Southern Miss Gulf Coast | Faculty | Raymond Scurfield | Vietnam Trilogy

SOCIAL WORK PROFESSOR'S BOOKS DESCRIBE IMPACT OF WAR

Ray Scurfield, professor of social work at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast, spent three decades working with hundreds of combat veterans of the Vietnam War and of other wars. He has written a trilogy of books about war, its impact and helping veterans to recover. Scurfield describes the stories of how many veterans have been impacted by war---both short and long term.

"My goal was to offer the veterans, their families and communities some insight to veterans' reactions to the stress of combat and postwar readjustment," Scurfield said. "Hopefully, this information will be helpful to veterans recovering from the long-term impact of war trauma and for those who care about them." Dr. Scurfield served as a social work Army officer on a psychiatric team in Vietnam from 1968-69.

In the first book in the series (2004), A Vietnam Trilogy: Veterans and Post Traumatic Stress, 1968, 1989 & 2000, Scurfield uses his experience to analyze military mental health in the war zone and its impact on psychiatric casualties at the time, and years and decades later. Recognizing that reactions to combat trauma and war zone stressors are both normal and expectable, Scurfield describes various survival strategies that veterans bring home and into the family. He also describes his experiences in Washington, D.C., as the National Director for Clinical Services for the VA Vet Center Program, and innovative healing approaches over the subsequent 20 years, such as helicopter ride therapy, Outward Bound wilderness trips and co-leading the first return trip in 1989 to a peacetime Vietnam of a therapy group of veterans with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Volume 2 in the series (2006) is Healing Journeys: Study Abroad with Vietnam Veterans. Two-thirds of this book describes a precedent-setting study-abroad course to Vietnam sponsored by the University of Southern Mississippi that uniquely integrated university students and combat veterans in a combined history and mental health curriculum. Dr. Scurfield also provides a detailed analysis of the benefits and shortcomings of veterans returning to their former battlefields. This second volume also addresses three very important aspects of war and readjustment: (1) the evacuation experiences of military personnel who are wounded during battle and ultimately are medically evacuated to the United States; (2) the racism that is inculcated during basic training and reinforced in the war zone through learning how to dehumanize the enemy and the civilian population; and (3) the collusion of sanitization and denial of the full human impact of war by powerful forces in our society.

Volume 3 is War Trauma: Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam to Iraq. In this volume, Dr. Scurfield describes the impact of the terrorist acts of 9/ll and of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars on our military, veterans and society. He analyzes current military mental health practices in Iraq and how these both help and harm the mental health of military personnel. He provides specific recommendations as to what information needs to be provided to personnel being deployed and to their families and communities, and what family members can do to help the soldier returning from deployment. Dr. Scurfield describes specific clinical interventions to address war-related guilt and shame, and he analyzes the marked parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq Wars in terms of the human impact. He concludes by describing a distinctive “expanding circle of healing” to address post-war recovery and an Afterword that describes the parallels between post-war and post-Katrina reactions.

Excerpt from the Afterword: War Trauma: Lessons Unlearned From Vietnam to Iraq. Vol. 3 of a Vietnam Trilogy

THE FIRST E-MAIL
On the day that I finished the manuscript for the second and third volumes of A Vietnam Trilogy,  I received my first written communiqué from someone who had read Volume 1 (identifying information deleted to protect anonymity):

"I just finished reading your book, A Vietnam Trilogy. I read it all in less than two days. I could not put it down once I started reading it. My husband is a Vietnam veteran …We had been married for [X] years when our marriage dissolved. Some years later we remarried. In reading your book, it seemed as if a light bulb went on. I can now better understand the issues in our marriage and our relationship. I kept telling my children that 'ignorance is bliss.' If I only had known [before now] what my husband went through in Vietnam, it would have saved us all much heartache and pain for so many years. Nevertheless, quite by accident we discovered the Vet Center, about a year ago. Just within the last two months, my husband has actually sought counseling. Thank you! Thank you! For all of your work in this area."

And my hope was buoyed that the Vietnam Trilogy might make at least a little difference in our understanding the impact of war. If so, then my labor of love has, indeed, been a blessing.

A COMMENT ON KATRINA AND OTHER DISASTERS
In the summer of 2005 I was just finishing writing this book, when Hurricane Katrina slammed head-on into the Mississippi Gulf Coast, devastating the community where I work and live — Long Beach. And over the year since August 29, I discovered that there were remarkable parallels post-Katrina and post-war.

The University of Southern Mississippi - Gulf Coast (USM-GC) campus sits directly on the usually placid Mississippi Gulf Coast, about 100 yards from the water. Fully 30% of the university’s 350 staff and faculty were displaced due to destruction or heavy damage to their residences and personal belongings. The destruction to the surrounding southern Mississippi communities was massive.

