Posted on Dec 31, 2016
PO3 Aaron Hassay
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How many other Vietnam Combat Vet Children are their out there like me born to a dad falling apart leaving young mom's w/no VA support into poverty confusion to look forward?

I read a lot of Baby Boomers were raised by untreated PTSD WW2 Soldier Sailors in cold not so caring homes.

I think the fabric of any country is healthy parenting.

I do not blame the SM.

Do leaders realize the casualty?
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
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Edited 9 y ago
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PO3 Aaron Hassay as you know Aaron in our many discussions my father (Donald F. Burroughs) Korean War Veteran and Purple Heart receipting suffered from PTSD his entire life right up to the end on October 7, 2016 when he passed away. Because of his PTSD we never got along at all up through age 17 when I got him and my mother to sign my enlistement papers into the US Army in January 1975. It took a life threatening critical event in his life when I was age 36 when I found out about all of his demons, troubles, and issues that led to me and my brother really not liking our father. All of our lives changed after that day and me and my brother came to understand, appreciate, and love the man that brought us into this world. We buried him with honors on October 7th of this year! I have a good understanding as we've discussed many times on the phone my friend. 2017 will be a good year for you Aaron I know it will - take care my friend!

You posted a great question and I'd like to dhare it with many other connections - I hope you don;t mind Aaron.



SPC Beth Lynch Jason Pistulka Cpl Joshua Caldwell CPO Mark Woten PO1 Rodney Bracey CAPT John McCandless SGM Bill Frazer SSgt Boyd Herrst
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Pmc Mcb
Pmc Mcb
9 y
PFC James Craft - You could definitely run a dojo type business, focus on personal safety, women's safety (like best moves to stun/stop an attacker & get away quickly, and safely). Channeling your expertise could help a lot of people, and yourself in the process.
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
Mr. Burroughs For President if ever that position opened for a real leader
He is a leader walking the walk not talking the talk.
I served with the best of intentions knowing there are men in America like him.
I put my honor my pride my dignity to protect my own country based on this kind of friendship he brings.
In summary:
True Friend
True Warrior
True Man
True Survivor
True Leader
Real American
Real Human
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
COL Mikel J. Burroughs
9 y
PO3 Aaron Hassay - Thank you Aaron - I appreciate the kind comments and I look forward to our long friendship over the years!
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
MCPO Michael Preston - Master Chief for what it is worth I will add my 2 cents. Remember Man-Overboard and any other Casualty type events? In the essence of Shipmates bonding brotherhood sisterhood I finally notice 1 flaw in noticing casualties. It seems warriors that escape true torment have secure nuclear families off ship. Our military families young mother and younger brother sister. Notice how I did not include a father in this? I did not have a father to rely on. I remember when I begged in my brain assigned to my ship gosh I wish I could call me dad the dad I did not know because I am hurting. O I know wows me. I am a crybaby. But when the operational stress of a combat ship life gets a bit much some young sailors call home to a dad who probably gives them some wisdom. Much better a younger sailor with a dad who is a Navy Vet himself to give some very sage advice to calm rough seas. The leaders on the ship are not your father and do not pretend to be. They are operational and do not notice or care about personal feelings in operational occupational stress. So you can not act week with them. If you do act week with a salty e9 or LPO's in Deck, when you are 18 on a guided missile frigate you run the risk of being accused of malingering. There are not Psych Doctors on the ship of course. There is just a salty e7 Corpsman who considers everything fit for duty save a limb removed from a synthetic mooring line parting. Now lets just say the e9 is really salty and adheres to a a justice system of Fan Room Counseling, then your 18 year old life just became much more treacherous. What am I trying to say. The younger sailors young mom, younger brother sister see the emotional change from calm to cold angry bitter stressed. The young service members family pays the emotional toll watching their once healthy young High School Varsity Athlete and Meritorious Paygrade Advanced Great Lakes Chicago Recruit Graduate slide into a silent dark place. Then add on the fact that the missing father he could not call was found after service discovered alarmingly soberingly a Honorably Served Army Infantry 1966-1968 Vietnam Veteran. His illness from Vietnam Service Incpacitated him, this strong man, to the point where he could not caretake for me his young family any longer. His dad, my grandpa was later discovered and validated as a ww2 Lifer Navy Blue Water Engineman who passed away in his 50s due lung disease due most probably asbestos in the engineroom on those ships. My dad the Vietnam Combat Vet I describe was not raised by his own dad, became an orphan basically, passed around, my grandpa who was in ww2 and sailing the the open seas. I never met my grandpa. What happens when you take away the closest men of a young mans life, his own male family leaders, and he joins the miltiary 18 looking for family? What happens to his young mom and younger brother and sister? I wonder what happens to any young service member in similar situation? I notice 1 thing in all most all Valient Warrior stories of success in dealing, coping, growing, healing etc. They have a family to depend on that can take that blow and can absorb that blow and does not fragment on impact. No warrior I have met or read stories of is an island who healed themselves. When they were injured psycholigcally or physically either some good in-serivce command support happened on their behalf, and or a very strong loving nuclear family support system. Take those 2 things away from a young SM and you leave a Man-overboard.


