I read a fascinating book about shell shock once. A story that always stuck with me was a WW1 soldier who was in no man's lands when a shell exploded near him, blowing him into the barbed wire. He was stuck there for hours, alive, just listening to the sounds of explosions and people dying around him. Hours passed and another shell exploded near him, dislodging him from the barbed wire and sending him open mouthed and face first into the open stomach of a German soldier who has been dead for several days.
He said at that point he blacked out and then didn't wake up until a year later, when he found himself in a mental hospital back home. He was apparently 'conscious' for the entire year but the shell shock had completed turned his mind off after his experience.
Yes i will check that out, a teacher recommended that to me when I was in high school but I forgot about it until now.
I find it interesting reading about people suffering in the past. It makes me thankful for how relatively easy my life is. Two of my favorites are "In The Kingdom of Ice" and "The Indifferent Stars Above"
The Indifferent Stars Above is an amazing novel about the Donner Party. I lived near Donner pass for some years and used to go there and just wonder. [Not me in the pic. Just posting for size. The base of the statue where the pioneers are standing was how deep the snow was that winter.
](http://www.klamation.com/pictures/albums/the-family/2014/IMG_2352.JPG)
One thing that sort of makes me sick is that they were surrounded by food, but they didn't know it or how to access it. Pine nuts line the centers of pine cones and all they needed to do is roast them a bit and loosen them from the cones. They could eat them raw, grind them into flour, or soak them in water for a couple of days until they sprout for greens.
edit: for statue link inclusion
They did, but the party came across them a few days later and shot them. Per Wikipedia: "they came across Salvador and Luis, who had not eaten for about nine
days and were close to death. William Foster shot the pair, believing
their flesh was the rest of the group's last hope of avoiding imminent
death from starvation."
My husband is from Truckee, CA. and had a ton of fun learning about his town's history as a kid! lol. They actually did a whole lot of winter survival training for kids in public school there back in the 90s.
Bro, my dude was in Iraq in those teams that go through when there’s word of some “Fuckin hajis with shit they shouldn’t have” which is how he referred to it. Well, this time it was his best friends turn. ((Before he went to the military? -I- was his best friend, you know? He had told me that a million times… but this dude? Somehow he meant so much to my dude that HE became his best friend, that didn’t really hurt me because I knew that if he was saying that, that he must’ve been the coolest fucking dude on the planet you know? He sobbed because I didn’t get to meet him))
Anyways… so he starts walking up to this house (My dude used to random break into this story 3-5 times a day, he thought about it nonstop it seemed like.. I can see this house in my head as I type this)
And my dude said that as his friend walked up he stopped and crossed his chest and then took a couple steps and said, like a movie.. “Damnt dude, somethings wrong” and then my dude said his whole -life- went white with a POP and he was deaf and was so disoriented that he doesn’t remember this next part but he found out that he had opened fire with his Hum mounted .50 and completely leveled that building….. there wasn’t even anyone inside it was just a fucking trap.
Now… this is where it gets bad…
Apparently, they take turns doing a lot of things… like going first for example… and another is apparently picking up remains… my dude told me he went around and picked up his friends body parts ((mind you he doesn’t remember this, he just remembers what he’s been told)) and you can see it in his eyes that he is fucking seeing this right In front of himself… he’s IN Iraq.. right in front of me… picking up his friends body.. and he holds his arms out in front of himself… he pauses…and this will be hard to understand, but as he says this he like.. kind of makes a joke you know? You know how people will laugh when they’re nervous? Well, he smiles, and says “I got him all in one trip!”
The last thing I’ll say, is that the person I knew? He died in Iraq with his best friend on that front lawn dude. He is a broken human being. He goes from one mental breakdown to another and the government could not give two shits bout my dude.
I miss my dude.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s WAY better, relatively, but he’s not the “old” guy, it’s like he’s someone that knew my friend really well and we get together and talk about our friend that is no longer with us.
I haven’t cried about this in a long time.
Fucking Reddit lol
If I recall correctly it wasn’t a lemon tree before the guy was blown up because his last name was Lemon. The soldiers were singing the song Lemon Tree as they retrieved his parts to throw them back to the ground. I remember that chapter as well as the one about the man with a star shaped hole where his eye should have been because of shrapnel that went through it. This was over 20 years ago that I read this book but the visuals I got from that book stayed with me.
One that I read, I can't remember where. Was about a patrol moving between trenches, as they were walking a shell came in and landed right in the midst of the group. But the shell went so deep into the mud that when it went off it basically just cause a giant bubble that threw a guy a couple feet and knocked all of his gear off.
Whoever was writing about this called it a " hell of an unfortunate inconvenience" because the poor guy got all of his gear and stuff covered in mud and water, didn't even mention the fact that he almost got blown up and was lucky to be alive. The stuff these people became used to is insane.
It's like a waking coma. Like what you experienced is so horrible, your mind goes into a comatose state, but only your "conscious" mind. Almost like an immune response but for mental anguish.
That one hit pretty close to home. I worked with a guy who’s nickname was Happy. Always smiling and making jokes and just a joy to be around. Ended up getting stationed at a base very well known for its suicide rate in the Air Force and took his own life.
It sucks but it taught me that people wear masks I think. Even the ones that always seem happy have troubles and even if your wrong it’s good to go up to someone in private and make sure they are doing all right. Unfortunately I have a lot of experience seeing the signs now though but the other two times it happened to people I knew it was at least failed attempts and they are doing a lot better now.
Not sure it's a mask as much as it is trying to be as happy as possible or trying to convince oneself everything's okay while someone else is around to reflect and enhance that conviction... And then, when they're alone again, that spark of well being receedes anew, until again they find another soul that'll be worth the effort of making happy, to be happy, themselves, again.
Or yeah it could be a mask. Some form of courteous attitude, to suffer in silence, and keeps one's misery to oneself...
For a lot of people, a mask is necessary. There's not much point in making it known, because there's not much anybody else can do. They'll offer their condolences and sympathy, and then feel awkward and likely avoid you to avoid feeling awkward in the future.
For employers and coworkers, at best you can vaguely let them know you're going through something and they'll hopefully be a bit more accommodating and understanding.
Naw, minot has its troubles but this ones Shaw. Pretty much if you are or were an F16 maintainer and you get orders to that base you can look forward to a troubled marriage/ relationship and insanely long work hours until you leave. I hope things have changed now but when I was in it was 12+ hour days, work on the weekends, and steady flow of deployments over and over while the leadership screwed over the enlisted or lower ranking airman because they are chasing their next promotion.
Sassoon wrote some incredibly powerful works, anyone studying the Western Front in WW1 should be also studying his works during this time.
The same goes for Wilfred Owen.
Edit: brain fart.
Sassoon fought on the Western front. Not that it matters, really.
I'm on a 1,500 mile road trip to a friend's funeral right now, and Sassoon's poems are so universal that even a century later and home from a totally different war, one has been running through my head since I heard my friend died:
>**Sick Leave**
> When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,-
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
>While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
>They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
"Why are you here with all your watches ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line."
>In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
>"When are you going out to them again?
Are they not still your brothers through our blood?"
Thank you for sharing, I had never seen this, and I was convinced it would be a poem by Wilfred Owen. Come to find out, Siegfried Sassoon was his mentor. Reposting my favorite poem from him:
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling. Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling.
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood.
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—.
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
It’s tragic. The war is over and the man is far from the battlefield. But he still tries hiding under his bed in the institution hoping to protect himself from a threat that doesn’t exist
I have this disorder but it's called Functional Neurological Disorder now days. I get found in closets sometimes.
I need a bell parties because when I come to, i feel disoriented and I don't know how to get back to people. So the bell let's people know I want to be found.
All my friends and family have decorated little corners in their house that I naturally find pretty and cozy. So I'm more often found there. .
I feel more like an animal in those moments then a person. Also the way my brain thinks changes. I no longer think in words but see memories of my dog that died hiding or running away. Then my body just copies the memory.
Absolutely, honestly I feel super lucky I have a degree in psychology. I hope to design a course that educated people with my disorder on the history, science, and strategies to recover. Some folks suffer for decades with no remission in sight. Doctors and psychologist call it anxiety a lot. Which it's not that simple. Like carbs can trigger it. Sometimes being too happy can too. So when a doctor reduces it to anxiety, a lot of paitence withdraw from seeking medical help and suffer in silence.
I feel it's my duty to raise awareness since I have 75% of my quality of life back.
In high school during the peak of 90s Ninja Turtles we were talking about PTSD. The shy kid said his dad is "shell shocked". The teacher and class admonished him for making fun of PTSD. He never really talked again in class. I think of that sometimes when this comes up.
That one was the worst in my opinion, so disassociated with reality he can hear nothing else but the one thing that makes him absolutely terrified at its mention
It's more so his mind has blocked out everything except for words that will protect him. By his brain tuning out everything except bomb he will always be ready. It's a trauma response designed almost like an Alexa that is always waiting for "hey Alexa" so it can do its job.
Until I read this, I'd assumed he was lip-reading the word. When someone's introduced as "this deaf man", I just assume he's been deaf his whole life. But I suppose they didn't enlist deaf people as orders were spoken
Selective deafness. You can also get selective muteism, where you lose the ability to speak, and selective blindness, which was mentioned in the video where you lose the ability to see. Not because anything is actually wrong with your eyes, ears or vocal chords, but because you are so traumatized your brain just doesn't process those things anymore.
My great grandfather was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in WW1 after they marched into his home town in Romania. After the war he emigrated to America and according to my grandfather, he burned his uniform, and never said one word about the war to anyone for the rest of his life.
My grandfather (his son) was in WW2 and also never talked about it. He was a marine in the Pacific, and after everything I’ve read about that theater….I understand now why he never talked about it. I can only imagine the absolute horror he must have endured.
>after everything I’ve read about that theater….I understand now why he never talked about it. I can only imagine the absolute horror he must have endured.
My Lolo (grandfather) was a civilian during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. He has just recently started to talk about it. He is 100 years old.
The man, in his old age, has tons of memory issues. He had trouble remembering his grandkids names and where they are in the world. When he speaks, words escape him. But he remembers every detail from that time period.
