PTSD, Charles Schulz, and Snoopy: A Super Paradox

Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Physician, Toxicologist and Pharmacologist. Requiem to a Fellow Victim

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - In case anybody is reading this, I'm talking about probably the most influential member of my generation.

PTSD comes in many different forms. Some veterans become psychopathic killers. After all, they were trained to become this. Some become total recluses and hide. Sparky was closest to the latter. He admitted he was fearful of everything except his studio and his bed.

I had heard that Charles "Sparky" Schulz was a soldier in WWII and I also thought that I had heard he was a machine gunner. That is much better than being a frontline "Dogface" rifleman and pointman as I had the misfortune to be. Point man is another word for suicide.

Like 4 billion other people in the world, I had followed Snoopy and the gang for years with consternation in my mind, where does all this "self depreciation" come from, and is Schulz, Snoopy or Charlie Brown or is he a combination built into several characters? I think the latter.

Sparky had a miserable childhood. He was a glasses-wearing, sparsely built, knickers-wearing city boy whose cousins were big Norwegian farm boys full of Hell. His uncles were the same, getting fighting drunk whenever. They all tormented this sissified kid and he was a "sad sack" probably with PTSD even before he was drafted. His mother died of horrible Cancer the day he went into the army, but he was not permitted to go to her funeral.

His father, a German, and his mother, a Norwegian, both first generation did not sympathetically parent him and the whole raft of his relatives treated him worse than a stranger. Most said he just "scribbled" on paper and would never amount to anything.

He arrived in the army totally depressed and lower than a snake's belly. He learned quickly to take orders and keep his eyes open and his mouth shut. He decided to be the best soldier he could and succeeded. As a long-time buck private, I could not believe he went from private to corporal to buck sergeant to staff sergeant in the states.

He got to France February 18th, 1945, and finally to the front lines on April 29th, two weeks before the war ended. He got near Dachau a Nazi death camp but he was not allowed to go in as many soldiers who did were "shell shocked" to disbelief at the horrors of the camps. Those horrible scenes were too much for even battle-hardened Dogfaces.

Schulz acquired a German Luger pistol and assuming it was unloaded, drew a bead on an army medic's red cross on his helmet - and pulled the trigger. He shot the medic in the neck. In 50 years, he never got over the guilt of this.

When he got home, he discovered that his four stripes and 50 cents would get him a cup of coffee some places, but he had no meaningful work experience. He got a job with a "learn to draw" company which he always said was a complete fraud. He did persist with his drawing and finally developed Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest.

His pre-war "sad sackness" stuck with him and he depressed into a feeling of failure which many of his cartoons depict. He was almost obsessive-compulsive with anxiety, panic attacks and paranoia with a fear of almost everything outside of his studio and drawing board. He hated to travel and speak, and did it rarely.

His first wife ended up a shrew with her aim to spend as much of his money as possible, which at its height was a million dollars a month. He eventually walked out on her. He found two "soul mates", and married the second in 1973. This totally changed him for the better.

He had a heart attack on July 1st, 1981, with a quadruple bypass from which he fully recovered. On November 16th, 1999, he was found to have a blocked abdominal artery and colon cancer. He had several other vascular problems but died of the cancer February 13th, 2000.

Charles Schulz ended up being the most financially successful cartoonist ever with his works displayed in the world famous Louvre Museum in Paris. A recent original cartoon of his sold for 40 thousand dollars.

On June 7, 2001, family members of Charles M. Schulz accepted a Congressional Gold Medal presented by Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert for Schulz's lasting artistic contributions. Since 1776, just over 300 notable individuals have been accorded this distinction for accomplishments in a variety of fields, including George Washington, Pope John Paul II, Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

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Got a question or comment for Dr. Leveque?
Email him: Newsroom@Salem-News.com

More information on the history of Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of Phil Leveque about his experiences in WWII.
Order the book by mail by following this link: Dogface Soldier.
If you are a World War II history buff, you don't want to miss it.

Click on this link for other articles and video segments about PTSD and medical marijuana on Salem-News.com: Dr. Leveque INTERVIEWS & ARTICLES