From services to civilian: the geographies of veterans’ post-military lives

This paper explores the spatiality of (post)military identities, demonstrating the continuing impact of having been part of the military community despite the passage of time. Our tri-service respondents highlighted the challenges faced even by those deemed to have ‘successfully’ transitioned to ‘Civvy Street’, articulating discourses of loss and separation. While some had achieved closure with their past military selves, others struggled and became stuck in a liminal space between civilian and military lives that perpetuated feelings of isolation. Our work contributes to understandings of military geographies and highlights the importance of conceptualising post-institutional transitions as a process in order to understand how individuals negotiate their identities in changing spatial circumstances.

From warfare to welfare: veterans, military charities and the blurred spatiality of post-service welfare in the United Kingdom

The military offers a form of welfare-for-work but when personnel leave they lose this safety net, a loss exacerbated by the rollback neoliberalism of the contemporary welfare state. Increasingly the third sector has stepped in to address veterans’ welfare needs through operating within and across military/civilian and state/market/community spaces and cultures. In this paper we use both veterans’ and military charities’ experiences to analyse the complex politics that govern the liminal boundary zone of post-military welfare. Through exploring ‘crossing’ and ‘bridging’ we conceptualise military charities as ‘boundary subjects’, active yet dependent on the continuation of the civilian-military binary, and argue that the latter is better understood as a multidirectional, multiscalar and contextual continuum. Post-military welfare emerges as a competitive, confused and confusing assemblage that needs to be made more navigable in order to better support the ‘heroic poor’.

The adjustment of children of Australian Vietnam veterans: is there evidence for the transgenerational transmission of the effects of war-related trauma?

Objective: The presence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in trauma survivors has been linked with family dysfunction and symptoms in their children, including lower self-esteem, higher disorder rates and symptoms resembling those of the traumatized parent. This study aims to examine the phenomenon of intergenerational transfer of PTSD in an Australian context.

Method: 50 children (aged 16–30) of 50 male Vietnam veterans, subgrouped according to their fathers' PTSD status, were compared with an age-matched group of 33 civilian peers. Participants completed questionnaires with measures of self-esteem, PTSD symptomatology and family functioning.

Results: Contrary to expectations, no significant differences were found between the self-esteem and PTSD symptomatology scores for any offspring groups. Unhealthy family functioning is the area in which the effect of the veteran's PTSD appears to manifest itself, particularly the inability of the family both to experience appropriate emotional responses and to solve problems effectively within and outside the family unit.

Conclusion: Methodological refinements and further focus on the role of wives/mothers in buffering the impact of veterans' PTSD symptomatology on their children are indicated. Further effort to support families of Veterans with PTSD is also indicated.

Symptoms, ill-health and quality of life of the members of a Porton Down veterans' support group

Background There has been a Human Volunteer Programme at the British chemical weapons research facility at Porton Down since the First World War, in which some of the participants were exposed to chemical warfare agents.

Aim To identify any striking specific morbidity patterns in members of the Porton Down Veterans Support Group (PDVSG).

Methods A self-completed postal questionnaire was prepared including health immediately after the visits to Porton Down, subsequent diagnoses and hospital admissions, symptoms in, and after, the first 5 years after the visits, fatigue symptoms and current quality of life, measured using the SF-36.

Results Responses were received from 289 of 436 (66%). Results reported here relate to 269 male respondents of mean age 66.8 years. Sixty-six per cent reported their first visit to Porton Down in the 1950s. The most common diagnoses or hospital admissions reported were diseases of the circulatory system. In the first 5 years after their visits the most common symptoms were headache, irritability or outbursts of anger and feeling un-refreshed after sleep. In the later period, most common symptoms were fatigue, feeling un-refreshed after sleep and sleeping difficulties. Sixty-five per cent met the definition for a case of ‘fatigue’. Current quality of life dimensions were consistently lower than age-specific estimates from general population samples.

Conclusions Members of the PDVSG responding to this survey reported poorer quality of life than the general population. Despite there being no clear pattern of specific morbidities, we cannot rule out ill-health being potentially associated with past experience at Porton Down

Organizational factors associated with decreased mortality among veterans affairs patients with an ICU stay

In-hospital mortality rates associated with an ICU stay are high and vary widely among units. This variation may be related to organizational factors such as staffing patterns, ICU structure, and care processes. We aimed to identify organizational factors associated with variation in in-hospital mortality for patients with an ICU stay. This was a retrospective observational cross-sectional study using administrative data from 34 093 patients from 171 ICUs in 119 Veterans Health Administration hospitals. Staffing and patient data came from Veterans Health Administration national databases. ICU characteristics came from a survey in 2004 of ICUs within the Veterans Health Administration. We conducted multilevel multivariable estimation with patient-, unit-, and hospital-level data. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Of 34 093 patients, 2141 (6.3%)died in the hospital. At the patient level, risk of complications and having a medical diagnosis were significantly associated with a higher risk of mortality. At the unit level, having an interface with the electronic medical record was significantly associated with a lower risk of mortality. The finding that electronic medical records integrated with ICU information systems are associated with lower in-hospital mortality adds support to existing evidence on organizational characteristics associated with in-hospital mortality among ICU patients.

November 2006: Veterans Day

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Confederate Veterans Association Catawba Camp No. 278 Records - Accession 190 - M84 (107)

The Confederate Veterans Association Catawba Camp No. 278 Records consist mainly of minutes, but also included are lists of members, newspaper clippings and resolutions of the Association which was organized in 1893 and based in Rock Hill, SC. The collection consists entirely of photocopies.

Resocialisation of Disabled Veterans in Former Yugoslavia

The team examined 147 amputated war veterans in the former Yugoslavia between February and December 1998. The official end of the war, substitution of lost body parts and adjustment to the new state of physical disability added extra tasks to these people's efforts to rejoin "normal life". The resocialisation process of amputated persons, i.e. the process of their return into the social environment with the related readjustment and establishment, was observed through its objective and subjective indicators. In addition to obtaining information about socio-demographic characteristics and current working status, the group focused on the psychological dimension, i.e. the individual reality of the disabled persons. In this sense they began with research into the personal, social and professional identity (how they see themselves under these altered circumstances and how they determine their place in the world). To do so they used the model of basic personality supports and observed the resocialisation according to the psychological support systems. They therefore focused on the following topics: body, social identity and belonging, personal identity, working status and engagement, individual responsibility and expectations from the social environment, and orientation towards the future. These were considered with respect to certain significant socio-demographic characteristics of the interviewees. The data were gathered through standardised interviews. Bearing in mind the unpopularity of this subject among experts in the country and the lack of material in specialist literature, the group chose to use descriptive research logic in order to "record" the situation in this field and to establish a framework for future studies which may be methodologically and statistically more complex and thematically more focused.