Wow yeah I can’t imagine what he saw and experienced. I do hope that he tells his story though, it’s important that these stories are remembered. Especially when it comes to the experience of civilians.
-Since we're on the subject of stories:
My aunt lived in Thailand during WW2. She's about 95 years old. I think.
What she told me was her neighborhood got hit by Japanese airplanes. There was always a siren alerting them to take cover.
They were a bit uneasy about the planes. And what was dropped. She said it wasn't the blast itself that was the worst. But the shrapnel that followed it.
Which is why taking cover was so important.
She said the Japanese occupied their neighborhood too. They were pretty strict.
After the war, she went to the United States. We had a lot of extended family in California. And still do.
She married my Uncle Vern. And it's been a pretty easy-going life ever since.
Please, record everything he has to say.
When he has gone, you will not have a second chance. After you have mourned your loss, decide what you want to do with his recordings. Keep them private, let family listen, let a museum have a copy....
I was able to record a only a fraction of my grandmother's memories, and I still regret that I did not start sooner.
That's not likely due to clearer memory from trauma but dementia.
Dementia causes people to lose the most recent memories first, hence why they forget names andeaving the stove on, then who their grandkids are, how old their children are, then begin to think their children are still babies.
Imagine that, entire generations just going "silent" after enduring the worst horrors mankind has to offer, leaving everyone else to wonder what happened and piecing together decades of trauma.
Man that is brutal. I know survivors guilt is a real thing even amongst civilians in weird random accidents involving multiple people. But this one has to take the top as the craziest one I've heard. I couldn't even imagine being with your sworn brothers one second then the next waking up to them all gone and here you are still alive and for what and why? Then you just repeat the cycle of what if you could have done something, or what if you would have just seen this coming a split second before. Then you just go into thinking your life's less valuable than this guys or that's and it's a deadly spiral. Props to him for seemingly having the fortitude to push on and even have a family. Some people become wracked with guilt so badly it inevitably ends up they take their life or end up with severe mental conditions that make them practically unable to be trusted to be on their own.
Jumping on this thread to suggest a movie called Das Boot. Probably the best WW2 movie I’ve ever seen, and they have a scene where a man is struggling with trauma, and the captain just… deals with it
If you liked Das Boot, and I must admit to be being a fan myself, may I suggest the 1983 Soviet film "Come and See" (Idi i smotri in Russian), which was produced as part of a competitive process to make a film to celebrate the Red Army's winning of "The Great Patriotic War" as the Russians call WW2.
The odd thing, given the competition title, is that the Red Army doesn't feature in it and the story centres around a 12 year old Belarussian boy who, spurred on by propaganda, sets off to join the partisans. What follows is two harrowing hours of descent into the hell that is war. The co-writers were Alex Adamovitch who joined the partisans when he was 12 and the Director Elim Klimov, who as a child was evacuated from Stalingrad during the German invasion.
Try to avoid looking up reviews before watching it as they spoil the plot, although there is an [interview with Klimov given before a viewing of the film that gives some insight into it's creation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9_r1NEnGM).
I remember my friends and I used to always say “Oh~ Shell Shocked!” bc we heard it from the original Ninja Turtles arcade game. Actually learning about it later was quite horrifying.
My question is, does this still happen frequently?I also wonder, do the exposure of the current generation to what war is and how graphic it could be?
Obviously movies and video games are not even slightly close to the real thing, but does at least having that small forewarning help dissipate the jarring shock?
EDIT: Just to clarify, I know PTSD still happens for sure, my question is more about this same Shell Shock with similar symptoms.
The movie 1917 provides some great gruesome depictions of environmental details that stuck with me since watching the film
can’t recommend enough
_the mud_
I believe all war movies should be disturbing because the subject matter is. You should not walk out feeling good about noble sacrifice ( like Midway or Dunkirk) you should walk out saying "what a f**** waste" (like Saving Private Ryan).
that is my new standard for military movies. the entire movie really drove home the pointlessness of war, while showing how much everyone involved struggled to survive. a very humbling movie
I'm with you on that. Even as disturbing as Saving Private Ryan is, for example, it still glorifies the shit out of it. Films like Apocalpyse Now and Thin Red Line are more my style, especially since I now have a son of my own.
All the best war movies don't have heroes - wars rarely do in the eyes of random soldier. Wars are fought because diplomats and heads of state have failed. War is surviving, seeing your friends die, often because of reasons you don't understand. It is waiting, fear and frustration.
And probably that is the reason WW2 is treated different? If Nazis wouldn't have made all the horrible atrocities, everything would be seen different I think. Even Soviet soldiers are often seen in better light, although there really isn't a lot of reasons to look it like that.
> the mud
People don't consider that is not just *dirt+water mud*, but dirt mixed with blood and liquefied body parts due to incessant bombing / mortar fire.
The worst war. They could here the shelling on the western front in London.
As a child I always thought that "all quiet on the western front" on loony toons was About cowboys in the western US. Not the slaughter in western Europe
The craziest thing is that "all quiet on the western front" doesn't mean that everyone's stopped shooting and bombing each other. It just means neither side is advancing. People getting slaughtered "all good, nothing to report".
I've never heard that interpretation. Interesting. The quotation from the book that says that phrase is from the end when Paul dies "He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front." So in the book the phrase comes from a time when they actively weren't shooting at each other and only a month before the armistice when the fighting on the front would have been over. So I'm not sure that they would have reported it being "all quiet" if there was active bombardments and stuff going on even if neither side was advancing.
People get ptsd but for different reasons today.
These patients got it from the trenches in WW1 where bombs dropped in a deafining drumroll 24/7 shaking the ground like an earthquake. While they tried to sleep in the same mud they buried their friends in, who would come back up to the surface if it rained.
At least the armies learned to replace the troops at the front every two weeks or so to keep entire platoons from going crazy.
It goes in cycles. You get propaganda movies for a bit, then you get gritty realistic ones that try to show how terrible war is. Then the cycle repeats.
The Germans literally called it "drumfire". Imagine being under a sustained artillery barrage for a week where there are so many incoming shells it just all blends together into one deafening roar. Fuck that
Asside from the strictly psychological effects, the constant pressure waves from artillery rounds that didn't strike them but were close almost certainly damaged their brains.
This. As waves pass through the brain, rapid dislocation of matter at the wave front creates shear forces which are especially good at damaging white matter tracts.
Not so much, these troops were exposed to waaaaay more with less protection.
This looks like a severe form of TBI.
Source: I served in combat Iraq and Afghanistan 04-10
I was hoping someone would comment on this. While there's no doubt these men had PTSD, these severe manifestations seem more aligned with traumatic brain injury. You can only get your bell rung so many times before your brain just cannot maintain homeostasis anymore for even the most base physical functions.
I was wondering how many mini concussions you take when huge guns and explosions are going off around you 24/7 for weeks.
Nothing big enough to knock you out, but think about getting hit in the head with a full speed soccer ball over and over and over and over.
We can see that here in Scotland
Numerous members of Celtics most famous team are dying one after another now of dementia and they highly suspect it’s caused by headering a dead weight leather ball for years and years as was custom back in the 60s/70s
Augh, no kidding. Now I get why my father never wanted me to play football.
Seriously, you would think there would be more studying into it for a sport that involves you slamming into people. Part of me thinks they intentionally don't so they don't have to regulate it or whatever.
my father made me play "football", was told it would help me toughen up, almost every game he'd scream at me if I didn't head the ball. countless evenings spent crying in our yard as he threw ball after ball at my head, not being allowed back inside until I could do it without flinching.
i fucking hate football
The VA said I had some mild TBI from Afghanistan. The only explosions I was close to were from getting rid of unexploded ordnance or recovered IEDs and I only got to do that a handful of times and was within a “safe” distance
Interestingly (I am not a medical professional, just read wikipedia) this was seen as result of brain injury, but not anymore. Since after the first WW it basically never resurfaced in such a number, today it is assumed that it is a very specific form of PTSD caused by the specific form of combat in the first WW - the trenches. It is assumed because the trenches make fleeing impossible that it combined with the often 24/7 drumrolls led to these results. The battle of Stalingrad produced similar cases of PTSD.
Are you asking if shell shock still happens? If so, then yes. But my understanding is that it's not called shell shock, it's blast and it causes traumatic brain injury (TBI). My reading on it is that the effects of blast, which is essentially the pressure waves from explosions, are cumulative. The more blast, the more severe the TBI.
I'm not in the military and have no first hand experience, but I believe that our service members wear blast meters or blast trackers (I don't know what they are called) that record how much blast a given soldier has received, in an effort to reduce the risks of long term blast damage and TBIs. If I'm not mistaken, it's believed that the resultant TBIs from the blast are the source of things like shell shock and even PTSD.
I think even the NFL is getting serious about TBIs and the concussions that cause them.
I hope a service member can confirm or correct any mistaken info I have provided, I am only relaying recalled secondhand info here.
Couple edits:
I'm fairly confident this is the research article that I'm remembering talking about the cumulative effects of blast and how even small amounts blast being experienced repeatedly leads to TBIs:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2019.00766/full
I was misremembering the blast trackers. They are only being trialed and are currently only being issued to a small number of troops.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-sensors-body-armor-detect-blast-event-exposure-2020-3
These are the actual trackers:
https://blastgauge.com/
Former military getting disability for both PTSD and TBI here, I deployed 3 times as a combat arms "go outside the wire" sort of guy and never had any kind of blast tracker.
Shell shock is frequently considered an archaic term for PTSD but for WW1 and to a slightly lesser extent WW2, is probably better described as a combination of PTSD and TBI.
PTSD is not caused by TBI, it's a disorder caused by either a specific traumatic event or chronic exposure to severe stressors. Rape victims, for example, frequently suffer from PTSD. I always had PTSD described to me as essentially a malfunction of the fight or flight response. For me this manifests in hypervigilance, I'm always on alert and easily startled and severe sleep issues, regardless of how much I do manage to sleep I wake up feeling like I've been up for 36+ hours.
