This is my first diary, so please bear with me. I searched but did not find anything on this so here goes.
The Chicago Tribune has a story that focuses on how war is appearing to be harder on women than men, probably because the women have had previous abuse and trauma, which sets them up for more Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD).
But, the most interesting thing to me was that it was killing others that tipped soldiers of both genders into PTSD.
In fact:
... Troops who had killed--or believed they had killed--suffered significantly higher rates of PTSD than those who had not.
"It is very clear that being shot at is traumatic, or losing your buddy is traumatic, but the act of shooting and killing another human being, something that goes against every instinct we have, is the biggest trauma of all," said MacNair, who calls this kind of PTSD "perpetration-induced traumatic stress."
That hypothesis by MacNair, who is strongly critical of the military, is supported by history and by military experts.
S.L.A. Marshall, one of the earlier official Army historians, estimated after studying World War II veterans that only 15 percent had fired their weapons during battle. He asserted from his interviews with soldiers that their failure in battle was because they were more afraid of killing than of being killed. Other studies show that even the most poorly treated prisoners of war had lower rates of PTSD than front-line soldiers because the prisoners no longer were in a position where they had to kill.
This is something I did not know, and I find astonishing. It is heartening to me that altruism and kindness is so common in people, and it gives me hope for the human race.
The article goes on to talk about helping the soldiers adjust and recover from the PTSD. But, I am all for prevention, so they don't have to deal with it at all, by not going to war or insisting they kill others for any reason, except protecting our own physical country land. It is unconscionable to send our people over to another country to fight for no good reason other than to make money for the wealthy, and then have them suffer for years because of it physically and mentally.