JUST GET THROUGH the DAY: Tortured by the Japanese, Ignored by the Veterans Administration,The History of post-traumatic stress syndrome

Having lived through the Second World War I was familiar with the slang word "Jap" for the Japanese during and after the war. But it's been many decades since I last heard or read the word. This story brought it all back to me as I edited content from Mr. Cox's story, its writer. For effect, and with no malice, I've left its spelling intact, for it was as Mr. Cox intended, for the crew of the US Submarine Grenadier (SS210) suffered greatly after their capture, some even died at their capture's hands.This isn't about submarines during World War Two so much as it is about what happened to its crew after they were captured by the Japanese after their submarine sank. Its author was just a guy who got caught up in a war and wrote about it. He was an average American kid who wanted to be a happy and healthy American fellow someday. He didn't want to become a giant of industry, nor did he. What he did do was try to win a war. He never won an Oscar or wrote the all American novel. He never won a gold medal and he wasn't even a great student. But he was "damaged" during the war. He was just one of the "Greatest Generation" and an ex-pow who left his story for us to read. He was a hero to most who knew him and also to me after I read his story.This is a story about sailors who were captured and interned during World War Two and what happened after they were released. Gordon Cox's endless war was just not surviving the torture at the hands of the Japanese during WWII, which is an appalling record of brutality: disease, starvation, slave labor, amounting to one of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century, but what happened after the war. This is a story of how we learned about Concentration Camp Syndrome and PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome. As much as the Japanese would like to forget it the story of each POW is unique, every last one of them a man trapped in the valley of the shadow of death, struggling to stay alive and stay human. With this story, in Gordon Cox's own words, we'll take you through the last eighty years and the history of the lasting effects of that war.