If someone came up with why 1/4 of the guys come back with PTS then preventive measures could be taken. That 1/4 includes those who have not seen combat and those suffering do so at different levels. Not all have chronic PTS and most civilians who do are abused kids. First responders also suffer.
I have my own theory about it but have a little more research to do.
A theological/faith perspective helps greatly. To furnish a sane context within which armed service (and indeed all else) takes place. That is a challenge given that this society is getting more and more relentlessly secularized. I think churches (”the church”) would have an opportunity to step up to the plate here.
I disagreed with the late George Carlin on a lot of things, but he nailed it here:
I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I’ll give you an example of that.
There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap.
In the first world war, that condition was called “shell shock”. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, “shell shock”. Almost sounds like the guns themselves.
That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the Second World War came along and very same combat condition was called “Battle Fatigue.” Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. “Fatigue” is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue.
Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called “operational exhaustion”. Hey, we’re up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. “Operational Exhaustion”. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.
Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I’ll bet you if we’d of still been calling it “Shell Shock”, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha. I’ll betcha.
I suspect we’re just a weaker culture these days. We’re led to believe that it’s our right to be safe and comfortable and appreciated. War is none of those things. So the contrast between the adrenalin-pumped battlefield and the cozy world of Wal-Mart and soccer games is much more pronounced. And I wonder how many troops return home wondering how in the heck all that bad stuff could have happened to them? Where do they go to get THAT answer, with God out of the picture?