I thought I was finished with this thread as it is much to serious for me. But so many members are offering such well reasoned opinions I feel the need to make one more serious post to it.
I don't believe in PTSS.
Neither did I; for many years. Your feelings are completely understandable to me.
I think people react differently. ... I am thinking it might be a mental toughness issue, religious upbringing, moral value issue.
No question about it. It's all of those and probably more. However, I believe the killing part is the easiest for individuals to deal with. To mitigate the taking of a human life we tend to dehumanize those we are fighting. Hence the politically incorrect way we refer to them. i.e. slopes, gooks, dinks from the VN era. Also, if we convince ourselves that we hate the people we are fighting, for whatever reason we come up with, killing them becomes more justified in our mind. There is one nationality I hate to this day. It isn't logical or even reasonable, but I can't change the way I feel.
And, as you can see from the posts here, the same is true for Soldiers (Sailors, Air Force and Marines) from WWII, Korea, and, as I can assure you if my father is to be believed, from WWI, as evidenced by this quote.
Nothing was more important than killing chinks and he became good at it.
Now, with respect to:
Don't listen to the whiners suck it up and do your job".
I have made almost the exact same statement. That is what I believed for many years. And those many years were the same period of time during which I didn't believe in PTSS. But that is also the same time frame during which I was having the same nightmare over and over; my Troopers were walking into an ambush and I could see it, but try as I might, I couldn't stop them or even make them hear me.
Why did I have this recurring nightmare? I don't know. Maybe part of it was survivor's guilt as Hodr said.
could never quit asking why he got out alive and others didn't.
I asked myself this same question over and over. It has real meaning to me, especially since I was the one telling the ones who died to suck it up and do their jobs.
I feel those are a couple of reasons for my demon. Did I have PTSS? I don't know. I only know that the dreams bothered me, and also poor Kathie as I would wake her during the night trying to holler at my Troopers. But I didn't mention it or talk to anyone else about it.
And so, the dreams continued until, around 5 to 10 years ago, I was finally able to confronted that demon.
In the end I had only one more dream. I was still in the ambush killing zone, but this time all my dead Troopers were motioning for me to come and join them. That scared me, and woke Kathie again, as I didn't want to go. I have been told that they were actually saying goodbye, but I don't think that is so.
From my experience I can only offer an opinion. I now believe that something we have come to call PTSS exists, that it manifests itself in varying ways and degrees of effect on the individual, and it can be overcome. But I also believe that all our life experiences shape who we are. Combat is just one of them. Having been to war doesn't automatically entitle one to an excuse for aberrant behavior no matter how many try to use that defense.
BTW, as an aside, I am probably more proud of my CIB then my jump wings or Master Aviator's wings which also had to be earned, albeit not in combat. It means so much to me because, as I have often said, the greatest honor and responsibility a man can be given is the command of Infantry in combat. May God keep all our military, past, present and future in his embrace.
