the price one pays for having served.
Garrison served in the Army from 1961 to 1981 and spent 13 months in Vietnam.
“You know, anybody that goes to war for too long and it doesn’t affect them, there’s something wrong with them,” Garrison told The Epoch Times.
He said that some people managed to avoid the military draft during the war.
“There were a lot of people that went to Canada,” he said. “There were a lot of people that went to college.”
Garrison decided to enlist instead.
The military draft recruited more than 2 million men during the war, and about 9 million served voluntarily from a pool of approximately 27 million.
In 1969, the Army deployed Garrison’s unit to a forward air base in South Vietnam, where they encountered numerous rocket attacks from the Viet Cong.
Garrison said that he didn’t know any of the men who died in the attacks, but their deaths would stay with him forever.
“Oh, yeah. I’ve talked to a lot of people—it’s a guilty feeling,” Garrison said.
Where Have They Gone?
Mary Johnson, 83, from Arizona, lost her husband, Gary, 15 years ago when he was 67, because of complications related to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam.“He was never sick a day in his life,” Johnson said.
Agent Orange was the code name for the herbicide and defoliant used by the military during the Vietnam War, specifically in Operation Ranch Hand, which took place from 1962 to 1971.
She described her husband as a man with a dedicated military career who trained for combat.
“He was [an Army] scout dog and had a scout dog platoon,” she said.
“They were out in the jungle all the time.”
Gary Johnson’s second tour involved being an adviser to the South Vietnamese, “so he lived out in the jungle with them,” Mary Johnson said.
She said her husband decided to stay for six additional months in place of a brother, whose platoon had been “wiped out” by the North Vietnamese.
“He stayed so his brother wouldn’t have to go back,” she said.
Mary Johnson said she does not remember any signs of trauma related to combat that her husband ever displayed.
“He said the worst thing that happened to him was he stubbed his toe on the way to the showers,” she said.
However, her husband did not leave the battlefield unscathed.
He lost friends and spent years searching for other comrades after the war.
“We did find one in Las Cruces, New Mexico,” Mary Johnson said. “And there was one—his last name was Ivy. [Gary] tried and tried and tried to find him.
“He never found him—and he was sad about that.”
Ronald Eugene Hudson, 74, divides his time between Arizona and Costa Rica.
He spent 26 years in the Navy and served during the Vietnam War.
“I talked with one guy. If I remember, he was from Kansas,” Hudson said. “He said he felt guilty that he came back alive. And half of the friends that he was in the company with didn’t even come back at all.”
‘They Were Soldiers, and Young’
Marty Jarvey from Lakeside, Arizona, was a member of the Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War.As a nurse, she witnessed the devastating aftermath of the war while supporting U.S. soldiers in North Vietnamese prison camps.
“You were there to help them, and then, all of a sudden, they died,” Jarvey said. “Skinny, bones, no hair.”
She said it was even harder to see how they looked in photographs as young men, full of life.
Jarvey spent about three weeks traveling between the orphanages and prisoner of war camps, providing assistance to those in need and helping with the delivery of bodies for repatriation.
“Do I feel guilty? Do I feel sad because there was something I could have done to control it? There’s nothing you could control there,” Jarvey told The Epoch Times.
“The mass destruction was already there. What were you going to do?”
One day, while living in Southern California, Hook’s father built a flagpole in the family’s front yard. He raised Old Glory, around which they gathered to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
She recalled this as a happy time in her childhood when war and heartache felt distant.
“I remember it as the most wonderful country in the world,” Hook said. “I still feel that way.”
