Gus Kappler MD

Gus Kappler, MD, was born in 1940, grew up in Lake Ronkonkoma, LI, NY, and attended Port Jefferson High School. He earned his BA in Chemistry from Cornell University in 1961 and his MD from Cornell University Medical College in 1965. Gus completed his surgical training at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond in July 1970. Having been drafted as an intern, he left his wife, Robin, and two children that September to serve as an Army trauma surgeon at the 85th Evacuation Hospital in Phu Bai, Vietnam. Following his surgical career in Amsterdam, NY, about 30 miles west of Albany in the beautiful Mohawk River Valley, he retired in 2000. As a Lecturer in Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine, Gus taught first-year medical students for fifteen years and was awarded two Excellence in Teaching Awards. He is an expert in military PTSD, substance abuse, and suicide, and has lectured extensively on those subjects. Gus has been a veteran advocate for fifty-five years and is sickened by

the continued incidence of active duty and veteran suicides. He was honored to be the keynote speaker at the Navy's inaugural 21st Century Battlefield Medical Care Symposium in February 2018 in Quantico, Virginia. Gus appears in the Albany, NY-area PBS documentary "Wounds We Feel At Home."

Gus's trilogy: 2015 "Welcome Home From Vietnam, Finally," 2020 "One Degree," and 2025 "Letters To Helene From Vietnam, An Outline Of My Descent Into PTSD" are based on his Vietnam experiences. "Letters" is a must-read for those exposed to traumatic events, suffering PTSD, or having a family member or friend with this disorder. This book describes Gus's descent into the morass of PTSD, hitting bottom, and his successful rehabilitation. Yes, there is hope.