Page 46 - Total War on PTSD

Combat Veterans are often placed in situations where they are forced to be aggressive as a means for survival either for themselves or their peers. They may have taken the lives of individuals, including women and children, in order to save the lives. The combat zone often leads to numbness and their actions, which are certainly warranted, are often not looked at through an emotional scope until they return home and start viewing their actions outside of the context they occurred. The combat Veteran will often struggle with their own sense of violating their core values and beliefs, especially the belief “thou shall not kill,” leading to moral injury. They keep their actions secret from their family and those around them, suffering silently and often believing those they love would judge them or look at them like a “monster” if they knew what they had done. They often have a fear of destroying their family members’ sense of innocence or naiveté should they learn of the realities of war and what has actually happened. Combat Veterans often shoulder a crushing sense of guilt over not being able to prevent negative events from occurring, especially if they involve the injury or loss of one of their peers. Their helplessness and sense of vulnerability over these events is commonly replaced with self-blame, guilt, and self-loathing.
Combat Veterans can also be self-judgmental over their reaction to events in the combat zone. It is not uncommon for them to experience morbid humor, dehumanizing, escalating aggression across the course of their deployment, and numbing in the combat zone. They can experience a sense of elation and empowerment during the kill cycle, which they later find shameful and disturbing when they start to process their trauma. These reactions to combat are considered normal and actually can be adaptive in helping the Veteran survive and cope while in a chronically dangerous environment where he/she is targeted and hunted. Again, a combat Veteran’s actions must always be viewed in the context they occurred to come to terms with them.
There is no safe zone in a war. Even on bases, there is constant mortaring, suicide bombers, VBIEDS, and snipers. Also, in order to “win the hearts and minds” of the country, local nationals are often allowed on bases as interpreters, for training purposes, and to assist with maintenance of the bases. Most combat Veterans have a distrust of these individuals, as they can never really know who may be giving intelligence to insurgents and who may be conspiring
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