A Look at Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” Compared to WWI and Shell Shock

In his article, Creamer discusses and differentiates how civilian and veteran cases of PTSD are treated. He also discusses the details of PTSD and the treatments and classifications of it. This article receives its credibility by being published in the popular medical journal called the “International Review of Psychiatry”.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that may develop after experiencing or seeing a traumatic, brutal, or life-threatening happening. World War Two was a long and violent war, for the young men drafted it was nothing short of hell. Soldiers faced the hard reality of fighting on the front line; not only did war end lives and leave physical scars, but also eternal physiological impacts. Trauma from constant

(O’Brien 1519). The symptoms vary with each soldier depending on how the soldier faced and took in the war. Though the symptoms are: re-experiencing, such as reliving, hallucinations, flashbacks, or feeling/acting as though the trauma is happening again. (Finely 11) This can cause major disorientation in the soldier, which causes pain to the veteran and family who they associate with. Avoidance/Numbing is also a symptom, this symptom affects feelings, although it may be hard to explain, it is the attempt to avoid thoughts, feelings or discussions of the trauma (Finely 11); for soldiers in war it may be the war in all. The Soldiers in “The Things They Carried” (Lieutenant Cross) kept to himself about how he felt when his man was shot, he felt he was supposed to protect him and so he avoided the others and his feelings about that situation (O’Brien 1525). Hyperarousal is something simple but something that soldiers have an intensified amount of. The trouble of falling or staying asleep, may be because they don’t want dreams of what they have gone through, the exaggerated startle response is because how they trained to survive the war (Finley 11), a simple wake up may put them in fight for life mode. Soldiers face difficult times in the war, and they don’t realize the harm that happened to them from the war.

Likenesses that identify with those of this disease can be found all through the story "The Things They Carried." Men and women of prior wars moreover mirrored the shared characteristics related to PTSD. In days of old, it was named "Shell Shock" and "Battle Fatigue." Because of studies directed by medical research organizations, e.g., The National Institute of Health (NIMH) we know and

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity, overwhelming the individual's ability to cope. As an effect of psychological trauma, PTSD is less frequent and more enduring than the more commonly seen acute stress response. Diagnostic

Veterans suffer from PTSD in multiple ways with sleeplessness, nightmares, and flashbacks (Bender). Veterans use different coping mechanisms to prevent themselves from triggering memories of the traumatic event. It has been found that veterans may become emotionally detached. Mintze reports, the Veterans Administration estimates that 830,000 Vietnam vets suffered symptoms of PTSD; of that number, 480,000 were so deeply affected that they were considered disabled. The effect of such cruel attacks has made it difficult for soldiers to adjust to life post combat (Price). This sickness can happen within three months to years after the unpleasant event. Frequently, veterans and victims of war suffer relentlessly from PTSD. Many poets, authors, and directors write to portray the lasting memories that cause one to suffer from this disorder.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is "an anxiety disorder, characterized by distressing memories, emotional numbness, and hyper vigilance, that develops after exposure to a traumatic event" (Doyle-Portillo, Pastorino 490). Traumatic events include physical abuse, rape, military combat, death of a close friend or family member, natural disasters, or witnessing events such as terrorist attacks, a violent crime, or a horrible accident (Doyle-Portillo, Pastorino 490). All these different events lead men and women to have nightmares, flashbacks, and tormenting memories, especially the men who fought in the Vietnam War. Around "19% of Vietnam veterans developed PTSD at some point after the war" (Doyle-Portillo, Pastorino 491) from the events they witnessed out in the Vietnamese jungles during combat that it would have been highly unlikely for them not to develop PTSD.

While PTSD was not yet defined it was clear that these symptoms were caused because of the disturbing things that had been seen. With no treatments available and a stigma that the effected persons were cowards or scared soldiers were often sent home with no supervision. During World War I physicians began calling it “shell shock” or “combat fatigue”, they believed that concussions caused by the impact of shells disrupting the brain caused the symptoms. Treatments included hospitalization and electric shock therapy. By World War II medical personnel noticed that soldiers that were engaged in longer more intense fighting had much higher levels or psychiatric disturbances and started using the term battle fatigue or combat exhaustion. Soldiers were being labeled as fearful and lacking in discipline and PTSD was still not fully recognized as a disorder, at this time treatment included barbiturates.

