AIBU to think you never quite get over being in a war?

[Becit]

Talking to my mum about my uncle who served in Korean war. Apparently he spent most of the last 10 years of his life shit faced.

I've seen this with other guys who've served. The slightest breathing space from life and suddenly they're 24/7 reliving their trauma.

So, they just don't.

I've been caught up in war myself and there was a long time, when I came back to the UK, where I just didn't know how to act day to day. It was like I'd forgotten how. I'm over that now in that I can function as I need to but I'm aware that quite a lot of my time is spent finding things that take up headspace - yoga, pilates and the like. So I don't allow headspace elsewhere, because actually those images would play like a film forever if I let them.

That's been how it is for years and on reflection that's a good thing. I think you shouldn't go through something like war and come out unaffected. I think more people should know this, when they sign up.

Hmmm... removes sorting hat...

Many, many survivors of war didn't "sign up" for it. They where just there when it started and they spend the rest of their lives with what they've been through and experienced, and the ghosts of their families, friends, neighbors and animals and exactly how they died, as part of what's in their heads, without the options of being "over that now" or "yoga, pilates and the like," trying to raise what's left of their families without traumatizing them further.

I have more sympathy for those drafted into fighting wars, but the majority of those who willingly sign up to be paid to fight who don't realise it might just affect them as well as the luckless civilians, probably would have done anything different.

Soldiers and armies sadly are a necessary evil.
You call it "serving," those surviving the receiving end of them, have others words.

I assume you think the victims of war who survive, shouldn't come out unaffected either... so perhaps they should be paid and allowed to sign up for it, or not too..

Not sure. My cousin willing joined up and served in iraq. He's absolutely fine.

This is very interesting, thank you for sharing. I can only comment hypothetically as I've no experience of war. I don't think I'd have any quality of life if I'd had to endure war and I would be devastated if my child signed up.

I don’t think you need to actively be involved in the war (fighting) to be affected long-term. But equally not everyone who has been in a war zone, or fought in a war, is affected.

In my current role, I work with several people who have been in Kyiv as part of their jobs for the last few years, and before that people who worked in Kabul and Baghdad. Some military and some civilian. Some of them are absolutely fine. Some of them are categorically not. There’s no correlation between who has ‘issues’ (for lack of a better word) now and who actively fought.

I still don't forgive my mother for putting us in a dangerous situation. She wanted to visit her family; war was on the horizon and actually broke out. It was incredibly scary with ridiculous advice on how to protect yourself whilst being bombed. Obviously, we were lucky and got out however, it was a very stupid decision for her to insist she and her three kids would be fine.

I agree OP - I don't know why PP is sarky with you about your difficult time and your coping mechanisms.
I wonder if there is a correlation between thise with 'issues' and those who've witnessed trauma and brutal deaths though? Not everyone who experiences war sees the gore of it, and presumably not everyone who sees gore sees it in an up close and personal way.
But yes I expect for most people either what they've witnessed or heard about at close hand would affect them long term.
People other those that start wars obviously- Putin and Hamas leaders don't seem particularly bothered about the horrors they wanted to unleash on their own soldiers, let alone on the other side - totally unhuman.

@Userxyd perhaps I'm sarky about it because something about it isn't sitting right. Perhaps I'm being unfair and horrible to be so suspicious.

I am suspicious, I've had to be to survive. Generally I keep it to myself. I probably shouldn't have posted.

Perhaps I'm sarky and suspicious because I've survived what was done to me and mine and have to live with it for ever.
I had to live and survive what it did to my mother too, and the chain of events that lead to years more continuous misery, degradation, and premature deaths after the soldiers went back home and we displaced survivors dispersed to try and rebuild in other countries and find the perpetrators lived there too.

I want to sleep, I want to escape those 'images that play like a film.' I know exactly what happens when someone you love is blown to pieces, or when soldiers decide to let rip on groups of animals, leaving them to die slowly. I know exactly what happens in so many horrific situations caused by the strong attacking the ordinary, and I'm trying to keep it muted for here.

I don't want to wake sweating and a mess after only a few hours, again and again and again, then try and work, go shopping, pick up the kids etc. I don't want the legacy of it all. I have been living it for a long, long time and yes I get silently "shitfaced" just to sleep at all, badly.

We didn't choose to be there. We didn't choose what those soldiers did to us, day in and day out no matter how old we were, how injured we were, how terrified we were, both indirectly and directly. We didn't choose to watch either. Those who just killed often weren't the majority in our experience.
We got to see what men (and some women) do when they have carte blanche.
We didn't choose any of it, we didn't sign up to any of it, we didn't get provided for during it, we didn't get paid, and we didn't have options.

We know exactly why many of them need to get "shitfaced" and blot out what they inflicted, and so do they, directly responsible or not.

I find it difficult to believe that 'yoga, pilates ect' would sort it out, perhaps I am being unfair. Life, and death is.

Those who choose to sign up to do it, need to be warned what they're getting paid to do and what else they choose to do while there, might actually affect them too later? Do you really think that would make a difference to them choosing to be paid to go do it? Sorry I don't know how not to be sarky, faced with that idea.

Edited to add: We are also expected to be silent and manage, get on with life, and not inflict it all on others.

Most people traumatised by war are civilians, no? The ones caught up in a war declared by their leaders.
Yes, those who sign up should be aware of the effects of active service on one's mental health, just like they should be aware of the risk to life and limb. But I suspect that most of them don't think it will happen to them.
The real victims are, of course, the civilians - who may suffer mental health trauma for many years after living - without a choice - through war.

Everyone involved is potentially affected, whether conscript, volunteer, professional soldier, civilian. 10,000 British WWI veterans were drafted into the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries during the Irish war of independence and were notorious for their arson, reprisal destruction and killings, and their killings of civilians in general. No doubt some of this was down to what we would now know as PSTD, but unfortunately why they committed the atrocities they did is irrelevant to the people who were killed, raped and burnt out by them. Sometimes victims turn perpetrator in their turn.

For some people war is a profession, it's their job and they are able to deal with it. Others think they will be able to deal with it and can't, but many/most people know they can't deal with it and so try to avoid it. The thing is, the majority of people who are involved in a war don't want to be involved in it. Even if their side is "right" such as a foreign invader launched an unprovoked attack on them, they still never wanted to be involved in a war. It's understandable that people are psychologically destroyed by experience of war, in the same way people are physically destroyed.

War is a natural state of affairs - humans have always fought one another. The difference nowadays is that people live longer, communications mean war is more visible (I can't imagine many British people alive in the late 13th Century were aware of the Mongols invading Japan!) and we have convinced ourselves that we have fundamentally changed our nature as a species to avoid war. We haven't and we won't - if we ever did manage to fundamentally change our species, we would die out.

Post-WWII we've had an unusually long period of comparative peace. I know there has barely been a moment where there was no conflict somewhere in the world, but the "all-out" style of international total war has been missing. This was a natural reaction to the horror of WWII - the scars were deep, but soon there will be nobody left with experience of it. That's when things will be the most dangerous - when people have forgotten the true meaning of war.