War Veterans Research Paper

Boom, Boom, Boom. Gunshots, blood and screams. Your head is pounding. Your hands are trembling. Your heart is beating. You are going to die. But then, you wake up and realize that it was just a nightmare. Unfortunately, returning war veterans are unable to wake up from this nightmare because they are living it. These night terrors are just one of the symptoms of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder war veterans are cursed with. “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex anxiety disorder that may occur when a person experiences or witnesses an event perceived as a threat and in which he or she experiences fear, terror, or helplessness” (Frey). The National Center for PTSD gives all the possible symptoms one could experience when diagnosed with the disorder: reliving the event through flashbacks, and triggers, avoiding situations that remind one of the event, negative changes in beliefs and feelings, and hyperarousal (PTSD). …show more content…
Dana Paxson, a war intellect, explains these effects in detail. He states, “Many people suffer from the combination of perpetrator and victim trauma. Combat veterans often find themselves in this position. They are fragile, and volatile, and vulnerable, and they work with desperation in everyday life to manage the impulses and responses wired into them by horror. Few others understand how hard this work can be” (Paxson). The PTSD symptoms are displayed through the drastic effects they have on the everyday life of a war veteran. The Things They Carried, a collection of short stories written by Tim O’Brien, encapsulates moments of the PTSD soldiers suffer from. Literary work and other sources sanction society to see all the negative attributes of PTSD. Therefore, making PTSD the primary and most significant effect because it changes the individual’s society and alters them emotionally as well as