• Over 235 confirmed deaths and 68 still missing as of December 7, 2005.
• 68,700 homes and businesses were destroyed, 65,000 sustained major damage, and 60% of the forests in the coastal communities were destroyed, along with much of the shipping and fishing industry.
• Just to mention the devastation in one community: the neighboring community of Pass Christian had 80% of its homes destroyed as well as four out of the five primary and secondary schools, and the town lost 100% of its sales tax revenue as no gas stations or shops were re-opened.

Hundreds of thousands of Katrina survivors in Mississippi have been experiencing an overwhelming sense of loss, grief and malaise over the destruction of places of employment, small and large businesses, churches, schools, neighborhoods, recreational facilities, historic sites and even entire communities — the loss of so much about life that was familiar and cherished along the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast. Unlike many of my colleagues and community residents, I was fortunate to still have a home that was habitable (although one year later we still have not been able to find a contractor to repair the internal damages). And the ongoing battles with the insurance companies as to what damage was caused by wind and rain versus storm-surge water are extremely contentious; many homeowners have been left feeling that they are being ripped off by their insurance companies — with disastrous financial consequences.

My greatest personal loss was that my university office was totally destroyed. Thirty years of data collected over several years, 1,000+ books, hundreds of videos and journals, artwork, etc. — all were swept away. And it appears that neither personal nor university insurance will cover any of the loss. Even more profoundly, many residents suffered the losses of both their homes and offices or businesses.

I became very involved in volunteering to provide post-Katrina counseling and emergency housing assistance to university faculty, staff and students, as well as making numerous professional and community presentations about post-traumatic stress and coping in the aftermath of Katrina.

Thousands of volunteers from throughout the country have come to southern Mississippi to help with debris removal and recovery efforts, assistance that has not been adequately provided by governmental organizations. The positive side of this cannot be overstated. As a Vietnam War veteran, I am acutely aware that there are some parallel experiences and reactions post-Katrina and post-Vietnam. The extent of the destruction itself is, indeed, reminiscent of what one sees in a war zone. Then there was the very visible presence of uniformed National Guard and Reservists standing guard duty for months, mile after mile along the railroad tracks that run parallel to the gulf and separate much of the worst hit areas closest to the beaches from less devastated areas further inland. Military humvees, deuce and a half military trucks full of soldiers, helicopters — everywhere. Concertina (razor) wire stretched in double rows alongside the railroad tracks, mile after mile after mile, interspersed by checkpoints manned by uniformed and armed military personnel. Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and water trucks, the gasoline smells and ever-present noise of generators, the terrible stench from the debris, storm surge muck and rotting organic materials strewn over miles; this included more than three million chickens and contents of shipping containers of pork bellies scattered from the port of Gulfport.

And then there were the inescapable heat and humidity — oppressive and omni-present. And, as there is for soldiers returning from deployment, there was a strong sense of disorientation when coming home; coming home to a world that was now unfamiliar.

Eleven months after Katrina, whenever I go down Highway 90 (next to the Gulf of Mexico), I must pay extremely careful attention so as not to miss a turn. The obliteration of almost all that was familiar, mile after mile after mile is mind-numbing. It begins to blend together in a desolate landscape, shattered, of seemingly never-ending palates of grey and grime and ruin. It is devoid of what used to be grand and colorful ante bellum homes, restaurants, piers and marinas.

And, eleven months post-Katrina, I still find myself driving by “unfamiliar” roads that I had known intimately from years of commuting and pleasure-driving. No wonder too many people still are walking around and functioning while in a daze. And how could immersion in such wide-spread destruction not propel many war veterans back to their own personal war zones? Another painful parallel between post-war life and post-Katrina life is the powerful sense of being forgotten. In addition, there is resentment over the government’s broken promises and failed commitments to veterans and their families and to the victims of this natural disaster, and resentment toward the rest of society who seem to have forgotten what we all went through. Furthermore, the Gulf Coast is home to major Navy and Air Force bases, with regular deployment of many personnel overseas while the affected families remain back in the midst of Katrina-ravaged destruction. Imagine the anguish of military personnel being deployed at the same time that their own families and communities were suffering terribly from Katrina. Three letters to the editor of the local newspaper, the Sun Herald, illustrate the issues:

Is anyone aware that Naval Construction Battalion 133 is starting to deploy this weekend? How can we send homeless soldiers to Iraq to help build someone else’s’ world when their own is destroyed? It is an absolute disgrace and something needs to be done about it. Some of these men and women have lost their homes completely; most have significant damage. Loved ones are being left behind to clean up after the largest natural disaster our nation has seen. This is so wrong on so many levels. We need our men and women here at home to stand together with us, not with foreigners.
Christine Kelley, Gulfport.

Bring the Guard Home
The "noble" cause of this illegal, immoral war in Iraq is bankrupting and destroying us here at home. Our National Guard is all over in Iraq with the equipment, generators and water trucks we so badly need on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and will continue to be needed for weeks and months to come. Bring our Guard home now.

