I saw stats the other day that half of the Vietnam Vets had gone to the PTSD well. When you realize that that includes the REMFs, you are probably getting over 100% for the guys that saw combat. Numbers here (Table 1): https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/research-bio/research/vietnam-vets-study.asp
That’s a high percentage, is it not?
Or was this similar during WW2?
If the amount having PTSD issues is unique to Viet-Nam and newer wars, one has to ask why, what made this conflict so horrific.
I just missed the draft by one year. I have a few relatives who came back from Viet-Nam as very different characters than before they enlisted. Many changes were permanent. I also have a few relatives who returned from duty, older and wiser, but the same spirits, the same personalities inside.
It’s an unknowable question.
Many presume war has always caused such reaction in men, but was more closely recorded and more directly treated only in recent decades.
In my experience as a Marine infantry combat veteran, I see an inverse correlation between actual combat experience and PTSD. In other words, those who saw the worst combat moved on the fight the next battles in their lives, while those who saw the least (or no close combat at all) climbed on the PTSD gravy train and chose to live in the past. Like most men who lived through it, I have grown up problems and darned poor hearing, but the experience made me a better person. Taxpayers don’t owe me a thing. Semper Fidelis...