Combat Stress Quotes

I always like it at a war. There is always the chance that you will get up the next morning and be killed and not have to write.

Everyone has jitters in their first fight.

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you... Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women and children. They were all classified as the same, and that's the classification that we dealt with over there, just as the enemy. I felt then and I still do that I acted as I was directed, and I carried out the order that I was given and I do not feel wrong in doing so.

The front-line soldier wants it to be got over by the physical process of his destroying enough Germans to end it. He is truly at war. The rest of us, no matter how hard we work, are not.

We are at war, and it's ongoing, and there's no end in sight. More and more guys are coming back from it, and the transition back to civilian life is almost too big a mountain to climb.

I'm scared of any fighter I've ever fought because they are some dangerous people to be dealing with. That's also where the anxiety comes from.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

Hold it, Doc, a world war passed through my brain. He said, Nurse, get your pad, this boy's insane.

The emotions suppressed during the long, tense period of global warfare were released by peace, and erupted into a tornado-like explosion of violent feelings, abusive criticism of the military, and aggressive pressures on Congress for fundamental reforms in the court-martial system.

The moral effect of the thundering of one's own artillery is most extraordinary, and many of us thought that we had never heard any more welcome sound than the deep roaring and crashing that started in at our rear.

I was interested in the war part of 'Star Wars,' so I started reading about what it's like to go to war, what that does to you psychically, about the adrenaline and the rush.

I have friends who have had PTSD, and you can get it from other things than war.

I thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you. I think killing for your country can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts.

I've been to war, and it's not easy to kill. It's bloody and messy and totally horrifying, and the consequences are serious.

Men and women who have served in harm's way experience higher rates of divorce and suicide. Many battle the debilitating effects and stigma associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I didn't hear anybody talking about the plight of a soldier coming back home and what he'd gone through. That was why I wrote about that stuff. If somebody else had done it, I probably wouldn't have touched the subject.

I was supposed to fight a guy back in the day. He didn't shower, specifically to throw off his opponents. Thank God I got injured, and I couldn't fight the fight. I was so worried about it. I was like, 'Oh my God - I heard about this guy.' It was the worst ever.

I just didn't want to shoot other people.

We noted the psychological problems facing many of the returning from Iraq veterans - of the 700,000 returning veterans, more than a 100,000 have been diagnosed with problems, but the numbers are likely to get worse, as those with multiple deployments return. We should have valued the loss of life as a result of these suicides, using the same procedures we used for the loss of those who died in combat.

In my experience, the men of World War II, the vets of Vietnam, even guys coming back from Iraq, are loath to talk about their experiences. And the survivors of the Holocaust, particularly, are often very close-mouthed about their stories, even to their own children.

They [US soldiers] started to commit suicide on the Baghdad walls. We will encourage them to double their suicide attempts.

Human nerves quickly get accustomed to the most unusual conditions and circumstances and I noticed that quite a number of men actually fell asleep from sheer exhaustion in the trenches, in spite of the roaring of the cannon about us and the whizzing of shrapnel over our heads.

Negative public opinion of a conflict and the politicization of the military can negatively affect service members and contribute to PTSD.

Most bayonets throughout history have probably not been used because soldiers just can't do it, something holds them back... the same goes for shooting the enemy. We've got this fascinating evidence from the Second World War, and also from other wars, that most soldiers couldn't do it.