Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I just got off the phone with my dad, who called me to inform me that he just got a letter from the VA hospital recommending he get professional mental health care.

"Let me guess," I said, interrupting my dad's tirade. "Post traumatic stress?"

"Hah! It's been forty-one fucking years and NOW they tell me?"

"I have one word for you: duh!" I told him.

"Let me read this to you: feelings of hopelessness - I don't have that! Thoughts of suicide? I don't have that!"

"Maybe they just thought it would be good to talk to someone," I said.

"I mean, just because I can't go back and get Charlie ... "

"Look, maybe if you go see someone you can get some good drugs," I told him.

My dad told me to shut up.