The pain (PTSD) of my eldest uncle, who sometimes struggles after participating in the war

My great-uncle is a Vietnam War veteran.

When I was young, during Chuseok or Lunar New Year, when we went down to visit and spent time together, if a loud noise happened on the street, he would hold me and tell me to bow my head and then kneel down. I think I wondered why he did that when I was little. He was very distressed, but...

Perhaps because of the continuous treatment at the hospital and the presence of family members, he has improved so much lately that he sometimes makes jokes about it.

I didn't hear the details about why my great-uncle participated in the Vietnam War, but I heard that there was an advertisement in the newspaper offering high wages and accommodations. Before the war, my grandparents, who lived in Gyeonggi Province, fled to Busan after returning home, and I often heard that their family was greatly destroyed and their circumstances became difficult. During that time, my father was born as the youngest child, and my eldest great-uncle, who was the firstborn, seemed to have been very determined to somehow rebuild the family.

He said that during his vigorous youth, he read the newspaper, applied, and after overcoming the competition, he was fortunate enough to be able to go to Vietnam.

I wonder what happened to you when you went, and even nowadays, when I ask, you tend to avoid the question and say, "I'm sorry... I came back," and talk about it. When I was young, I heard that you were almost unable to carry out daily activities because you were easily startled by loud noises on the street and had seizures at night.

After completing my military service, I realized that the scenery my great-uncle saw must have been somewhat like this... and around that time, he also consistently received psychiatric treatment, and my great-aunt and cousin brother and sister worked together in various ways to go see good things and make efforts.

Suddenly, they said they wanted to open a store, haha.

So I told everyone to cheer up and not to overdo it, but after doing a little of this and that, these days you are running a small chicken shop in front of the military base.

Watching the soldiers and officers diligently eat and come and go, it seems like they are gradually gaining strength. When they talk about the old days, sharing stories and laughter about the chickens they ate together in the field during Chuseok, I can see that they have improved a lot.