By the way Master Chief thank you for your service. I truly mean that. Thanks for sharing your story.

I am still trying to figure things out.
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Maj John Bell
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My Dad was a decorated Navy fighter pilot during WWII and Korea. He loved the Navy, loved service members, and loved to tell sea stories, but never any about his war experiences. When I was commissioned in the Marines he handed me his flight logs, his war time diaries, his medals and the accompanying citations. Three of his war buddies were there. My conversation with him and his friends that day are too deeply personal to discuss here. But they were not negative. He and they had a unique perspectives on life, harmony, and contentment. They were able to take away the best lessons from the ugliest of experiences.
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
Last 1 for the day to reply.

Thank you for sharing Major Bell. It is interesting to hear other Veteran Stories Dependent and otherwise.

I analyze for similarity and difference the the reasons for each compared my veteran dependent story.

I see a difference.

My grandpa I never met on my fathers side I recently discovered was a Lifer Blue Water Navy Engineman of course who passed away I heard in a hospital in Kentucky due lung problems. And then I found out about Asbestos recently also and its use on Navy ships especially for Engineman.

This is the same grandpa who fathered my dad but was not able to raise my dad because of service.

This is the same grandpa my dad really wanted to see but never saw but irregulary. My dad told me in 1 story that he would go to the train station from adopted parents and wait for his dads return for some time on a bike. Can you imagine???

This is the same dad, my dad, who would have me, only later to be discovered to be Army infantry 66-68 Radio Operator. If you read my other listings you will see my dad fell apart unable to raise me completely by the time I was 8 approximetaly.

I still graduated high school on time a Varsity Letterman enlisting into what I was recruited was a Navy Enlisted to Officer Program but in reality it is being discovered was a shut down scuttled mismanaged drawn down odd little program that assigned me to some odd test units on some rare Navy Combat Ships where I would basically loose my future.

I am trying to share and be understood.

I see a difference in being officers vrs enlisted. But we are all brothers in this.

Yet I feel so alone as if the world has passed me by and I am on SSDI for anxiety and mood disorder.

Where is the brotherhood in this?
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Sgt Field Radio Operator
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Edited 9 y ago
I am a Vietnam combat veteran. War is hell for all ivolved in them including the families. War does not create glamorized warriors, even though TV and the movies try to do this. War does not create non glamorized families and imperfect families and children.
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
Mr. Hallock,

Without trying to be to descriptive I can only relate to being a son of one of you guys, and my dad a 66-68 Army Infantry soon became ill unable to be a healthy dad, not his fault.
I found out after I had served in my own separate unique stressors of duty my dad was actually a Vet himself. That is correct no one knew that before. It was discovered that my dad also was VA 100% PSYCH incompetent rated in 2005. My service eos May 2002. The coincidence that a more healthy Vietnam Combat Vet soldiered him into the VA for disability application is in Gods hands. Without that more healthy support my dad may still be in the street not even aware that Vietnam Vets are Um welcomed home by the VA some 40 years later. The coincidence I was reconnected with him is in Gods hands. The VA is correct of his 100% incompetent rating. Again not his fault. I wonder outloud how many Vietnam Combat Vets never got lucky as him some 40 years later to be service connected. I just ask what actually happens in real life in those missing 40 Years of Government Systems created under the guiding principles of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to serve and protect its own citizens would actually have such loopholes to send them to war then forget them upon return and the famiies they may attempt to have? Maybe the families Dependents young wives and children of some, alot, a few numbers uncounted Vietnam Combat Vets are unaccounted for also. So if the families of such are not glamorized, maybe they were never acknowledged in the first place by such systems.


