Geriatric Mental Health Disaster and Emergency Preparedness

Chapter 16 The Experience of Vulnerability in Geriatric Combat Veterans 325
erans hospitalized for medical illnesses. A veteran in this circumstance
may experience an exacerbation of PTSD symptoms concurrently with a
depressive episode or adjustment due to a medical condition.
Reports of enemy war atrocities provoke feelings and expressions of
anger and outrage that carry deep within them personal memories and experience.
The news may serve as a distraction from thoughts about their
illness and may displace feelings of fear and vulnerability that have arisen
as they have adjusted to the loss of health and autonomy and the experience
of confronting death. Expressions of anger and frustration may either
be the manifestation of repressed feelings of helplessness and vulnerability
to illness or a reprise of earlier problematic patterns of belief and behavior.
It is often the case that combat veterans use anger to mask or avoid
feelings of helplessness, weakness, and vulnerability in order to feel strong
and safe. However, it may also be that global events bring to the surface unresolved
feelings and beliefs about their actions during war in a new way
and from a different perspective, thus allowing them to embark on a deeper
inner journey toward healing. Their inability to be of service, to offer sacrifice
now as they are isolated in sickness, echoes a painful truth concisely
expressed in meter by Sophocles, “Wretched I was, wretched I am; Battered
by sorrows.” How each older veteran makes meaning in this crucial
life transition from Erickson’s (1980) life stages of generativity versus
stagnation to integrity versus despair determines the value each will place
upon the sorrows experienced in his life.
Fowler ’s expanded life cycle stages of human development, which includes
the spiritual dimension (Fowler, 1981), and Erickson’s works help
us understand from a spiritual perspective the dynamics operating in each
life stage and in the transitional space between them.
VALUES AND CHARACTER TRAITS IN
THE GERIATRIC COMBAT VETERAN
Several years ago, in preparation for a lecture titled “Values and Character
Traits in the Geriatric Combat Veteran Population,” 82 veterans from all
three wars were surveyed. Fifty-one veterans identified their primary concern
at present as acting according to ethical and moral values, 18 veterans
identified their primary concern at present as becoming who I was meant
to be, 9 veterans identified the physical dimension of life as most important,
and 4 veterans were undecided (Izzo, n.d.).
The values most frequently identified were family, faith, defense of
country, and justice. The character traits most frequently identified were