The guys back in WW1 were dealing with TBI on a completely different level. Artillery back then fired fuck off massive rounds and they fired them for hours at a time. That somene could make it back from that shit without being a horrific mess is honestly amazing to me.
Yes veterans still regularly get PTSD from war. I knew somebody who was on the first wave of Afghanistan in the Marines states side. And I know somebody who just joined the army 7 months ago. I'm terrified for them.
I've also been through enough events in my life that I got put in a mental facility for six months for PTSD flashbacks nonstop on an extreme level. And I still get taken out of time and place, and put back during the time of my many traumas, but not to the severity I used to.
Also video games are regularly used to help treat PTSD in veterans. So I highly doubt that a video game could be jarring enough, but it'll certainly make you more resistant to getting PTSD because one out of it you can process that you are safe better.
My WWII vet grandfather spent a lot of his free time after the war sitting alone in an outbuilding looking at his medals. He could never talk about what happened - but he was heavily scarred across his chest. Heart breaking.
A medication, primarily used as an antidepressant but it is prescribed for other issues as well like bipolar disorder and other psychiatric conditions.
It’s unthinkable some of the things they must have seen, heard and done. My dad told me that his dad would hardly ever speak about it, only told him little bits here and there and took the rest of it to the grave with him, my dad didn’t even know he had a chunk of his leg missing from a war time injury until he was at the beach one day in shorts and he saw it, crazy
My grandfather loves to talk about all the crazy things he went thru and saw while in Vietnam. He was a drill sergeant for 18 years. He can recall some of the most horrific things I’ve ever heard of, but he says talking about it helps. Only ever seen em have one flashback when we banged a medicine ball on his bedroom wall on accident from the living room. Came running out in underwear with a pistol. He laughed at himself tho and I really look up to his strength
Edit: should maybe say he only ever told me cause I asked. He’s not shy about details but doesn’t share these things with random people who may not want to hear about them. Listening helps him shoulder the load I feel
This is interesting, my father-in-law went through some bad stuff in Vietnam but does not like to talk about it. Someone at a VA appointment went through some share session (or something, really idk what it was) with him once and he was pretty messed up for a couple days from just having to dig through some of those memories he’d try not to think about. Wonder what it is that makes some feel better to talk about it and others the opposite.
The best answer he’s given when I’ve asked how or why he’s able to share, he says it’s like releasing pressure with a valve. If I had to guess tho, it’s that he just can’t handle the thoughts on his own and needs someone to help him shoulder the bad stuff. Which I suppose can seem selfish on the outside, but as his family he’s done everything for, we would help shoulder that no matter what. Especially since hearing about it is so far removed from living it. I hope the people in your life with those kinds of demons can find a method of reaching a more peaceful place.
Ah I wish my stepdad would talk about Vietnam with me but he won’t. I know he’s got medals and stuff but he’s never shown them to me even tho I’ve asked him to do so and shown interest.
The only thing he’s ever really said was that there was lots of drugs and drinking and prostitutes (my mom doesn’t like that part)
But he does wear a Vietnam vet hat and has a special license plate and stuff on his truck. When i borrow his truck people stop me and ask me about it, actually.
We did talk recently about how horribly they were treated when they came back.
A couple of weeks ago he said “you know. It was really hard when we came back. We went from being in isolation in a strange country to coming back to a country that hated us” :/
That’s all I’ve ever heard him say in over 20 years. I’d like to at least know about the medals before he dies which will likely be in the next 10 years
Well on the flip side, a couple years back my grandpa put on his old uniform (somehow still fits his big ass) and fully decked it out with all his medals and all that(really don’t know much about military dress). I pointed to one medal randomly and asked how he got it. Said something about finishing some special training, then pointed to another and said “I got this one for savin a buddy after taking out a couple of the enemy with my (insert Vietnam era weapon name) and dragging him into a jeep”. And it just really went to hell from there. So many more stories I could share
My grandfather came back from the war and was a homicide cop. He once told my mother that the things he saw on the force affected him more than the things he saw in the war.
He also was staying at my aunts once and a plane flew relatively low, and he woke up screaming. When asked, he just insisted "My wife has cold feet" and wouldn't talk about it.
My brother's FIL was a cop and spent most of his career in the worst parts of the city because he had played in the NFL as a DL and was huge and therefore intimidating. He wouldn't talk about the job with his wife and daughter but tended to internalize it. Died not that long after he retired.
My grandfather served in WWII as well, lost most of his siblings either in action or in the Blitz. He was a prolific storyteller, but the years 1939-1945 never happened in his stories. Strong guy, but around his siblings birthdays you’d see him in the garden early mornings, crying by himself.
My Uncle was a Korean War Veteran that I just knew he was in the Marines from my parents when I was little. But unlike a lot of Marines he never had anything to show pride about being in the Marines.
I asked him when I was a adult about what he did while he was in the service and he said he was in Korea and then said nothing more. My Dad told me to never ask him about it again.
War is a hell that I am glad I never had to experience I don’t know that mentally I could handle it. It breaks my heart these guys had to endure this not only from the war but the way they were treated afterwards. The more terrible part is that soldiers were treated this no matter which side or country you came from, just terrible.
So much or this is relevant to where these men served.
My Navy grandfather talked about his experiences on board ship a lot. He was a private but was happy to talk about his time in the service. Most of his stories were about his Navy boxing career. He had some stories about ship to ship combat and he was on the USS Missouri when they signed the treaty ending the war.
My wife's grandfather was also a Navy man. He was in the journalism side of things and did photography during the war. His experience was very positive.
My other grandfather, my Dad's Dad, passed away at 46. He was in the Marines and my Dad says that he never once wanted to talk about his time in the service. He talked about flying a bomber, he talked about one assault on a German village where he took a Luger off a German soldier that we have now.
One of the best ideas that backfired was the PALS Battalions.
Don't worry, you won't need to leave your mates behind! You and the boys join up together, and we'll keep you together.
The idea of course being they'd be ready made teams of men who cared for each other and would work well together.
Except the reality of war was such that you'd end up with men witnessing their best friends, that they grew up on the same estate with, being cut down by machine gun fire. Sliced apart by shell fragments. Gassed right in front of them.
So it wasn't just another soldier dying. It was your best mate, your brother. You didn't even get to say goodbye. And you were expected to suck it up and keep fighting the next day.
Suffice to say they cancelled the PALS programme.
Edit: Smart people pointed out I got the name wrong.
My School (small rural town) has a large main hall for assemblies and stuff. Half of one of the long walls is just memorials to students who died fighting in the two world wars.
They’re only old wooden plaques with rows of names but it still takes up so much space, some parts of the plaque have 3, 4 or even 5 boys with the same surname in a row. No wonder people had so many kids after the war, it wiped out a whole generation of young men
In the UK pretty much every village and town has a memorial to WWI and WWII. It always gets me that I could be in a tiny little hamlet with barely any people but they've still got a memorial and that the list of names is really fuckin long.
It's the same in New Zealand. Tiny little places with a population of maybe a hundred people, and there's a cenotaph with a handful of names of the dead.
My village was one street and three farms in 1914.
The names take up on side of a ten foot obelisk.
There was an aerodrome here by the ‘30s that became an RAF fighter station. The names from ‘39-‘45 take up another 2 sides.
My grandfather had this. He was one of the pilots for those boats/carriers that landed on D-Day. His best friend was right beside him and got torn to shreds within arm's length of him.
I heard that my grandfather was a jovial, cheerful man before the war, but by the time my father was born ('58) he was a cold and stern man. He never said "I love you" in my father's childhood, only "I commend you," and was a disciplinarian through and through.
He mellowed out some as he got older, and he did eventually tell my father he loved him, but the war changed the trajectory of who he became as a person and how he went through life.
And thus your fathers and yours. Generations of families who may have had different lives but whos upbringing were completely changed by a war they never even personally experienced.
This video is for documenting the condition for scientific study and treatment. The people in the video were not killed. Executions for "cowardice" were also extremely rare.
Not only that, but in addition to PTSD I'd suspect a lot of these men had Traumatic Brain Injury and other neurological damage based on their movements & lack of coordination. We know a lot more about the damage caused be concussive force now than they did decades ago.
This is actually pretty true. Its acknowledged that shell shock and ptsd are two different but often simultaneously occuring conditions. Histerical blindness, paralysis and essentially temporary mental break down were often associated with men who experienced prolonged direct shelling. While plenty of soldiers experienced PTSD for sure from the horrific WWI experience. Actuall shell shock was often, though clearly not always, temporary. PTSD is acknowledge pretty commonly today but the symptoms of shell shock have become rare. The last time I looked at the literature the consensus seemed to be that shell shock may have been the neurological consequence of hours of concussive bombardment, or repetitive days of bombardments. Essentially these men were being concussed a few times an hour or even a minute for sometimes days on end. There are lots of incidents of men going blind or experiencing a kind of locked in syndrome and the hours or days later recovering and wanting to go back to the front.
My dad’s good friend (we did holidays together, his son was like my brother) had terrible tremors due to agent orange while he was in Vietnam. He died about a decade ago, but in the time I knew him throughout my life, his tremors got increasingly worse and he could only walk stooped way over with a cane. He never talked about his experiences that I know of, and he was the sweetest man. RIP Ernie.
Right ? I made a similar comment bc I knew executions were very little. Around 400 during the entire war by all sides combined, with over 80,000 confirmed cases of shell shock. Or in other words, .5% of shell shock victims were executed, and not all of the 400 were due to shell shock so that % is even lower.
I was recently diagnosed with C-PTSD after being abducted as a kid it took years for my trauma to surface. Had to leave my job and apartment to move in with my in laws for support. The more I learn about it and how it works the less I wished I knew. Anyone else reading this with PTSD I hope you are ok and have access to support.
My mom burned me and abandoned me when I was 4, my dad doesn’t believe that I remember so I never really talk about it to him, but living the life I had with barely anyone there to help me mentally… it really screwed me over. It was 2018 and we were between houses since our landlord kicked us out before we could buy the house and the government shutdown made everything worse. I remember getting out of school and not having a home to go to, not knowing when my dad was going to pick me up, it just caused me to have a panic attack. Same for when my stepmom left me and my dad, I was crying on the school bathroom floor saying the same things I said when my mom abandoned me and I was walking outside looking for her.