I am still alive. I did nothing wrong. I just did not have a healthy dad, and I can say for a fact that the Test that was run on my Navy Combat Ship was not peaceful either mentally or physically.

But neither my dad nor I ran.

But in the guise of brotherhood I wonder when the ark of care will return in these systems acknowledgement of not the top 1% but the general population of honorable Vets who were not invincible?

We talk alot about brotherhood sisterhood combat in arms etc etc etc. But when is talk actually walked completely and fully like the talk. Or is it easier to talk and not to walk?

Look I sit on SSDI for anxierty and mood disorder below the poverty line now so long I do not know what it is like the American Dream.

People come from all these other countries and are tourist with big expensive cameras next to me at this coffee shop exploring the greatness of a land that I was born.

I am stressed out
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Sgt Field Radio Operator
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Cynthia Croft - Thank you. Good call.
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Does "war" in general create glamorized, perfect warriors and non-glamorized, imperfect family/mothers/children (in the same world)?
1SG Civil Affairs Specialist
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I think it matters whether history and perception judges that the war one fought in was "worth it". WWII veterans are universally revered as the greatest generation, having defeated fascism and Nazism. While plenty of those men saw unspeakable horrors, most who returned whole went on to be productive members of society.
Wars after then, the numerous undeclared wars, have had ambiguous aims, goals, and reasons for going to war in the first place. They have often been questioned by protesters and the political party not in power. Veterans of the conflicts are seldom celebrated, and sometimes reviled as "baby killers" or worse.
Facing your demons is a lot tougher when you feel like the world is against you.
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
Spoken like someone who knows the truth is better sadder more human and real then the trumped up hollywood type infomercials that are psychologically sabotaging humanity.

Ego is a weightless sum that kills good.

I have been taught all that is real. But one day you wake up and say wow I was in a cave.

Platos Aristotle Allegory of the Cave recently made so much more sense recently.

Still I need to hold on to my human self and realize humans make mistakes.


But not all humans are men and women. Some humans are snakes.

I can no longer "trump", no pun intended, up propoganda leaving VETS the unspoken toll.

When someone can get an 18 year old girl or boy to do the most dangerous things and then not protect 100% that young mans life with honor in the same system of government and society that sent them then I see a chasm of mentality that can not bridged.

In the end rereading the simplicity of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will set us straight on the framework the intention the glorious ideals of a just society attempting to create a society a system that is good.

But again when you can take an 18 year old in that society and make him or her do the most dangerous things that can injure maim disturb you mentally chronically and then forget them or limit their benefits and entitlements in someones budget sheet outlay then you sabotage the basic fundamental of the founding documents of this Nation the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
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CW2 Donald Kempf
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War just sucks in general.

I'm a baby boomer and a child who grew up in the 60s watching the Vietnam war on TV. I can remember the National News announcing the daily body counts and I could never understand why we were fighting that war. I think the amount of news coverage that war got and it's lack of popularity definitely made Vietnam a NON_GLAMORUS war. Most soldiers who came back and weren't excessively traumatized, generally didn't talk a lot about the war. The ones with PTSD, they had it rough and so did their families. So much about that war people and the government tried to just ignore and sweep under the rug.

I was pretty fortunate in that my war service was pretty benign (GWI) but we had our PTSD casualties too. They got better treatment than those from previous wars because PTSD had become a validated illness and it is generally "Acceptable". In the 60s soldiers were baby killers and anyone with PTSD was pretty much assumed to have "Done Something" or they were branded a coward. I didn't blame a lot of them from shunning society, as it shunned them.

I've spent hours on the floor with a Vietnam Vet talking him back home from a PTSD nightmare, I've seen the pain and know their horror and I'm so blessed that my disfunction in my home life wasn't fueled by that kind of mental anguish. Some leaders tried to get their soldiers help, most didn't, but that was the way life was in the 60s.

