Still, we never want to minimize the toll an experience like that would extract on someone.
I have personally experienced what has been coined "survivor's guilt" on a much, much smaller scale. I was aware of it and as such, observed my own reaction to the situation in that context. It was very interesting. I have also watched it -in a severe case- destroy someone over time. All of those involved, survived. But I would note that the circumstances were all on the extreme side of traumatic and devastating. All non-combat, btw.
Yet, on the other hand, I knew someone (now deceased) who survived a combat situation worse than Lutrell and it never outwardly affected him...keeping in mind that I don't know what happened privately - behind closed doors. He went on to be a force for public good.
Rock and a hard place assimilating it in the head and the heart and whether a person (and those that love them) can find a way to turn the experience into a positive.
♥