For some people, it's the result of brain trauma due to the shock wave from explosions going off nearby. It's the adult version of shaken baby syndrome - most adults don't die but they suffer permanent neural damage. It wouldn't surprise me if brain trauma due to repeated hits on the field were why we keep hearing of ex-football players getting in trouble, but nowhere near as many ex-basketball players.
I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks.
Isn’t what you’re talking about, TBI..Traumatic Brain Injury.
PTSD is more of a mental/emotional condition. Back in the day it was called Shellshock. But those guys were a different breed back then. Fought battle after battle, no internet, no GoreTex, no smart bombs, nothing...and then a week after returning home, went back to work like nothing happened. Read “The Greatest Generation”
Today it has taken on a different meaning. Nightmares, reactions to loud noises, etc. Make you think you back “there”. Unfortunately, having worked alongside many guys that had “PTSD”, that diagnosis has become another entitlement ploy used by the VA. My nephew was browbeat by the VA counselor when he got back from Afghanistan for NOT claiming it.
And the worst part of that, is that it takes away from the people that really have it. Kind of like that coward in Texas that killed Chris Kyle. He claimed it. He never saw any combat. He was in Baghdad in ‘08. I was too. Him getting it, diminishes what the people that actually have it, have to deal with.
It is really what is called “moral damage”.