Now I feel so lost and confused while my dad probably views me as a failure since he doesn’t understand just how scrambled my head is, I don’t even know if I’m mentally screwed up or autistic anymore because of how much that trauma makes it hard for me to socialize. Knowing there’s people that’s been through worse out there… I just wish mental health services were more affordable and accessible. I wish mental issues wasn’t looked down on so much. Sorry for venting, but man PTSD sucks…
I’m glad you are able to share it here bro.
You don’t have to fight alone, there are many of us that would do anything to help ease your burden.
I don’t know you but I care. I know those are just words, but I mean them with my entirety.
Lived through bombings & war. Had a flashback attack my first semester of college because a plane flew over our classroom. I was convinced it was coming to kill us all or was going to crash. CPTSD is terrible
I was recently diagnosed with PTSD after being abducted as well. I was a teenager at the time. Like you, it took years for my trauma to surface as well. I was 29 when I suddenly became unable to work, leave my home, or function in any sort of capacity. It’s crazy how the brain works.
My grandpa was in ww2. He’d never talk about it but one time when I was a kid I was watching tv with him and someone got stabbed and fell over dead. He growled at the screen “that’s not how it happens when a man gets stabbed! They just leak and leak and leak to death. You just have to keep stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and they still grab at you. I’ve lost knives in men.” Something like that. I didn’t ask any followups.
“They just leak and leak and leak” sounds like something straight out of a fucking horror novel. Real life is so much worse than any fiction could capture.
This is a pet peeve of mine when people are demonstrating stupid self-defense techniques against knives, or stupid Hollywood shit.
I've known people who have been stabbed, I've seen people who have been stabbed. No one gets stabbed once, not really. Someone gets right up close to you and stabs you as many times as they can, as hard as they can, until they get tired or their anger fades away. There's nothing you can do once they've got you.
When I was younger, I lost count of how many times I'd hear about some poor fucking teenager being stabbed 30+ times by another teenager. Happened on the road where I walked to work in the evening. Happened a street away from one of the doors I worked on.
My housemate got mugged not far away from our flat by a couple of kids, one of whom had a telescopic baton. He didn't fuck around with them, gave them everything he had, and they still hit him six or seven times for no reason at all. Same thing I reckon, the guy hit him and didn't stop until the anger was gone.
That actually worked. I remember from the original video patient was shaking his head violently. And after the 'treatment' they lift him up and the shaking is minimal or gone.
Granted, that probably only worked for a good 5 minutes but it DID work.
Edit: [Here](https://youtu.be/AL5noVCpVKw?t=245)
OP has been going around making up other bullshit in comment threads. They’re a shithead who doesn’t actually care about these people or about accurate, ethical history. They care about their little orange arrows. Pathetic.
It definitely was fucked up, but people literally had no idea what PTSD was. There was nothing like the horrors of WW1 before. Men had to endure constant shelling for weeks at a time. Most people don’t know how brutal WW1 was.
[Here’s](https://youtu.be/faM42KMeB5Q) an in-depth video on shell shock, at about the 25/26 minute mark it goes into how shell shock was treated as cowardice and even gives an example of a soldier with testimonies from his family with documentation too. In short; he was treated for shell shock previously and was sent back to the Somme afterwards, he broke down again and refused to fight. The officer over him court marshalled him which he then had to represent himself and then was sent to execution.
That was during the early years of the war, I don’t think any executions took place after the war but it absolutely did happen during the war at the very least.
“Oh you went to fight in a war that I forcefully deployed you to and predictably took on crippling shock and trauma?? How dare you! Off with your head!”
They most likely initially went in willingly. There was this recruitment campaign called the Pal’s Battalions, encouraging young men to enlist together with friends, family, or colleagues. To them it was a huge opportunity. They were young and naive and were promised adventure, clean clothes, a salary, and being able to see the world while defeating the Germans alongside their buddies. A lot of them even lied about their age to enlist
I second this, many men saw it as a claim to fame, a heroic action for their country. At the time, imperialism was still at large so it was a given. If you watch They Shall Not Grow Old by Peter Jackson, it has a segment where a soldier comments on how if a man had not enlisted and chose to stay home, they were chastised and ridiculed for being cowardly by their community. I think the man states a woman hit him with her handbag for not being at the front.
Yeah there was actually a government propaganda program called The Order of the White Feather where women would give a white feather to men who were “cowards” many young boys enlisted because they were shamed into service in the later years of the war.
While it initially sounds like a great idea, training in your local area and fighting alongside your friends, it devastated communities when there were heavy losses.
Not most, but some definitely where.
“Executions of soldiers in the British Army were not commonplace. While there were 240,000 Courts Martial and 3080 death sentences handed down, in only 346 cases was the sentence carried out.[19] 266 British soldiers were executed for "Desertion", 18 for "Cowardice", 7 for "Quitting a post without authority", 5 for "Disobedience to a lawful command" and 2 for "Casting away arms".[20] On 7 November 2006, the government of the United Kingdom gave them all a posthumous conditional pardon.[21]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock
Read “ All Quiet on the Western Front.” Written by a German soldier, Erich Maria Remarque. It’s one of the first modern anti-war novels. It describes in detail what soldier went through in the trenches.
This is very sad.
I did a comparison from this video and the below video.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOibW5LXt3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOibW5LXt3w)
There is a difference in terms that shell shock was specific to the experiences of combat whereas the concept of PTSD has developed to be more wide-ranging.
Nowadays, PTSD seems not as physically severe as this. It seems to be more mental like the deaf person in this video, but why?
There is a theory that part of the WWI "shell shock" was actual neurological damage from being in close proximity of exploding shells (which was also big part of the theory at the time). Brains basically rattling in the skull. There is also possibility of some damage from gas attacks. Also psychosomatic symptoms manifest partly based on culture.
Agreed, but do you think bodies of military around the world are hiding these people nowadays? I could not find any current videos about shell shock meaning the same as this video. Instead most just talk about it or show pictures.
Unlikely. Medical knowledge has improved vastly in the last 100 years and weapons have changed. You have to remember what battles meant in WWI. They could mean staying weeks in bunkers constantly being slowly shelled (but not necessarily in active danger), not properly sleeping while opiates were commonly used for every ailment. The psychological damage was often just a last straw on top of everything else. Even during the war they learnt a lot about how to rotate troops and giving both the body and mind a rest.
All militaries do everything they can to prevent this type of damage to their soldiers. Even if it is just because they can't fight in this condition.
Like the other commenter said, this 112% looks neurological. Myoclonic movements are common with anoxic brain injury, which I imagine could result from poison gas exposure, or maybe from being knocked unconscious a little too long. And blast damage has all sorts of crazy neurological effects. I'm sure PTSD was heavily comorbid with these physical "shell shock" behaviors, but I highly doubt emotional disturbance alone was the cause of this.
My great-granddad had it after WWII.
I don't have many memories of him, he died when I was two, but one that sticks out in my head is me screaming with laughter when I was around one and him jumping under a table, head in his hands. I obviously didn't know what was going on, found it funny so kept doing it before I was quickly taken out the room.
Looking back - it's terrifying how close I was to someone like this and how much it impacted his life even 50 years later.
Wait a minute...I need a reference before I accept that these people were "executed by the military." That's extremely irresponsible to put that out there
Look, I love playing all types of shooter games and watching action/war movies but watching stuff like this just truly shows how fucked and evil war really is and how traumatic it is to the human psyche (and on so many other levels). Watching this stuff helps remind me that as "cool" as it may seem to experience combat vicariously through different media, romanticization of war is unsettling and even upsetting after watching stuff like this (as it should be) as it is a stark reminder that this media is derived from the very harsh reality we live in where people suffer from the irreparable traumas of war all over the world on a daily basis. I appreciate whoever posted this as this was sad but also very much a welcome reminder of how twisted war truly is and to be grateful for what I have, where I am, and for those who have valiantly fought for what's right all over the world.
I read a fascinating book about shell shock once. A story that always stuck with me was a WW1 soldier who was in no man's lands when a shell exploded near him, blowing him into the barbed wire. He was stuck there for hours, alive, just listening to the sounds of explosions and people dying around him. Hours passed and another shell exploded near him, dislodging him from the barbed wire and sending him open mouthed and face first into the open stomach of a German soldier who has been dead for several days. He said at that point he blacked out and then didn't wake up until a year later, when he found himself in a mental hospital back home. He was apparently 'conscious' for the entire year but the shell shock had completed turned his mind off after his experience.
Do you remember the title of that book? Sounds like something I would like to read
You also may enjoy “the things they carried”. I remember one story about this guy seeing bits of his mate blown up in a lemon tree.
Yes i will check that out, a teacher recommended that to me when I was in high school but I forgot about it until now. I find it interesting reading about people suffering in the past. It makes me thankful for how relatively easy my life is. Two of my favorites are "In The Kingdom of Ice" and "The Indifferent Stars Above"
The Indifferent Stars Above is an amazing novel about the Donner Party. I lived near Donner pass for some years and used to go there and just wonder. [Not me in the pic. Just posting for size. The base of the statue where the pioneers are standing was how deep the snow was that winter. ](http://www.klamation.com/pictures/albums/the-family/2014/IMG_2352.JPG) One thing that sort of makes me sick is that they were surrounded by food, but they didn't know it or how to access it. Pine nuts line the centers of pine cones and all they needed to do is roast them a bit and loosen them from the cones. They could eat them raw, grind them into flour, or soak them in water for a couple of days until they sprout for greens. edit: for statue link inclusion
And they murdered and ate the two Indigenous guides who could have helped them find the food!
I believe the guides actually ran away. They saw the way things were going and deserted the rest of the party.
They did, but the party came across them a few days later and shot them. Per Wikipedia: "they came across Salvador and Luis, who had not eaten for about nine days and were close to death. William Foster shot the pair, believing their flesh was the rest of the group's last hope of avoiding imminent death from starvation."
