There's a fantastic article in the British paper, the Guardian, today entitled, "You Can Teach a Man to Kill, but Not to See Dying," by Mark Gould. (The Guardian, for those who don't know it, is a superb newspaper that frequently wins awards for its design and content, including the National Newspaper of the Year, given by the British press association.) This article is about an ex-soldier who served in the Falklands War, winning a national mental health award for speaking "frankly and forcefully on the mental distress of war veterans." You can listen to him talk about combat trauma (called "combat stress" in the UK) in the audio clip here, but be sure to come back and read the article as well -- it's wonderfully written and full of great, quotable quotes from the ex-soldier himself.
The award-winning ex-soldier, Chris Duggan, a Welshman, is remarkably forthright about his experience - what caused it, how far down he spiralled, and what eventually helped pull him back out. At least in America we've given very little consideration to wars like the Falklands conflict, and even the more recent Gulf War, in which we participated, when it comes to combat trauma. There's an overall sense that if the conflict didn't go on "that" long, how bad could the experience have been? Perhaps especially when contrasted with wars that dragged on for years. However, depending on what the combatants experienced, their pain and suffering is equally raw. Duggan does a superb job of telling the truth about his own experience, and it's great to see the work won an award. He also mentions, positively, the group "Combat Stress," which provides assistance to soldiers in the UK who've experienced combat trauma or PTSD. We blogged about them earlier, in March of 2006. Click here for that blog entry.
Duggan is refreshingly blunt and candid about his experiences, which is part of what makes it so worth listening to. And he has some unforgettably graphic quotes -- deservedly so -- about combat trauma and its effects on the human mind and body. Three cheers to Duggan and the British mental health awards for responding so positively to truth-telling from a veteran.
