I don't like to see the guys treated as if they were victims, reduced to impotence by the horror of the whole thing. I know something about this stuff.
Experiences like your Dad's are very tiring, extremely emotional, intense. They take great effort. Most people have never remotely experienced real fear, and don't have the slightest idea of what I mean by "real" fear, and how hard it is to think clearly even though you know that clear thought is your only hope. Your self respect is often broken, and takes decades to heal if it ever does.
Your Dad was tired, mostly. In a sort of tired rarely experienced in everyday life except by the person dying of a painful disease, I think, anyway. You get over it. Never completely, your sweet boyish laughter is gone forever. There is a certain holding of distance, a certain hostility, a certain being of the "walking dead". A certain desire not to be bothered by these vapid beings. Some drink to much.
Talking about myself, I guess. I hate whiners.
"You get over it."
He didn't. He committed suicide shortly after that.
I'm not sure you do. Some times it seems like it gets worse. You always feel like you are wide open, you can never relax and you get more and more emotional over things that remind you of it.