Special Report Transcript Episode 59, Section 2, Time 18:57

Today we know that what these soldiers suffer from is post traumatic stress disorder. // Our problem with most people who were injured in the border problems and earlier disputes are that many of those men have gone unrecognized, undiagnosed and untreated and we do know from international experience in other countries after similar conflict that the longer the delay the tougher the treatment is, the less successful it may be and the more skilled it may need to be. And the Vietnam experience I think is one we need to learn a lot about in our country because the parallels are very dramatic. Some things do seem to make it worse, being in an unpopular war, an unpopular conflict is a problem. Our men had a problem even worse in some ways than Vietnam in that I’ve seen a number of people who talk about being exposed to mayhem and horrors in Angola and they would go back to the camp and on the radio the news would say our men are not in Angola and they would think I could be blown to pieces and obliterated somewhere where I am not and the entire system will deny it has happened and will deny that anything has ever happened to me which is a very peculiar twist to add to the horror.

Notes: Dr Michael Simpson (International PTSD specialist); SA troops in Angola; Aftermath of an attack

References: there are no references for this transcript