Not much of an answer, just what I had to give.
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MSG Mechanic 2nd
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9 y
as most of my family served in ww2, grandfather POW army air corps, uncle in the bulge, another uncle big red one beginning to end, 3 more in the pacific, one cousin Vietnam MIA, these people saw war at its worst and went to their graves with the horrors they saw and inflicted, myself I served 20+ years before I saw combat, Iraq, what I saw and what I survived hasn't left me, now I know why my relatives never spoke of their time, they lived their hell, now I live mine one day at a time
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CPT Jack Durish
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How can anyone truly realize or know an experience that they have never experienced? Even those who have gone to war know little of it. The average infantry man focuses on a fifteen degree swath of a battlefield within the range of his weapon or his vision, whichever is greater. Even he knows little of the horrors in the foxhole to his right or left. Those that visit him are more than anyone should bear. Imagine then the ignorance of leaders who are far from the battlefield, especially those who never served on one. Worse than ignorant are those who know nothing more than the propaganda used to encourage young men to march into the killing fields or the tall tales told by veterans to protect themselves as well as their loved ones from the horrors they have lived. I have often said that I knew little of the Army than what I read in Beetle Bailey comics. And, inasmuch as my father never served, my only connection with "heroes" were John Wayne and Randolph Scott portraying them poorly.

Thus, I would never expect the VA or any government agency to fly to our rescue. This is why I joined veterans organizations like the American Legion and the VFW, to help my brothers and sisters in arms and their families. We must help one another at home just as we did on the battlefield. Anyone suffering the scars of war should look to these organizations first.
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
CPT Durish "Sir",

I ask a question. I make a observation also. I ask for clarity.

The Declaration of Independence the ensuing Constitution talk about Created systems of Federal GOV that indeed protect the freedom rights safety of the citizens primarily as the reason for creating such Federal systems.

The basic principle of the Oath of Enlistment for all SM is to DEFEND the Constitution against Enemies Foreign and Domestic.

The SM should be protected 100 % if not 10000% without question by the Federal Systems created under the Constitution to protect their own citizenship freedoms liberty peace.

It is a shame that I must find a civilian non-profit more willing more open more able then the VA to support me after service.

The VA was created under the Federal Government just for us under the Consitution.

Yet the VA forgot the homeless mom and son of a injured Vietnam Vet Completely.

I am not even sure if my status of being born the son of a Vietnam Combat Vet got any nice name similar to a Babyboomer. Well in fact Vietnam Vets did infact come from WW2 Vets for the most part.

Vietnam Vets were in fact BabyBoomers.

That is not to say that most BabyBoomers would enlist or be drafted.

From what I have read in Secretary Defense Melvin Lairds Biograpghy online DOD Website that most BabyBoomers would get differments for education etc from Vietnam Draft. That was possibly do to the fact that WW2 Vet Fathers were smart in giving their BabyBoomer Children advice to enlist therefore create more options for service such as intel, admin, or Blue Water Navy, or Air Force for example, at a minimum before being drafted into the infantry for Vietnam.

My 15 degree of swath on my Forward Lookout Station on my ship has me focused on my duty assignment and life that includes recently discovered intel I am the son of one of you guys a Vietnam Combat Vet.

My dad is not well.

My dad has an honorable discharge.

My dad was so not well by the time I was 8 approx that my mom was forced into substandard living in womens shelters without VA support. To date I think the VA did not even think that the Vietnam Combat Vets would actually have a life after vietnam and attempt to have a family.

Well my service in the Navy Served honorably was lunatic in the most calmest saddest depressing ways.

I toughed it out.

I broke myself for that unfortunately because I think I would be much more valuable to my own country if the sanity of such service was actually created to be sane during and after.

But regardless if I brought my resume of life to a Non Profit of Vietnam Combat Service Members for acknowledgement and support as a Vietnam Combat Son what would be my reception do you gather???

Thank You Sir in the best of ways.

