Tag: War & Veterans
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The Changi diary and paintings: The partnership of a doctor and an artist
Robert CraigBrisbane, Queensland, Australia Three paintings and a diary in a handwritten exercise book are in the collection of the Marks Hirschfeld Medical Museum in Brisbane, Australia. They represent an episode of extraordinary courage, survival, cooperation, and perseverance by two prisoners of war (Vaughan Murray Griffin and Dr. Burnett Clarke) during World War Two (Clarke 1989).…
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Japanese-American internment camps in World War Two
Gregory RuteckiCleveland, Ohio, United States Bill Mauldin’s cartoons regarding the NISEI15 “What constitutes an American? Not color…race…An American…(is) one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.”1 “Any person who considers himself…a member of Western Society inherits the Western past from Athens and Jerusalem to Runneymede and Valley Forge, as…
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Francis St. Vincent Morris: The pilot poet
Paul DakinNorth London, UK I discovered his original notebook and correspondence when sorting my late uncle’s effects. They were given to him by Morris’ sister Ruth. Francis St. Vincent Morris was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. Three weeks after arriving in France he crashed in a snowstorm and died of his injuries at…
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The aftermath of trauma
Shaili JainCalifornia, United States The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government. This writing is a work of nonfiction. In an effort to protect individual patient privacy, the patient stories depicted…
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Building a legend
Vladimir SimunovicCroati During the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina the number of health care professionals declined precipitously. None of those who stayed were trained or mentally prepared to work under war conditions. Nobody had taught us skills that would be useful in war, and some of us found ourselves in roles we never expected to play. New…
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Peleliu as a paradigm for PTSD: The two thousand yard stare
Gregory RuteckiCleveland, Ohio, United States “I noticed a tattered marine…staring stiffly at nothing. His mind had crumbled in battle…his eyes were like two black empty holes in his head…Last evening he came down out of the hills. Told to get some sleep, he found a shell crater and slumped into it…First light has given his…
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The “Bangka Island Massacre”: Australian military nurses in the Pacific War
Angharad FletcherLondon and Hong Kong “Civilian nurses, bound on errands of mercy among the worst underworld dens, are never in danger from the most hardened criminals. But Australia’s nurses were not safe from the Japanese. No British citizen forgets the name of Nurse Edith Cavell. Australia now has her own Edith Cavells to remember.”1 Sometime…