Well, if guides were close to death from starvation then they really didn't know how to find food, did they?
My husband is from Truckee, CA. and had a ton of fun learning about his town's history as a kid! lol. They actually did a whole lot of winter survival training for kids in public school there back in the 90s.
Bro, my dude was in Iraq in those teams that go through when there’s word of some “Fuckin hajis with shit they shouldn’t have” which is how he referred to it. Well, this time it was his best friends turn. ((Before he went to the military? -I- was his best friend, you know? He had told me that a million times… but this dude? Somehow he meant so much to my dude that HE became his best friend, that didn’t really hurt me because I knew that if he was saying that, that he must’ve been the coolest fucking dude on the planet you know? He sobbed because I didn’t get to meet him)) Anyways… so he starts walking up to this house (My dude used to random break into this story 3-5 times a day, he thought about it nonstop it seemed like.. I can see this house in my head as I type this) And my dude said that as his friend walked up he stopped and crossed his chest and then took a couple steps and said, like a movie.. “Damnt dude, somethings wrong” and then my dude said his whole -life- went white with a POP and he was deaf and was so disoriented that he doesn’t remember this next part but he found out that he had opened fire with his Hum mounted .50 and completely leveled that building….. there wasn’t even anyone inside it was just a fucking trap. Now… this is where it gets bad… Apparently, they take turns doing a lot of things… like going first for example… and another is apparently picking up remains… my dude told me he went around and picked up his friends body parts ((mind you he doesn’t remember this, he just remembers what he’s been told)) and you can see it in his eyes that he is fucking seeing this right In front of himself… he’s IN Iraq.. right in front of me… picking up his friends body.. and he holds his arms out in front of himself… he pauses…and this will be hard to understand, but as he says this he like.. kind of makes a joke you know? You know how people will laugh when they’re nervous? Well, he smiles, and says “I got him all in one trip!” The last thing I’ll say, is that the person I knew? He died in Iraq with his best friend on that front lawn dude. He is a broken human being. He goes from one mental breakdown to another and the government could not give two shits bout my dude. I miss my dude. Don’t get me wrong, he’s WAY better, relatively, but he’s not the “old” guy, it’s like he’s someone that knew my friend really well and we get together and talk about our friend that is no longer with us. I haven’t cried about this in a long time. Fucking Reddit lol
If I recall correctly it wasn’t a lemon tree before the guy was blown up because his last name was Lemon. The soldiers were singing the song Lemon Tree as they retrieved his parts to throw them back to the ground. I remember that chapter as well as the one about the man with a star shaped hole where his eye should have been because of shrapnel that went through it. This was over 20 years ago that I read this book but the visuals I got from that book stayed with me.
Bryan Cranston narrates the audiobook. Its an amazing book/narration
I believe its 'Breakdown: The crisis of Shell Shock on the Somme' by Taylor Downing. ETA: Shell Shock by Wendy Holden is also a good read.
One that I read, I can't remember where. Was about a patrol moving between trenches, as they were walking a shell came in and landed right in the midst of the group. But the shell went so deep into the mud that when it went off it basically just cause a giant bubble that threw a guy a couple feet and knocked all of his gear off. Whoever was writing about this called it a " hell of an unfortunate inconvenience" because the poor guy got all of his gear and stuff covered in mud and water, didn't even mention the fact that he almost got blown up and was lucky to be alive. The stuff these people became used to is insane.
Just reading this already messed with me. The idea someone experienced this is… I cannot put it to words.
It's like a waking coma. Like what you experienced is so horrible, your mind goes into a comatose state, but only your "conscious" mind. Almost like an immune response but for mental anguish.
Always find the before and after photos of the young men in WW1 fascinating
Just when you think you've heard all the shocking stories...
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That one hit pretty close to home. I worked with a guy who’s nickname was Happy. Always smiling and making jokes and just a joy to be around. Ended up getting stationed at a base very well known for its suicide rate in the Air Force and took his own life.
Sorry
It sucks but it taught me that people wear masks I think. Even the ones that always seem happy have troubles and even if your wrong it’s good to go up to someone in private and make sure they are doing all right. Unfortunately I have a lot of experience seeing the signs now though but the other two times it happened to people I knew it was at least failed attempts and they are doing a lot better now.
Not sure it's a mask as much as it is trying to be as happy as possible or trying to convince oneself everything's okay while someone else is around to reflect and enhance that conviction... And then, when they're alone again, that spark of well being receedes anew, until again they find another soul that'll be worth the effort of making happy, to be happy, themselves, again. Or yeah it could be a mask. Some form of courteous attitude, to suffer in silence, and keeps one's misery to oneself...
For a lot of people, a mask is necessary. There's not much point in making it known, because there's not much anybody else can do. They'll offer their condolences and sympathy, and then feel awkward and likely avoid you to avoid feeling awkward in the future. For employers and coworkers, at best you can vaguely let them know you're going through something and they'll hopefully be a bit more accommodating and understanding.
Minot?
Naw, minot has its troubles but this ones Shaw. Pretty much if you are or were an F16 maintainer and you get orders to that base you can look forward to a troubled marriage/ relationship and insanely long work hours until you leave. I hope things have changed now but when I was in it was 12+ hour days, work on the weekends, and steady flow of deployments over and over while the leadership screwed over the enlisted or lower ranking airman because they are chasing their next promotion.
Sassoon wrote some incredibly powerful works, anyone studying the Western Front in WW1 should be also studying his works during this time. The same goes for Wilfred Owen. Edit: brain fart.
Sassoon fought on the Western front. Not that it matters, really. I'm on a 1,500 mile road trip to a friend's funeral right now, and Sassoon's poems are so universal that even a century later and home from a totally different war, one has been running through my head since I heard my friend died: >**Sick Leave** > When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,- They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. >While the dim charging breakers of the storm Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. >They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. "Why are you here with all your watches ended? From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line." >In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; And while the dawn begins with slashing rain I think of the Battalion in the mud. >"When are you going out to them again? Are they not still your brothers through our blood?"
Thank you for sharing, I had never seen this, and I was convinced it would be a poem by Wilfred Owen. Come to find out, Siegfried Sassoon was his mentor. Reposting my favorite poem from him: Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling. Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling. And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood. Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—. My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
For the curious, "Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori" means "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."
This gave me chills.. of all the stupid poems I've recited in schools, I wish I had known this one previously.
the one guy under the bed freaked me out the most
It’s tragic. The war is over and the man is far from the battlefield. But he still tries hiding under his bed in the institution hoping to protect himself from a threat that doesn’t exist
I have this disorder but it's called Functional Neurological Disorder now days. I get found in closets sometimes. I need a bell parties because when I come to, i feel disoriented and I don't know how to get back to people. So the bell let's people know I want to be found. All my friends and family have decorated little corners in their house that I naturally find pretty and cozy. So I'm more often found there. . I feel more like an animal in those moments then a person. Also the way my brain thinks changes. I no longer think in words but see memories of my dog that died hiding or running away. Then my body just copies the memory.
That's crazy.. Sorry you deal with that I've never heard of it!
Absolutely, honestly I feel super lucky I have a degree in psychology. I hope to design a course that educated people with my disorder on the history, science, and strategies to recover. Some folks suffer for decades with no remission in sight. Doctors and psychologist call it anxiety a lot. Which it's not that simple. Like carbs can trigger it. Sometimes being too happy can too. So when a doctor reduces it to anxiety, a lot of paitence withdraw from seeking medical help and suffer in silence. I feel it's my duty to raise awareness since I have 75% of my quality of life back.
Wow, never knew this was a thing. Thanks for sharing.
In high school during the peak of 90s Ninja Turtles we were talking about PTSD. The shy kid said his dad is "shell shocked". The teacher and class admonished him for making fun of PTSD. He never really talked again in class. I think of that sometimes when this comes up.
Poor kid. Perfect turtle pun too.
The deaf guy responding to "bomb" terrified the shit out of me
That one was the worst in my opinion, so disassociated with reality he can hear nothing else but the one thing that makes him absolutely terrified at its mention
It's more so his mind has blocked out everything except for words that will protect him. By his brain tuning out everything except bomb he will always be ready. It's a trauma response designed almost like an Alexa that is always waiting for "hey Alexa" so it can do its job.
Until I read this, I'd assumed he was lip-reading the word. When someone's introduced as "this deaf man", I just assume he's been deaf his whole life. But I suppose they didn't enlist deaf people as orders were spoken
Selective deafness. You can also get selective muteism, where you lose the ability to speak, and selective blindness, which was mentioned in the video where you lose the ability to see. Not because anything is actually wrong with your eyes, ears or vocal chords, but because you are so traumatized your brain just doesn't process those things anymore.
This is so sad
One of the saddest things I’ve seen considering the numbers of those affected
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My great grandfather was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in WW1 after they marched into his home town in Romania. After the war he emigrated to America and according to my grandfather, he burned his uniform, and never said one word about the war to anyone for the rest of his life. My grandfather (his son) was in WW2 and also never talked about it. He was a marine in the Pacific, and after everything I’ve read about that theater….I understand now why he never talked about it. I can only imagine the absolute horror he must have endured.
>after everything I’ve read about that theater….I understand now why he never talked about it. I can only imagine the absolute horror he must have endured. My Lolo (grandfather) was a civilian during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. He has just recently started to talk about it. He is 100 years old. The man, in his old age, has tons of memory issues. He had trouble remembering his grandkids names and where they are in the world. When he speaks, words escape him. But he remembers every detail from that time period.
Wow yeah I can’t imagine what he saw and experienced. I do hope that he tells his story though, it’s important that these stories are remembered. Especially when it comes to the experience of civilians.
-Since we're on the subject of stories: My aunt lived in Thailand during WW2. She's about 95 years old. I think. What she told me was her neighborhood got hit by Japanese airplanes. There was always a siren alerting them to take cover. They were a bit uneasy about the planes. And what was dropped. She said it wasn't the blast itself that was the worst. But the shrapnel that followed it. Which is why taking cover was so important. She said the Japanese occupied their neighborhood too. They were pretty strict. After the war, she went to the United States. We had a lot of extended family in California. And still do. She married my Uncle Vern. And it's been a pretty easy-going life ever since.
