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Daniel Huynh

ENG 1201

Professor Flores

07/03/2020

How does Combat/War PTSD affect veterans?

War is not only time consuming and costly, but war also changes lives of people who

come back to civilian life. The Department of Veteran’s Affair, also known as VA, have

been dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for a long time in Veterans, they have

gathered a lot of information on how PTSD victims live their lives.

According to the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, dating all the way

back to ancient times, PTSD has been recorded among warriors during the Assyrian

Dynasty that suffered from traumatic events during combat. Now in modern times,

scientists and researchers can precisely record information efficiently about PTSD and

this has led to the understanding of the basic symptoms of PTSD.

\Among a few sources, it is proven that the ones who suffer hypervigilance symptoms are

experiencing feelings of anger and guilt. This means that individuals have a low threshold

for threat perception which activates a biologically natural survival mode (Murphy). This

is statement is also backed up by the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,

they discuss about certain incidents of PTSD victims that kick into a state of angry

survival mode when they hear, smell, or see similar things that were closely related to

their personal traumatic event. Hypervigilance has prevented many PTSD victims from

just relaxing and not letting their guard down and this has caused them to lose trust in
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their personal relationships, such as marriage, kids, and longtime friendships (National

Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Out of the relationships that were stated by the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress

Disorder, PTSD majorly impacts how a father or mother perceives their own children,

Caselli conducted a study and she found and discussed that PTSD subjects were

consistently perceiving their children’s behavior to be very problematic when compared

to non-PTSD subjects. Even worse, when PTSD subjects have children, it passes down

the trauma and a lesser scale and this is called “secondary traumatization”. This research

is so important, PTSD has and will continue impact many families of people who fall

victim to PTSD (Caselli).

There are a lot of the factors that cause PTSD and one of the main debates is combat.

Does the degree of combat/fighting affect the chances of forming PTSD? In the study

done by Fontana, he stated that combat did not have significant direct effects on PTSD

but rather it is the environment and the omnipresent feeling of dying any minute. On the

other hand, study and research done by Caselli, she discusses how that there is a strong

correlation to combat and PTSD symptomatology. Although these studies are both

credible and reliable sources, Caselli’s statement is more trustworthy in this case because

she referred to multiple studies done by others and they all came to the same conclusion

that combat affects the chances the PTSD.

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Bibliography

Murphy, Siobhan, et al. “Anger, Guilt and Shame as Mediators in the Relationship Between War

Experiences and PTSD: Testing the Moderating Role of Child Soldier Status.” Journal of

Child & Adolescent Trauma, vol. 10, no. 4, Dec. 2017, pp. 323–331. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1007/s40653-016-0124-x.

"National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online

Collection, Gale, 2019. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale-

com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/ENPYEY164019403/OVIC?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC

&xid=4bcd5d02. Accessed 27 June 2020.

Geraerts, Elke, and Tim Brennen. “Investigating Cognitive Abnormalities in Posttraumatic Stress

Disorder.” Novel Approaches to the Diagnosis & Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress

Disorder, vol. 6, no. 1, Mar. 2006, pp. 31–41. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=31841180&site=ehost-live.

Fontana, Alan, and Robert Rosenheck. “A Model of War Zone Stressors and Posttraumatic

Stress Disorder.” Journal of Traumatic Stress, vol. 12, no. 1, Jan. 1999, p. 111.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1023/A:1024750417154.

Caselli, Lisa Teague, and Robert W. Motta. “The Effect of PTSD and Combat Level on Vietnam

Veterans’ Perceptions of Child Behavior and..” Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol. 51,

no. 1, Jan. 1995, pp. 4–12. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/1097-4679(199501)51:1<4::AID-

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