Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has received a lot of attention in recent years particularly with regard to its impact on first-responders and young veterans returning from tours of Afghanistan and Iraq. What is the experience, however, of older veterans who served in wars decades prior, who have lived with undiagnosed PTSD for many years? Meet Ken Seybold, a 66 year-old Vietnam veteran. "He believes he was the first in his hometown of Latrobe, Pa., to enlist and the first to return from the war. 'There was no one to talk to about being in Vietnam,' he said. 'If you tried, they would say ‘Get over it. That was yesterday.’ No one else could understand what I went through.' At night, he walked the edges of his yard, sat in the garage or on his front porch, staying awake to see the sunrise. During the war, his best friend, struck in the chest by a mortar, crawled 75 feet to ask him to tell his wife he loved her. 'I felt guilty that I made it back and he didn’t,” said Mr. Seybold, who later delivered the dying man’s message." Once he was recently diagnosed with PTSD and started attending a regular therapy group with other veterans he felt relieved to know he wasn't alone in his experience. To read more about PTSD in aging veterans check out this great article from the Wall Street Journal.
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