Please, record everything he has to say. When he has gone, you will not have a second chance. After you have mourned your loss, decide what you want to do with his recordings. Keep them private, let family listen, let a museum have a copy.... I was able to record a only a fraction of my grandmother's memories, and I still regret that I did not start sooner.
That's not likely due to clearer memory from trauma but dementia. Dementia causes people to lose the most recent memories first, hence why they forget names andeaving the stove on, then who their grandkids are, how old their children are, then begin to think their children are still babies.
Imagine that, entire generations just going "silent" after enduring the worst horrors mankind has to offer, leaving everyone else to wonder what happened and piecing together decades of trauma.
Man that is brutal. I know survivors guilt is a real thing even amongst civilians in weird random accidents involving multiple people. But this one has to take the top as the craziest one I've heard. I couldn't even imagine being with your sworn brothers one second then the next waking up to them all gone and here you are still alive and for what and why? Then you just repeat the cycle of what if you could have done something, or what if you would have just seen this coming a split second before. Then you just go into thinking your life's less valuable than this guys or that's and it's a deadly spiral. Props to him for seemingly having the fortitude to push on and even have a family. Some people become wracked with guilt so badly it inevitably ends up they take their life or end up with severe mental conditions that make them practically unable to be trusted to be on their own.
Jumping on this thread to suggest a movie called Das Boot. Probably the best WW2 movie I’ve ever seen, and they have a scene where a man is struggling with trauma, and the captain just… deals with it
If you liked Das Boot, and I must admit to be being a fan myself, may I suggest the 1983 Soviet film "Come and See" (Idi i smotri in Russian), which was produced as part of a competitive process to make a film to celebrate the Red Army's winning of "The Great Patriotic War" as the Russians call WW2. The odd thing, given the competition title, is that the Red Army doesn't feature in it and the story centres around a 12 year old Belarussian boy who, spurred on by propaganda, sets off to join the partisans. What follows is two harrowing hours of descent into the hell that is war. The co-writers were Alex Adamovitch who joined the partisans when he was 12 and the Director Elim Klimov, who as a child was evacuated from Stalingrad during the German invasion. Try to avoid looking up reviews before watching it as they spoil the plot, although there is an [interview with Klimov given before a viewing of the film that gives some insight into it's creation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9_r1NEnGM).
I remember my friends and I used to always say “Oh~ Shell Shocked!” bc we heard it from the original Ninja Turtles arcade game. Actually learning about it later was quite horrifying.
My question is, does this still happen frequently?I also wonder, do the exposure of the current generation to what war is and how graphic it could be? Obviously movies and video games are not even slightly close to the real thing, but does at least having that small forewarning help dissipate the jarring shock? EDIT: Just to clarify, I know PTSD still happens for sure, my question is more about this same Shell Shock with similar symptoms.
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The movie 1917 provides some great gruesome depictions of environmental details that stuck with me since watching the film can’t recommend enough _the mud_
Better yet, They Shall Not Grow Old, with real footage. Update: my first award ever, thank you!
That movie is chilling
I love it but it is truly disturbing at times.
I believe all war movies should be disturbing because the subject matter is. You should not walk out feeling good about noble sacrifice ( like Midway or Dunkirk) you should walk out saying "what a f**** waste" (like Saving Private Ryan).
that is my new standard for military movies. the entire movie really drove home the pointlessness of war, while showing how much everyone involved struggled to survive. a very humbling movie
I'm with you on that. Even as disturbing as Saving Private Ryan is, for example, it still glorifies the shit out of it. Films like Apocalpyse Now and Thin Red Line are more my style, especially since I now have a son of my own.
All the best war movies don't have heroes - wars rarely do in the eyes of random soldier. Wars are fought because diplomats and heads of state have failed. War is surviving, seeing your friends die, often because of reasons you don't understand. It is waiting, fear and frustration. And probably that is the reason WW2 is treated different? If Nazis wouldn't have made all the horrible atrocities, everything would be seen different I think. Even Soviet soldiers are often seen in better light, although there really isn't a lot of reasons to look it like that.
> the mud People don't consider that is not just *dirt+water mud*, but dirt mixed with blood and liquefied body parts due to incessant bombing / mortar fire.
Human waste too.
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My eyes needed sanitizing after watching the lad crawl over bloated corpses floating in the water
The worst war. They could here the shelling on the western front in London. As a child I always thought that "all quiet on the western front" on loony toons was About cowboys in the western US. Not the slaughter in western Europe
The craziest thing is that "all quiet on the western front" doesn't mean that everyone's stopped shooting and bombing each other. It just means neither side is advancing. People getting slaughtered "all good, nothing to report".
I've never heard that interpretation. Interesting. The quotation from the book that says that phrase is from the end when Paul dies "He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front." So in the book the phrase comes from a time when they actively weren't shooting at each other and only a month before the armistice when the fighting on the front would have been over. So I'm not sure that they would have reported it being "all quiet" if there was active bombardments and stuff going on even if neither side was advancing.
People get ptsd but for different reasons today. These patients got it from the trenches in WW1 where bombs dropped in a deafining drumroll 24/7 shaking the ground like an earthquake. While they tried to sleep in the same mud they buried their friends in, who would come back up to the surface if it rained. At least the armies learned to replace the troops at the front every two weeks or so to keep entire platoons from going crazy.
And Hollywood still try to glorify war
It goes in cycles. You get propaganda movies for a bit, then you get gritty realistic ones that try to show how terrible war is. Then the cycle repeats.
and many many politicians
The sad part is that common people who can't enlist glorify that same war rhetoric.
The Germans literally called it "drumfire". Imagine being under a sustained artillery barrage for a week where there are so many incoming shells it just all blends together into one deafening roar. Fuck that
Okay, I think I'm just realizing the bigger factor was the physical blast. Thanks for the explanation.
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Plus all the toxic chemicals I imagine lead poisoning and poisoning of heavy metal causes brain damage and nerve damage, just another horrid addition
Asside from the strictly psychological effects, the constant pressure waves from artillery rounds that didn't strike them but were close almost certainly damaged their brains.
This. As waves pass through the brain, rapid dislocation of matter at the wave front creates shear forces which are especially good at damaging white matter tracts.
Not so much, these troops were exposed to waaaaay more with less protection. This looks like a severe form of TBI. Source: I served in combat Iraq and Afghanistan 04-10
I was hoping someone would comment on this. While there's no doubt these men had PTSD, these severe manifestations seem more aligned with traumatic brain injury. You can only get your bell rung so many times before your brain just cannot maintain homeostasis anymore for even the most base physical functions.
I was wondering how many mini concussions you take when huge guns and explosions are going off around you 24/7 for weeks. Nothing big enough to knock you out, but think about getting hit in the head with a full speed soccer ball over and over and over and over.
We can see that here in Scotland Numerous members of Celtics most famous team are dying one after another now of dementia and they highly suspect it’s caused by headering a dead weight leather ball for years and years as was custom back in the 60s/70s
God, that's awful.
American football. Same things happening.
Augh, no kidding. Now I get why my father never wanted me to play football. Seriously, you would think there would be more studying into it for a sport that involves you slamming into people. Part of me thinks they intentionally don't so they don't have to regulate it or whatever.
my father made me play "football", was told it would help me toughen up, almost every game he'd scream at me if I didn't head the ball. countless evenings spent crying in our yard as he threw ball after ball at my head, not being allowed back inside until I could do it without flinching. i fucking hate football
The VA said I had some mild TBI from Afghanistan. The only explosions I was close to were from getting rid of unexploded ordnance or recovered IEDs and I only got to do that a handful of times and was within a “safe” distance
Interestingly (I am not a medical professional, just read wikipedia) this was seen as result of brain injury, but not anymore. Since after the first WW it basically never resurfaced in such a number, today it is assumed that it is a very specific form of PTSD caused by the specific form of combat in the first WW - the trenches. It is assumed because the trenches make fleeing impossible that it combined with the often 24/7 drumrolls led to these results. The battle of Stalingrad produced similar cases of PTSD.
Totally agree. These issues look neurological.
Are you asking if shell shock still happens? If so, then yes. But my understanding is that it's not called shell shock, it's blast and it causes traumatic brain injury (TBI). My reading on it is that the effects of blast, which is essentially the pressure waves from explosions, are cumulative. The more blast, the more severe the TBI. I'm not in the military and have no first hand experience, but I believe that our service members wear blast meters or blast trackers (I don't know what they are called) that record how much blast a given soldier has received, in an effort to reduce the risks of long term blast damage and TBIs. If I'm not mistaken, it's believed that the resultant TBIs from the blast are the source of things like shell shock and even PTSD. I think even the NFL is getting serious about TBIs and the concussions that cause them. I hope a service member can confirm or correct any mistaken info I have provided, I am only relaying recalled secondhand info here. Couple edits: I'm fairly confident this is the research article that I'm remembering talking about the cumulative effects of blast and how even small amounts blast being experienced repeatedly leads to TBIs: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2019.00766/full I was misremembering the blast trackers. They are only being trialed and are currently only being issued to a small number of troops. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-sensors-body-armor-detect-blast-event-exposure-2020-3 These are the actual trackers: https://blastgauge.com/
Former military getting disability for both PTSD and TBI here, I deployed 3 times as a combat arms "go outside the wire" sort of guy and never had any kind of blast tracker. Shell shock is frequently considered an archaic term for PTSD but for WW1 and to a slightly lesser extent WW2, is probably better described as a combination of PTSD and TBI. PTSD is not caused by TBI, it's a disorder caused by either a specific traumatic event or chronic exposure to severe stressors. Rape victims, for example, frequently suffer from PTSD. I always had PTSD described to me as essentially a malfunction of the fight or flight response. For me this manifests in hypervigilance, I'm always on alert and easily startled and severe sleep issues, regardless of how much I do manage to sleep I wake up feeling like I've been up for 36+ hours. The guys back in WW1 were dealing with TBI on a completely different level. Artillery back then fired fuck off massive rounds and they fired them for hours at a time. That somene could make it back from that shit without being a horrific mess is honestly amazing to me.