One of the most well known and most common mental conditions that afflict veterans is PTSD. PTSD stands for post traumatic stress disorder and is caused by having high stress levels at any given time. While anyone can get PTSD, Veterans acquire it most often due to their strict training and the horrors of war. Richard Weaver, a veteran that served as a Navy Medic for two years in Iraq shared an example of what PTSD is like. He says "I could be in a classroom here and somebody would walk past and drop a book. Well, that’s a loud “pop” sound in an echoing hallway, and I’m set off for the rest of the day. I’m looking around. I’m nervous" (“Two”). Having PTSD greatly affects everyday life for veterans. For Richard Weaver, all it took was

“My mind is on fire as I fear that any second, another enemy round will rip into my body and finish me off” (Johnson 2). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) effects the lives of many soldiers after returning home from war. PTSD is a psychiatric condition described in the DSM-IV as, a condition that requires a specific event to have occurred as a criterion for the diagnosis. The criteria for this disorder, according to the book Combat Trauma, can include flashbacks, times where you feel as if you are reliving the traumatic event, shame or guilt, upsetting dreams about the traumatic event, trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event, feeling emotionally numb or not feeling at all, anger or irritability, poor or destructive relationships, self-destructive behavior, trouble sleeping, memory problems, hallucinations, not enjoying activities you one enjoyed and feeling as if you no longer know who is living your day-to-day life.

Before the actual use of this term, the disorder was not called by this term. Instead it was known as combat fatigue during the war years. A person with PTSD is defined as someone who “has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others, and his/her response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.” Along with this definition, many of those veterans who had experienced traumatic events during World War II, experienced periods of flashbacks and hallucinations which caused many to either seek some form of psychiatric help, or mostly try to deal with it by suppressing their feelings by drinking, avoidance, or even suicide. For soldiers who were apart of the Nyasaland KAR, they were also not immune from the effects and trauma of war. For many of them, they experienced many of the same problems stemming from their experiences in

World War I was one of the most deathful wars in the history of the world. From diseases to war deaths many people faced hard times coping with the impact of the war. The death toll of the WWI was 2 million people, which is a large amount of people dying for one cause, which is pointless at some point. The war ends after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 but with a big impact in the US. The impact led to a generation who had a lacking purpose or drive resulting from the horrible things they experienced in the war. The death toll made a big impact in the person’s lives, many stopped believing in values like courage, patriotism, and masculinity. Some became aimless, reckless, and other focused on material wealth, unable to believe in values.

World War II is still seen today as one of the most lethal wars in history. As technology advanced, more destructive weapons were created. In the hands of the wrong people and those forced to use them, these weapons paved the way for physical and psychological destruction. Furthermore, the mentality of individuals during this time enabled more marring upon themselves and upon other individuals. Even though what we now refer to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, existed before World War II, this time period brought about a higher prevalence of PTSD, as well as began to change the way this disorder was perceived by people.

Civilians often feared Vietnam vets because they used drugs and suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome ("PTSD"). PTSD is an anxiety disorder that many people experience after living through a dangerous or frightening event. Nightmares, flashbacks, outbursts of anger, depression, and suicidal thoughts are some of the symptoms of PTSD.

PTSD, or more known as “Shell shock” during World War One, infected thousands of soldiers. About 80,000 soldiers had been diagnosed with shell shock after the first world war. Symptoms of PTSD include the following: Depression, anxiety, nightmares, insomnia, hostility, social isolation, loneliness, and flashbacks of traumatic moments that they remember. Life after the war was certainly a struggle for these mentally, emotionally, and physically drained soldiers. Men would return hysterical, unable to comprehend basic conversation or express basic sentences due to the trauma. Normal everyday things were foreign to them and relearning how to live was a challenge that most could not overcome. Men would isolate themselves from social situations, avoid areas that caused flashbacks, and in severe cases, some would be so damaged they forget their name and who they were. After Josef was captured and placed into the prison, unwanted faces and reenactments of those he killed came into his dreams. Every night he was visited by the same nightmares, and woke up in a panicked, depressed state. Countless times he questioned taking his own life to get rid of the emotional baggage that was pulling him down, and suicide was common among PTSD sufferers, but eventually found the courage to face his nightmares and put them to rest. Although