Fraternity-Testvériség, 1945 (32. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1945-04-01 / 4. szám
18 TESTVÉRISÉG Si HÉV CENERATIOn új ntnztDCK mmmmm THE PROBLEMS A RETURNING VETERAN MUST FACE Problems of a changed society and a changed veteran. By Rev. Emil Nagy, Jr. First Magyar Reformed Church, Bridgeport, Conn. One of the most common expressions that we hear today sounds something like this, “when the boys come home everything will be all right.” Whether or not everything will be all right will depend greatly upon our ability to solve all the problems of adjustment that will result when the boys in the armed service come back again to take their place in civilian life. We must beware of the fact that in the first place, the young men in the service of our country will have a great many problems to face. He must adjust himself in a world that is changed around him. Whether we notice it or not, we are continually changing day by day. That change in us can only be detected by an individual who has not seen us for a long time. Unquestionably, the changes in the time of war, not only in our external lives, but as far as our characters are concerned, are very pronounced. A returning veteran has many problems of adjustment. A boy may be coming back who has an estranged wife. A boy may be coming back who has lost his father or mother while he was in the service. Boys will come back who will lose the friends that they had before they entered the service of their country. These are but a few situations that the returning veteran will undoubtedly have to face. He must adjust himself in the new social life of his community. Not only the change that has resulted in his own character and his own mental make-up will have a profound effect upon him, but unquestionably, the change that he finds in us will affect him a great deal. While in the army he had a great many teachers who guided him into the routine of army life. He had sergeants and officers who guided him, but when he returns to civilian life, he will not have the same teachers and the same individuals who will guide him into a changed civilian life. We are sure of the fact when an individual faces danger, he has a much greater perspective than any other individual. But when he returns to civilian life and these dangers are gone, the minor frustrations, disappointments in civilian life, will weigh heavily upon his mind and will cause an ensuing disillusionment as far as he is concerned. While he was away in the armed forces, he became, somehow or other, alienated from civilian life. And he returns probably with a resentment in his heart towards civilian life. He had heard and read a great deal how well off civilians were while he was fighting on some distant battlefield. And he will not feel at home for a long time among those who were not through the same combat experience through which he has gone. He feels that they do not understand the dangers that he had to face. He feels that it is a hopeless task to try to explain just exactly what he had to face on the field of battle. With this hopelessness of trying to make civilians understand what he has gone through, a natural resentment results in his mind towards all those who have not had ^ combat experience. So a returning veteran must have our deepest and most sincere understanding, and we must cooperatively endeavor to help him adjust himself to his people back here at home. We must not try to delude ourselves for one single moment that those veterans are returning to us exactly the same way, with the same frame of mind with which they left us. We must be aware that they are changed individuals. Parents must see and realize immediately that those children who are dependent upon them before they entered the service, now they have completely grown up. And those grown up children certainly need an entirely different type of treatment. We cannot treat them as the same children who left us a few years ago. These are some of the problems which confront the veteran as he returns home from the armed forces. A great deal depends upon the people back home as to whether or not the returning veteran will lead and will live a