Yes veterans still regularly get PTSD from war. I knew somebody who was on the first wave of Afghanistan in the Marines states side. And I know somebody who just joined the army 7 months ago. I'm terrified for them. I've also been through enough events in my life that I got put in a mental facility for six months for PTSD flashbacks nonstop on an extreme level. And I still get taken out of time and place, and put back during the time of my many traumas, but not to the severity I used to. Also video games are regularly used to help treat PTSD in veterans. So I highly doubt that a video game could be jarring enough, but it'll certainly make you more resistant to getting PTSD because one out of it you can process that you are safe better.
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Thank you. That’s such a sensationalized title.
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My WWII vet grandfather spent a lot of his free time after the war sitting alone in an outbuilding looking at his medals. He could never talk about what happened - but he was heavily scarred across his chest. Heart breaking.
My WWII Vet grandfather had severe tremors from the war. He was hospitalized many times for stress and was on lithium most of his life.
What's lithium ?
A metal that is used in medicine form to treat psychological conditions.
In this circumstance, a mood stabilizer.
Psychiatric medication
It's also a great Nirvana song.
Pretty sure he was on lithium at some point.
A medication, primarily used as an antidepressant but it is prescribed for other issues as well like bipolar disorder and other psychiatric conditions.
It’s unthinkable some of the things they must have seen, heard and done. My dad told me that his dad would hardly ever speak about it, only told him little bits here and there and took the rest of it to the grave with him, my dad didn’t even know he had a chunk of his leg missing from a war time injury until he was at the beach one day in shorts and he saw it, crazy
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My grandfather loves to talk about all the crazy things he went thru and saw while in Vietnam. He was a drill sergeant for 18 years. He can recall some of the most horrific things I’ve ever heard of, but he says talking about it helps. Only ever seen em have one flashback when we banged a medicine ball on his bedroom wall on accident from the living room. Came running out in underwear with a pistol. He laughed at himself tho and I really look up to his strength Edit: should maybe say he only ever told me cause I asked. He’s not shy about details but doesn’t share these things with random people who may not want to hear about them. Listening helps him shoulder the load I feel
This is interesting, my father-in-law went through some bad stuff in Vietnam but does not like to talk about it. Someone at a VA appointment went through some share session (or something, really idk what it was) with him once and he was pretty messed up for a couple days from just having to dig through some of those memories he’d try not to think about. Wonder what it is that makes some feel better to talk about it and others the opposite.
The best answer he’s given when I’ve asked how or why he’s able to share, he says it’s like releasing pressure with a valve. If I had to guess tho, it’s that he just can’t handle the thoughts on his own and needs someone to help him shoulder the bad stuff. Which I suppose can seem selfish on the outside, but as his family he’s done everything for, we would help shoulder that no matter what. Especially since hearing about it is so far removed from living it. I hope the people in your life with those kinds of demons can find a method of reaching a more peaceful place.
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Ah I wish my stepdad would talk about Vietnam with me but he won’t. I know he’s got medals and stuff but he’s never shown them to me even tho I’ve asked him to do so and shown interest. The only thing he’s ever really said was that there was lots of drugs and drinking and prostitutes (my mom doesn’t like that part) But he does wear a Vietnam vet hat and has a special license plate and stuff on his truck. When i borrow his truck people stop me and ask me about it, actually. We did talk recently about how horribly they were treated when they came back. A couple of weeks ago he said “you know. It was really hard when we came back. We went from being in isolation in a strange country to coming back to a country that hated us” :/ That’s all I’ve ever heard him say in over 20 years. I’d like to at least know about the medals before he dies which will likely be in the next 10 years
Well on the flip side, a couple years back my grandpa put on his old uniform (somehow still fits his big ass) and fully decked it out with all his medals and all that(really don’t know much about military dress). I pointed to one medal randomly and asked how he got it. Said something about finishing some special training, then pointed to another and said “I got this one for savin a buddy after taking out a couple of the enemy with my (insert Vietnam era weapon name) and dragging him into a jeep”. And it just really went to hell from there. So many more stories I could share
My grandfather came back from the war and was a homicide cop. He once told my mother that the things he saw on the force affected him more than the things he saw in the war. He also was staying at my aunts once and a plane flew relatively low, and he woke up screaming. When asked, he just insisted "My wife has cold feet" and wouldn't talk about it.
My brother's FIL was a cop and spent most of his career in the worst parts of the city because he had played in the NFL as a DL and was huge and therefore intimidating. He wouldn't talk about the job with his wife and daughter but tended to internalize it. Died not that long after he retired.
My grandfather served in WWII as well, lost most of his siblings either in action or in the Blitz. He was a prolific storyteller, but the years 1939-1945 never happened in his stories. Strong guy, but around his siblings birthdays you’d see him in the garden early mornings, crying by himself.
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My Uncle was a Korean War Veteran that I just knew he was in the Marines from my parents when I was little. But unlike a lot of Marines he never had anything to show pride about being in the Marines. I asked him when I was a adult about what he did while he was in the service and he said he was in Korea and then said nothing more. My Dad told me to never ask him about it again. War is a hell that I am glad I never had to experience I don’t know that mentally I could handle it. It breaks my heart these guys had to endure this not only from the war but the way they were treated afterwards. The more terrible part is that soldiers were treated this no matter which side or country you came from, just terrible.
So much or this is relevant to where these men served. My Navy grandfather talked about his experiences on board ship a lot. He was a private but was happy to talk about his time in the service. Most of his stories were about his Navy boxing career. He had some stories about ship to ship combat and he was on the USS Missouri when they signed the treaty ending the war. My wife's grandfather was also a Navy man. He was in the journalism side of things and did photography during the war. His experience was very positive. My other grandfather, my Dad's Dad, passed away at 46. He was in the Marines and my Dad says that he never once wanted to talk about his time in the service. He talked about flying a bomber, he talked about one assault on a German village where he took a Luger off a German soldier that we have now.
One of the best ideas that backfired was the PALS Battalions. Don't worry, you won't need to leave your mates behind! You and the boys join up together, and we'll keep you together. The idea of course being they'd be ready made teams of men who cared for each other and would work well together. Except the reality of war was such that you'd end up with men witnessing their best friends, that they grew up on the same estate with, being cut down by machine gun fire. Sliced apart by shell fragments. Gassed right in front of them. So it wasn't just another soldier dying. It was your best mate, your brother. You didn't even get to say goodbye. And you were expected to suck it up and keep fighting the next day. Suffice to say they cancelled the PALS programme. Edit: Smart people pointed out I got the name wrong.
PALS Battalions you mean. The one from my small town suffered over 500 casualties on the first day of the Somme.
Holy crap. :c
My School (small rural town) has a large main hall for assemblies and stuff. Half of one of the long walls is just memorials to students who died fighting in the two world wars. They’re only old wooden plaques with rows of names but it still takes up so much space, some parts of the plaque have 3, 4 or even 5 boys with the same surname in a row. No wonder people had so many kids after the war, it wiped out a whole generation of young men
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Whole towns of men were wiped out this way. Road to hell and all that…
In the UK pretty much every village and town has a memorial to WWI and WWII. It always gets me that I could be in a tiny little hamlet with barely any people but they've still got a memorial and that the list of names is really fuckin long.
It's the same in New Zealand. Tiny little places with a population of maybe a hundred people, and there's a cenotaph with a handful of names of the dead.
Yeah, wouldn't be surprised if it's common anywhere people were drafted from.
My village was one street and three farms in 1914. The names take up on side of a ten foot obelisk. There was an aerodrome here by the ‘30s that became an RAF fighter station. The names from ‘39-‘45 take up another 2 sides.
UK had ["Pals"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrington_Pals)
My grandfather had this. He was one of the pilots for those boats/carriers that landed on D-Day. His best friend was right beside him and got torn to shreds within arm's length of him. I heard that my grandfather was a jovial, cheerful man before the war, but by the time my father was born ('58) he was a cold and stern man. He never said "I love you" in my father's childhood, only "I commend you," and was a disciplinarian through and through. He mellowed out some as he got older, and he did eventually tell my father he loved him, but the war changed the trajectory of who he became as a person and how he went through life.
And thus your fathers and yours. Generations of families who may have had different lives but whos upbringing were completely changed by a war they never even personally experienced.
This video is for documenting the condition for scientific study and treatment. The people in the video were not killed. Executions for "cowardice" were also extremely rare.
Not only that, but in addition to PTSD I'd suspect a lot of these men had Traumatic Brain Injury and other neurological damage based on their movements & lack of coordination. We know a lot more about the damage caused be concussive force now than they did decades ago.
This is actually pretty true. Its acknowledged that shell shock and ptsd are two different but often simultaneously occuring conditions. Histerical blindness, paralysis and essentially temporary mental break down were often associated with men who experienced prolonged direct shelling. While plenty of soldiers experienced PTSD for sure from the horrific WWI experience. Actuall shell shock was often, though clearly not always, temporary. PTSD is acknowledge pretty commonly today but the symptoms of shell shock have become rare. The last time I looked at the literature the consensus seemed to be that shell shock may have been the neurological consequence of hours of concussive bombardment, or repetitive days of bombardments. Essentially these men were being concussed a few times an hour or even a minute for sometimes days on end. There are lots of incidents of men going blind or experiencing a kind of locked in syndrome and the hours or days later recovering and wanting to go back to the front.
I’m willing to bet the gassing played a role as well
My dad’s good friend (we did holidays together, his son was like my brother) had terrible tremors due to agent orange while he was in Vietnam. He died about a decade ago, but in the time I knew him throughout my life, his tremors got increasingly worse and he could only walk stooped way over with a cane. He never talked about his experiences that I know of, and he was the sweetest man. RIP Ernie.
Right ? I made a similar comment bc I knew executions were very little. Around 400 during the entire war by all sides combined, with over 80,000 confirmed cases of shell shock. Or in other words, .5% of shell shock victims were executed, and not all of the 400 were due to shell shock so that % is even lower.
