How do soldiers cope on their return to civilian life

From the UK
Battle scarred: How do soldiers cope on their return to civilian life?
Published: Mon, April 8, 2013

EVERY year 20,000 people leave the armed forces, but film–maker Chris Terrill reveals some simply find it too hard to handle.

Being shot at is terrifying but exciting. If you can hear the eerie whistle a bullet makes as it rips through the air you know it can be no more than a couple of feet from your head. Soldiers on the front line in Afghanistan refer to these near miss bullets as "lead wasps".

I don't shoot with a weapon, I shoot with a camera but often I've had to dive for cover as lead wasps swarmed in from a Taliban nest. I prayed the bullets wouldn't find their mark; that the wasps wouldn't deliver their deadly sting. Conversely the adrenalin coursing through my body at these times gave me a rush like nothing I've ever known before.

I first came under enemy fire with a troop of Royal Marine Commandos ambushed by insurgents in the Helmand valley. It was then I experienced not only the thrill and fear of battle but also the extraordinary selfless comradeship that binds combat soldiers on the front line.

The bond between them is not replicated in the civilian world. War is war. Nothing else comes close to its challenges, its chilling excitement or the kill–or–be–killed experience of it. I have seen the rugged determination that drives soldiers in combat. I have seen the haunted, exhausted look in their eyes after enemy contact. I have witnessed their night terrors following the elimination of their foes and the grief and anger that grips them when comrades are lost or wounded.

Make no mistake, going to war changes a man's view of the world; it changes his view of himself; it radically recalibrates his mindset. But at least he is with like–minded comrades. To be part of this band of brothers is not only life affirming but spiritually reinforcing.

The problem is that military people, combat veterans among them, must eventually become civilians again – and there's the rub. They have to leave the "safe" haven of military life with its unifying ethos and embracing comradeship. Suddenly they are in the dogeat–dog world of civvy street where no one marches in step and everyone seems out for themselves.
read more here