Coming Home : Prisoners: Experts predict the Gulf POWs will recover rapidly from their experiences--unlike Vietnam-era detainees. But some problems are expected during their readjustment.

Prisoners returning from the Persian Gulf War are likely to encounter physical and psychological problems, but their readjustment is expected to be rapid and the outlook for their long-term recovery is excellent, experts say.

“I think, unlike the Vietnam POWs, we’ll see few long-term deleterious consequences for these POWs,” said Dr. John P. Wilson, an international expert on post-traumatic stress disorder and a professor of psychology at Cleveland State University.

But despite their optimism, experts cautioned that it’s impossible to predict the aftermath with any certainty because the details of what Gulf POWs experienced during captivity remain sketchy.

“We know, for example, that it only takes one experience, or one or two incidents, to form the focus of long-term reactions,” said Jack Smith, a psychotherapist and former director of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for Stress Recovery. “So I’m not going to be entirely sanguine yet, until we know more about what happened to them.”

To many, it is apparent that the allied POWs had a rough time in Iraq.

“The first thing I do is look into the guys’ eyes in pictures or on TV because I know the look,” said Thomas A. Like, who helped free American POWs during the Korean War until he was captured by the North Koreans and held for more than two years.

“Just look at the (CBS television) newsmen (freed Saturday)--you know they went through hell,” said Like, who is president of the Korea Ex-POW Assn.

It is known that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime has routinely inflicted torture on prisoners, including sleep and food deprivation, mock execution, mutilation, beatings and electric shock.

Although Wilson said he did not know the details of what happened to the POWs held by Iraq, “from the photos, it appears they’ve been beaten and tortured.”

As a result, the experts said, the POWs may be angry and hostile toward their captors and may be struggling with their own reactions of horror at the depth of such feelings. “This is going to change people profoundly,” Smith said.

The POWs may also experience feelings of guilt.

“When I came home to my small town (of 350), a young lady came up to me and asked, ‘Where’s my brother?’ I had no answer for her,” Like said. “Later, I found out that the man died in January, 1951. That stayed with me for a long time. Why me? Why did I come back and not him?”

Also, experts said, some of the POWs may have to deal with the intense self-recrimination that results from being forced to make statements sympathetic to the cause of their captors--often the result of torture.

Even though the military code of conduct was changed in 1977 to take into account the physical limitations of resisting torture, Smith and others said capitulation could be a source of serious trauma.

“Internally, as men, we like to think of ourselves as being able to resist all that pressure,” Smith said. “We men have a great deal more difficulty acknowledging our frailty and what happens with pain.”

Nevertheless, Gulf POWs already have several factors working in their favor, experts said.

One of the most important is the relative brevity of their captivity. Unlike Vietnam POWs, who came home after years of imprisonment to a different world and to major changes in their own families, the Gulf detainees were held less than two months and are not likely to grapple with such additional adjustments.

“I think we can be hopeful that the mercifully short period of their captivity means that they will be able to get back on track quickly,” said Dr. Art Blank, director of readjustment counseling services for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Vietnam POWs--some of whom were held for as long as 10 years--came home to find that in many cases, the wives they had left behind had become the family decision-makers. Small children had grown up. And they had grown up in single-parent homes.

“So when the POW came home, in addition to trying to work through the post-traumatic effects of the experience itself, he also had to adjust to the fact that people had gone on with their lives without him--and that’s a tall order,” Cleveland State University’s Wilson said.

And unlike the Vietnam-era veterans, Gulf POWs will be aided by the fact that this conflict is perceived by most Americans as “a good war,” Wilson said.

“They are coming back as heroes,” he said. “The recovery environment they are coming back to is a very healthy, very supportive one that will really facilitate their stabilization in resuming normal lives.”

Although it is unlikely that Gulf POWs will spend the same amount of time readjusting as POWs who spent years in internment, former POWs say the traumas they experienced bring sharp flashbacks and nightmares, no matter how long the events lasted.

“I would never say that it is any harder or easier than (for) someone who was there for seven or eight years,” said Thomas Colins, assistant secretary of labor for veterans employment.

“I always say the first hour was the longest hour, the first day the longest day, the first month the longest month,” added Colins, who spent 7 1/2 years in a Vietnam POW camp.

The returning POWs are expected to undergo a standard medical evaluation and screening to determine whether they have been physically or psychologically damaged, experts said.

The first six freed Americans arrived Tuesday at the U.S. Navy hospital ship Mercy in Bahrain. Military officials have said they have seen no evidence that they had been tortured or seriously mistreated.

Once the evaluations are complete--it could take as little as two or three days--the POWs are likely to be returned to their U.S. military bases. From there, they probably will be given leaves to rejoin their families.

There also will probably be extensive follow-up to ensure that there are no lingering problems or signs of acute or chronic stress disorder.

These signs include such sleep disturbances as nightmares, changes in eating or hygiene habits, irritability or anger, problems concentrating, detachment or estrangement from others and loss of ability to find meaning in work.

“This is the core group of symptoms that would suggest an underlying post-traumatic reaction,” Wilson said.

At the moment, the POWs are probably experiencing “psychic numbing,” meaning they are still in a state of shock--a common but temporary reaction. This may explain why they appear so calm and unemotional, experts say.