In general more suffering tends to nudge people away from a drab earthly existence and towards God. That’s nothing new. Even the bible says so.
Only to point this out...but once you say ‘Vietnam vets’...you are talking about mostly men...over the age of 58 today.
If the study had included a hundred Falklands War vets and a hundred Gulf War vets, with the same conclusions...then I’d be interested to hear more.
I will share this...I worked with a guy in the 1990s while in the military. I considered the guy to be ‘normal’ and without any mental issues. Around 2005, I came into contact with the guy and he’d had a minor stroke at age 39. My perception was that he had some type of brain damage. Nine months later, the military spoke up and said that the guy had become bi-polar. He was not capable of being trusted (at least in my book). Far as I know....no one ever did any test for brain lesions but I would take a guess that he had that problem.
No one is going to do tests on these guys and their ailments. But this might be one of those efforts to spend some research dollars and see where this goes.