I found this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer by accident. It is called
Invisible wounds that kill by Chris Gibbons May 25 2009
Perhaps those of us who read about WWII with such passion, could stop for a moment to think about men like Mr. Ravinsky and others like him. Michelle
Invisible wounds that kill | Philadelphia Inquirer | 05/25/2009
I stood there in the Har Nebo Cemetery on Oxford Avenue and looked out at the gravestones that surrounded me. The high autumn lawn of the cemetery undulated like an ocean in the wind, green grass waves breaking over tombstone shores. I was heading to the section for indigent Jews, searching for the gravesite of a World War II veteran.
Although I never met him, I felt that I had to come and pay my respects. I found his grave, marked only by a 4-square-inch plaque bearing his name, and knelt down next to it. I planted a small American flag and said a short prayer. The silence was broken only by the sound of the flag whipping in the wind.
Marvin Ravinsky grew up in a tough Jewish section of North Philadelphia. He enlisted in the Army in 1943 and fought in some of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific theater. He was at Okinawa, where the incidence of psychiatric combat stress among American soldiers was an unbelievable 48 percent; more than 26,000 U.S. soldiers had to be removed from the battlefield because of "battle fatigue."
During the fighting, the Japanese trapped Ravinsky and some other soldiers in a cave. They riddled the cave with bullets, killing everyone but him. Then they entered the cave and began bayoneting the bodies in an effort to find and kill any survivors.
Ravinsky played dead and, out of sheer will to live, didn't move or cry out when a Japanese bayonet pierced his thigh. Bleeding profusely, he waited until they left the cave, and then crawled out from under the lifeless bodies of his friends.
Ravinsky returned home with a Purple Heart awarded for his physical injuries, but there was no recognition of his hidden mental wounds. He fought a long, losing battle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
There was little government help for the traumatized veterans of World War II. They and their families were left to deal with the nightmares and debilitating effects of this affliction on their own.
Ravinsky slowly sank into the dark abyss of post-traumatic stress, eventually losing himself and his family. In his later years, he was destitute. Drug addicts in his neighborhood were taking advantage of him until he was rescued by social workers. He died of lung cancer last year, on Aug. 12.
I never knew Marvin Ravinsky. His cousin was going through Ravinsky's personal belongings when, among his medals and other war memorabilia, she found a copy of an article I wrote stressing the need to honor World War II veterans who fought in the Pacific. Soldiers have been my heroes since I was a child, so I was touched to find out one of them kept my article among the things he cherished.
On this Memorial Day, we should honor all our veterans, especially those who gave their lives. Remember that although some were killed on the field of battle, others, like Ravinsky, succumbed to wounds that couldn't be seen but were fatal nonetheless.
Ravinsky died a slow death that began the day he first witnessed the horrors of battle as a young soldier and ended, more than 60 years later, in the cold hospital bed of a lonely, disoriented, forgotten old man. It doesn't seem fair. Heroes aren't supposed to die that way.
As I stood above his grave, I felt helpless. I wished there were something more I could do to honor Ravinsky. How sad, I thought, that we praise people for acting in a movie, putting a ball through a hoop, or singing songs on a stage, misusing terms such as
great and
courageous to describe them, but forget about the people who fought for this country and are much more deserving of these accolades.
I turned to leave but was compelled to make one more gesture, which seemed cliched yet appropriate. I faced his grave one last time, straightened my back, and saluted. The wind howled sorrowfully, and the American flag whipped above the grave of Marvin Ravinsky.
Marvin Ravinsky - Pacific Theatre