Mississippi needs its National Guard at Home.
I am a soldier stationed in Iraq. I belong to the Mississippi Army National Guard out of Poplarville. The National Guard’s stated mission is to be of help to Mississippi communities in times of crisis, such as hurricanes and other national disasters. . . . Mississippi is our state and we are not able to help our own people. Instead we are stuck in a country where the consensus is that we are an occupational force instead of a liberating one. So, why are the powers that be mobilizing full-time Army units to do our job [in the US] for us? Yes, we have been called to duty here in Iraq, but a crisis has arisen in our own land and in our own backyard…. We have several more months before we go state side. During that time, our families and loved ones and neighbors must struggle all by themselves with the disaster left in the wake of Katrina. How can we expect the people of Iraq to view us as heroes when they know that our families in our own country have been left to fend for themselves?We here in Bravo Company of the 155th are left feeling totally helpless. I say: send us home and bring the full-time units in to relieve us so that we can do what we have been trained to do.
SPC H (Eddie) Perez, Iskanderyah Iraq.

A substantial number of war veterans, including me, have found ourselves to be in a painfully familiar situation. We want to support our troops overseas but we believe that the United States is once again engaged in an unnecessary, unjust and tragic war that should not be happening. Conversely, there is the generally accepted realization that a precipitous pull-out now might well have catastrophic consequences and that such consequences might be inevitable no matter what the U. S. does at this point. At the same time there is the continuing contrary argument that this war is right and just, and that the country must support the troops.

Yes, here is a segment of U. S. society once again caught in the excruciating dilemma -- the duty to protest what it sees as wrong, the obligation to avoid undermining our troops, the desire to support our leaders and the responsibility to question them when their decisions appear to be misguided. Now there is a new Hurricane Katrina-induced dilemma. Is not the enormous cost and manpower required to sustain both our very large military presence overseas and the rebuilding of an entire nation (Iraq) detrimental to our ability to do right by our own people? How can the U. S. possibly wage such a war and rebuild an entire nation overseas while leaving Louisiana and Mississippi bereft? In the words of one protestor, "Make levees, not war."

There is another parallel between being a veteran and a Katrina survivor — the troubled legacy of the Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) and the post-Katrina FEMA response. While there are many wonderful individual VA providers, the VA as a system continues to have many programs and services that are under-funded, inefficient, error-prone, and certainly not enough medical and regional office sites that could be called anything approaching a state-of-the art medical and benefits system for our veterans and their families. And now there has been the saga post-Katrina of an inexcusable and incredibly inept disaster response by the federal government — that in turn was obfuscated by denial and buck-passing at high agency and governmental levels. Once again veterans are seeing how politics and policies proclaim that the nation must fully fund and provide for the current massive war effort -- at the expense of programs for the sick, the elderly, children -- and veterans. Furthermore, an adequate budget to address the massive destruction and rebuilding required on the Gulf Coast has been pitted by a number of politicians against the massive budget for the continuing "war on terror." Mississippi U. S. Congressman Gene Taylor stated:

In this instance [Mississippi's request for federal disaster assistance], the president of the United States is treating Iraqis better than he's treating South Mississippians . . . When we faced funding for the war and rebuilding Iraq, the president said he didn't want that at the expense of anyone else's funding. But when it comes to helping South Mississippi, anything there has to be offset somewhere else, taken from some other American's funding . . . After running up $2. 4 trillion in debt in the last five years, all of a sudden they're going to be fiscally responsible?

On the Mississippi Gulf Coast there is a very strong pro-military presence, not only several military bases but also many retired military personnel and their families who live in the area. Mississippians have a very strong and proud history of military service and support. To see families in distress from Katrina while the heads of their families are deployed overseas is heartbreaking, as is the sight of troops returning from deployment to find families and communities decimated by Hurricane Katrina. Still, South Mississippians have witnessed the incredible generosity of the national (and international) community in responding in the aftermath of Katrina. The following letter beautifully expresses the essence of the good that can come shining through in the aftermath of disasters such as Katrina.

Five days after the storm . . . I decided to venture out and see who I could help. I have a young lady friend who lost everything and she decided to join me . . . We then proceeded to a low-income neighborhood in D'Iberville that was hit hard. Almost every family we went to said they didn't need anything, but the people down the street did. In this little community, they were looking out for each other. They were doing the best they could to spread the resources out amongst all of them. And my young friend was shaking hands, giving out meals, smiling and laughing. I watched her as she interacted with everyone and I realized that even through her loss, she found a way to give. She gave hope and joy and love. That is the greatest lesson I learned: through it all, our spirit and lives are what live on. Thank you, my young friend, for the lesson. I will always remember it.

The resilient people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast have not only survived, many have been enriched -- and continue to enrich others. Personally, I am blessed to have a renewal and enhanced appreciation of the importance of my relationship with my wife and daughter (we experienced together the harrowing onslaught of Katrina) and with our sons in California and our extended family.

And so many friends and relatives cared and reached out across the miles. And that kind of outreach is a potent antidote to even the devastation of a Katrina -- or of war.