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Canadian Press Article - 05 Feb 2007
Stress disorder likely to trouble some soldiers
Canadian Press (CP)
Stress disorder likely to trouble some soldiers
Canadian Press (CP)
CALGARY -- Sometimes the wounds sustained on the battlefield aren't visible at all.
As Canadian soldiers continue to hunt on foot for the Taliban in southern Afghanistan or face yet another suicide bomber while on a convoy, it's not just the number of dead and wounded that rises.
Many of those who watch their friends and comrades being killed or hurt are themselves left with psychological wounds that may haunt them for a lifetime.
Some already realize that the readjustment at home is going to be difficult.
"I've caught myself wondering if I will ever be the same again," one member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Afghanistan told Canadian Press. "I wonder sometimes how I'll adjust to not being able to kill guys when they piss me off."
The soldier is a gunner on an LAV (light armoured vehicle) stationed on the front lines in the Panjwaii District, once a stronghold of the Taliban. He is scheduled to return home this month, and said his biggest fear is that he feels nothing about those he has killed.
'DOESN'T BOTHER YOU'
"You wonder why it doesn't bother you to see bodies explode or chopped to little pieces by a machine-gun and know that you did it."
That feeling of numbness, along with anger and an inability to cope, is a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Once known as shell shock, its sufferers were originally viewed as cowards. But that has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, and it's now accepted that psychological wounds are as debilitating and can ruin a life.