Response for a Disabled Veteran in the Family From Academy of Political Science

“The Disabled Veteran in the Family”, written by Ernest and Harriet Mowrer is an informative essay that shows the many hardships that a returning wartime veteran and his family will often confront. The essay tells about how family and friends will want to hear all of the soldiers war stories, but he should resist from telling them because it will not help him to remember them. It gives advice for spouses to deal with the disability that will affect the whole family upon the veterans return. The divorce rate for disabled veterans will be increasingly high and it gives advice on how to avoid this. When veterans return from a war zone they are not able to enjoy the things they once had and this causes them to feel even more disabled. Not only does it discuss the married veterans but also gives advice to the unmarried and their loved ones. One of the largest factors that trouble disabled veterans and their families would have to be economic problems. The veteran will most likely have to go back to school and the result of this will be a role reversal between the spouses. The woman will have to work while the husband either stays home or goes to school. It also touches on a veteran coming home to children and how to deal with his absence and disability. Medicine and psychiatry will also play an integral part in the veteran being able to readjust to the world.

Even though this essay was written and published in 1945 it still holds true today. Especially at a time such as this when we have soldiers once again coming home from war zones disabled. It is one of the sad truths that our disabled veterans, as well as the families they return home to, must know how to deal with the hardships that they will soon face. When our soldiers return home they aren’t given very much information on how to handle their disability and there families are given even less.

Many families don’t know how to deal with a veteran when he returns home. As stated in the article, imagine if a soldier’s wife keeps an elaborately decorated Christmas tree, even though it has been months since Christmas, awaiting her husband’s return. This actually makes the readjustment for a veteran even more difficult than if she had just took it down. It is impossible for him to resurrect the past and not be disappointed by the experience. Being a veteran myself and being deployed to Iraq during Christmas, I didn’t need anything reminding me that I missed Christmas since all it would make me think about was Iraq.