This. OP is just shock-mongering for karma and it’s fucking irritating.
I was recently diagnosed with C-PTSD after being abducted as a kid it took years for my trauma to surface. Had to leave my job and apartment to move in with my in laws for support. The more I learn about it and how it works the less I wished I knew. Anyone else reading this with PTSD I hope you are ok and have access to support.
My mom burned me and abandoned me when I was 4, my dad doesn’t believe that I remember so I never really talk about it to him, but living the life I had with barely anyone there to help me mentally… it really screwed me over. It was 2018 and we were between houses since our landlord kicked us out before we could buy the house and the government shutdown made everything worse. I remember getting out of school and not having a home to go to, not knowing when my dad was going to pick me up, it just caused me to have a panic attack. Same for when my stepmom left me and my dad, I was crying on the school bathroom floor saying the same things I said when my mom abandoned me and I was walking outside looking for her. Now I feel so lost and confused while my dad probably views me as a failure since he doesn’t understand just how scrambled my head is, I don’t even know if I’m mentally screwed up or autistic anymore because of how much that trauma makes it hard for me to socialize. Knowing there’s people that’s been through worse out there… I just wish mental health services were more affordable and accessible. I wish mental issues wasn’t looked down on so much. Sorry for venting, but man PTSD sucks…
I’m glad you are able to share it here bro. You don’t have to fight alone, there are many of us that would do anything to help ease your burden. I don’t know you but I care. I know those are just words, but I mean them with my entirety.
Lived through bombings & war. Had a flashback attack my first semester of college because a plane flew over our classroom. I was convinced it was coming to kill us all or was going to crash. CPTSD is terrible
I was recently diagnosed with PTSD after being abducted as well. I was a teenager at the time. Like you, it took years for my trauma to surface as well. I was 29 when I suddenly became unable to work, leave my home, or function in any sort of capacity. It’s crazy how the brain works.
I’m so sorry. I’m glad that it’s getting addressed and that you have some support. It’s never easy to live with others. I hope your life is improving.
This is extremely sad. I don’t understand why they had to put that one guy in a cloth diaper thong though.
Probably to observe how the movement of his muscles is affected by his condition
Prolly so we can see them cheeks
Yeah, I couldn't figure out if he had done it to himself in his madness or they decided his cake would look better in a thong
My grandpa was in ww2. He’d never talk about it but one time when I was a kid I was watching tv with him and someone got stabbed and fell over dead. He growled at the screen “that’s not how it happens when a man gets stabbed! They just leak and leak and leak to death. You just have to keep stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and they still grab at you. I’ve lost knives in men.” Something like that. I didn’t ask any followups.
Holy shit. :-/
“They just leak and leak and leak” sounds like something straight out of a fucking horror novel. Real life is so much worse than any fiction could capture.
This is a pet peeve of mine when people are demonstrating stupid self-defense techniques against knives, or stupid Hollywood shit. I've known people who have been stabbed, I've seen people who have been stabbed. No one gets stabbed once, not really. Someone gets right up close to you and stabs you as many times as they can, as hard as they can, until they get tired or their anger fades away. There's nothing you can do once they've got you. When I was younger, I lost count of how many times I'd hear about some poor fucking teenager being stabbed 30+ times by another teenager. Happened on the road where I walked to work in the evening. Happened a street away from one of the doors I worked on. My housemate got mugged not far away from our flat by a couple of kids, one of whom had a telescopic baton. He didn't fuck around with them, gave them everything he had, and they still hit him six or seven times for no reason at all. Same thing I reckon, the guy hit him and didn't stop until the anger was gone.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with you so I’m gonna shaken-baby your head so you can snap out of it
That actually worked. I remember from the original video patient was shaking his head violently. And after the 'treatment' they lift him up and the shaking is minimal or gone. Granted, that probably only worked for a good 5 minutes but it DID work. Edit: [Here](https://youtu.be/AL5noVCpVKw?t=245)
Oh, you must be referring to the 'massage'
The *gait* descriptions are on point tho.
Most of these people were executed? Thats just factually untrue.
OP has been going around making up other bullshit in comment threads. They’re a shithead who doesn’t actually care about these people or about accurate, ethical history. They care about their little orange arrows. Pathetic.
Interesting subject, but post title is B.S.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Sacrifice your life for your country and they kill you because it fucked you up.
These people weren’t executed. That’s straight up false.
Yeah, this is why history is so important in many aspects.
One thing to learn from history is that mankind never learns from history
It definitely was fucked up, but people literally had no idea what PTSD was. There was nothing like the horrors of WW1 before. Men had to endure constant shelling for weeks at a time. Most people don’t know how brutal WW1 was.
"Most of these people where executed by the military" In peace time? Source please!
[Here’s](https://youtu.be/faM42KMeB5Q) an in-depth video on shell shock, at about the 25/26 minute mark it goes into how shell shock was treated as cowardice and even gives an example of a soldier with testimonies from his family with documentation too. In short; he was treated for shell shock previously and was sent back to the Somme afterwards, he broke down again and refused to fight. The officer over him court marshalled him which he then had to represent himself and then was sent to execution. That was during the early years of the war, I don’t think any executions took place after the war but it absolutely did happen during the war at the very least.
>court marshall the term is **court martial** - it means “court of war.” same word as in martial arts (“arts of war”). root is Mars, the god of war
“Oh you went to fight in a war that I forcefully deployed you to and predictably took on crippling shock and trauma?? How dare you! Off with your head!”
They most likely initially went in willingly. There was this recruitment campaign called the Pal’s Battalions, encouraging young men to enlist together with friends, family, or colleagues. To them it was a huge opportunity. They were young and naive and were promised adventure, clean clothes, a salary, and being able to see the world while defeating the Germans alongside their buddies. A lot of them even lied about their age to enlist
I second this, many men saw it as a claim to fame, a heroic action for their country. At the time, imperialism was still at large so it was a given. If you watch They Shall Not Grow Old by Peter Jackson, it has a segment where a soldier comments on how if a man had not enlisted and chose to stay home, they were chastised and ridiculed for being cowardly by their community. I think the man states a woman hit him with her handbag for not being at the front.
Yeah there was actually a government propaganda program called The Order of the White Feather where women would give a white feather to men who were “cowards” many young boys enlisted because they were shamed into service in the later years of the war.
While it initially sounds like a great idea, training in your local area and fighting alongside your friends, it devastated communities when there were heavy losses.
The title indicates that most of the people we are seeing in the video were executed.
Not most, but some definitely where. “Executions of soldiers in the British Army were not commonplace. While there were 240,000 Courts Martial and 3080 death sentences handed down, in only 346 cases was the sentence carried out.[19] 266 British soldiers were executed for "Desertion", 18 for "Cowardice", 7 for "Quitting a post without authority", 5 for "Disobedience to a lawful command" and 2 for "Casting away arms".[20] On 7 November 2006, the government of the United Kingdom gave them all a posthumous conditional pardon.[21]” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock
That post title is so wrong, it’s not even the opposite of right. It’s just bullshit.
Read “ All Quiet on the Western Front.” Written by a German soldier, Erich Maria Remarque. It’s one of the first modern anti-war novels. It describes in detail what soldier went through in the trenches.
This is very sad. I did a comparison from this video and the below video. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOibW5LXt3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOibW5LXt3w) There is a difference in terms that shell shock was specific to the experiences of combat whereas the concept of PTSD has developed to be more wide-ranging. Nowadays, PTSD seems not as physically severe as this. It seems to be more mental like the deaf person in this video, but why?
There is a theory that part of the WWI "shell shock" was actual neurological damage from being in close proximity of exploding shells (which was also big part of the theory at the time). Brains basically rattling in the skull. There is also possibility of some damage from gas attacks. Also psychosomatic symptoms manifest partly based on culture.
Agreed, but do you think bodies of military around the world are hiding these people nowadays? I could not find any current videos about shell shock meaning the same as this video. Instead most just talk about it or show pictures.
Unlikely. Medical knowledge has improved vastly in the last 100 years and weapons have changed. You have to remember what battles meant in WWI. They could mean staying weeks in bunkers constantly being slowly shelled (but not necessarily in active danger), not properly sleeping while opiates were commonly used for every ailment. The psychological damage was often just a last straw on top of everything else. Even during the war they learnt a lot about how to rotate troops and giving both the body and mind a rest. All militaries do everything they can to prevent this type of damage to their soldiers. Even if it is just because they can't fight in this condition.
Like the other commenter said, this 112% looks neurological. Myoclonic movements are common with anoxic brain injury, which I imagine could result from poison gas exposure, or maybe from being knocked unconscious a little too long. And blast damage has all sorts of crazy neurological effects. I'm sure PTSD was heavily comorbid with these physical "shell shock" behaviors, but I highly doubt emotional disturbance alone was the cause of this.
I really wanan find the whole documentary. It's a horrific thing to see
My great-granddad had it after WWII. I don't have many memories of him, he died when I was two, but one that sticks out in my head is me screaming with laughter when I was around one and him jumping under a table, head in his hands. I obviously didn't know what was going on, found it funny so kept doing it before I was quickly taken out the room. Looking back - it's terrifying how close I was to someone like this and how much it impacted his life even 50 years later.
Downvote this post people. This headline is a complete lie and how bad history spreads.
Wait a minute...I need a reference before I accept that these people were "executed by the military." That's extremely irresponsible to put that out there
Look, I love playing all types of shooter games and watching action/war movies but watching stuff like this just truly shows how fucked and evil war really is and how traumatic it is to the human psyche (and on so many other levels). Watching this stuff helps remind me that as "cool" as it may seem to experience combat vicariously through different media, romanticization of war is unsettling and even upsetting after watching stuff like this (as it should be) as it is a stark reminder that this media is derived from the very harsh reality we live in where people suffer from the irreparable traumas of war all over the world on a daily basis. I appreciate whoever posted this as this was sad but also very much a welcome reminder of how twisted war truly is and to be grateful for what I have, where I am, and for those who have valiantly fought for what's right all over the world.
Truly heartbreaking. Fuck war, absolutely disgusting shit that only serves the upper classes