An Unrecognized and Uncompensated Disabled Veteran?
No one has been able to calculate the number of wounded, certainly amounting to several millions, whose lives were permanently scarred as a result of the war. Physical scars, from the severest disability to disfiguring wounds, and mental scars, accompanied these millions for the rest of their lives. Many died as a direct result of them. Others lived in pain, discomfort, fear or remorse...The greatest unfinished business of the Second World War is human pain.

Martin Gilbert, The Second World War: A complete history, 1989, revised 1991.

As I've worked on my Dad's story, I realized that he was a disabled veteran, unrecognized and uncompensated.

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER SYMPTOMS
Felix was first assigned to a Signal unit in the Army Service Forces which provided support and supplies to the Army Ground and Air Forces. He served in southern England in preparation for D-Day and in Cherbourg and Paris after D-Day.

Those areas of England and France suffered German air attacks. Felix made vague references to experiencing air attacks. I am compairng the reports of German air attacks, including rocket attacks, with the dates and places of Felix's service

His experiences as a Signalman in a front-line combat division in the last months of the war and in the liberation of Dachau seemed to have caused him to suffer post traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

TUBERCULOSIS
In the 1950s he had his left lower lobe removed because of an (then) untreatable tubercular tumor.
 
He was drafted in 1941. Presumably, they screened him for tuberculosis. He served until 1945. Then in the 1950s he was found with an untreatable tubercular tumor.

Although he worked full time until his retirement, he never had the same stamina and strength and always seemed to struggle to breathe.He did make inquiries about disability for the tuberculosis but was discouraged from pursuing it.

POST FROSTBITE RAYNAUD"S SYNDROME SYMPTOMS
My mother reports that the skin on his feet were fragile and tender for several years after the war.

For the rest of his life, he suffered from a post frost bite syndrome with symptoms that resemble Raynaud's Syndrome. The circulation shut down in his hands and feet whenever the weather turned slightly cold but painless. I remember in the winter his hands up to his wrists were cold, cyanotic with poor skin turgor.
 
(Colleen Doyle, RN, assisted in identifying my father's symptoms as possibly Raynaud's Syndrome.)

I have a lot more insight into my father than I ever had. I wished I had this earlier while he was still alive. At least I am able to remember his with far more compassion and understanding for what he suffered.

Cizewski, Lovetere, Musbach, & Robinson
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© 2006 Leonard H. Cizewski
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