my 5th grade history teacher's husband was in nam, and she says if a car back fires in the middle of the night he throws her to the floor.

Originally Posted by FULLMETALJACKET

my 5th grade history teacher's husband was in nam, and she says if a car back fires in the middle of the night he throws her to the floor.

Wow, that's actually kind of scary.

Its like post traumatic stress disorder, which in civilian life can range from being the victim of crime/violence, being involved in physical tramua of some sort, ie car/plane crash, or even just witnessing something like a car crash, or the death of someone close.

The potential causes of ptsd are to numerous to mention, but in a combat situation I'm sure you can see work out what could cause it.

Also the extreme fatigue that can be invovled with prolonged operations could cause pyschological problems, but Id like to think nowadays its a bit different from the past and service personal get rotated out to the rear more frequently.

There are still familys fighthing for there relatives that were shot in ww1 as cowards to be pardoned, as now with hindsight they attribute there 'cowardness' to shellshock, spending months in a muddy cold trench at Paschendale must of been stressful enough without going over the top.