Aaron
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SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth
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I was born when we were sending advisers over there, than we started sending people over to fight, know a lot people younger then me that grew up in homes with 'Nam vet fathers, their cold and lonely people.
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SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth
SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth
9 y
PO3 Aaron Hassay - no your not a bad person, just one that needs to understood and befriended by those that can and will help you out.
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SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth
SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth
9 y
Cynthia Croft - Thank you, I have a niece and two nephews that up until 5 yrs. ago would have nothing to do with their father(a "Nam vet), they reconciled their differences and have a fair relationship with him.
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
COL Mikel J. Burroughs
9 y
Cynthia Croft - Cynthia, Aaron and I've been connected since last September 2015. We're very close friends - thank you
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
COL Mikel J. Burroughs - Mr. Burroughs a brother an uncle I never had. I suppose the good comes from the things that you analyze that had burdened you. I knew I joined the military to have friends for life. It is very very basic principle. I would fight and die for this. To be serious I already gave everything I could to this system my own nation born bred and served. I can and will question. I will question for the sake of realities sake as if the world is actually not flat when the system says it is flat. I ask the questions I do because we are all taught we are doing this for our country in bootcamp. We are all doing this for our brothers and sisters in Arms. Sacrifice. Sacrifice is actually talked about in the Declaration of Independence.

Mr Burroughs is at true badass in all the right ways in my humble opinion. I would apprentice under him. But now that I am a man I also learn to be a man. I am no longer an e1.

I wish to hold true to the ideals of men who were indeed in my estimation not perfect attempting perfection with the writing of the human rights documents of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Thank You my friends
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Lynda Key
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My father was WWII Army sniper who came back from the war very angry. He spent his time working hard, going to school, and taking road trips on his Indian motorcycle he rebuilt. He said when he met our mom it cured him but I remember a very driven man who didn't have much patience who all 4 of us, excluding mom, pulled away from. He tried to micromanage us and we are just as stubborn as he was. I only really got to know him when I moved back to Arizona to help him with mom's dementia. Whenever we were away from mom he would open up and talk about so much. I came to love him more than I ever did. He is the one I would talk to when I developed PTSD after a stroke a few years ago. Three days ago my youngest brother and I sat with him he passed away.

I know there has not been adequate care for our military or their families when they have returned from any war. Keep in mind there was a major upheaval in our society when mothers stayed in the work force. Remember latch key children? They came home to an empty house. Now many children are away from home more between before and after school programs due to parent/parents having to work and not wanting their children home without supervision. We need to salvage the family unit.
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Aaron Hassay
9 y
Sorry sad for your loss of you dad. The WW2 VETS and Even Vietnam Combat Vets who survived and even VETS Today who survived Combat survive by being very cold driven operational emotionless in work and life. In my own way in the Navy Blue Water Combat Ship I became very cold emotionless deck plate deck grey steel cold. To some extent I still am fucking fuck up shit. I lost my fiance by 22. I joined with I was 18. I was engaged by the time I was 19. I do not mean that in a bad way. I mean that in a way that it is a mental coping mechanism that helped them get through battle and worked and works now in todays cold calculated financial world also built by BabyBoomers a large part reaping the national rewards of ww2 victory.

The Latchkey thing is targeted at WW2 Offsping called BabyBoomers Offspring.
I think it is called Generation X.
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Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM
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Simple answer is Yes! On both sides changes occur that are unable to be communicated or understood. Parenting is the most difficult understated challenge of our lives. We all do the best we can with what ever we can. Perhaps we lose sight of what is really important. Some Parents Love without Condition. I find that that matters. I am one of those moms and broke the chains of that past. One step, one day one moment it can change in the blink of an eye.

The leaders today are the sons and daughters of yesterday~It depends on their perspective . We all have the ability within ourselves to challenge our own demons and chose one thought over the other! We can chose if we wish to take that next step!
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SFC William Farrell
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PO3 Aaron Hassay COL Mikel J. Burroughs Aaron, thank you for sharing a very personal story. War is hell, on the veteran and on his/her dependents. I am a Vietnam combat veteran, my father was a WWII veteran. My father who we buried with military honors at the end of October was an alcoholic who was sober for the past 25 years of his life. He was somewhat abusive when we were kids and my parents split when I was about 10/11. My twin brother and I went back to live with him when we were 15. I never regretted that decision. For years after I left Vietnam, I abused alcohol, my way of coping with life after war. I certainly am not perfect just like my father was not. I have come to understand why he was like he was just as those who I have hurt with my drinking have forgiven me. I have been sober for many years now just like my Dad was sober when he died October 28th.

The point of my post to you is that we need to move on and forgive. If you do not it is going to eat you up and will ruin your own life if you let it. You do not want to do that. So your question does war create perfect warriors and imperfect families in the same world, I think the answer is no. Warriors suffer and so do their families. We paid a price with our service but dont let it ruin you. All the best in this New Year.
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