Combat PTSD in WWI veterans

History has done worse than repeat itself. With all that has been done in the last 40 years, they are still expected to just get over it.

Clifton Roat: The First World War soldier who experienced post-traumatic stress disorder after the horrors of Gallipoli
Mirror UK
By Francesca Cookney
Feb 16, 2014

For the 22-year-old farm boy from Norfolk, travelling to far-flung lands to fight The Hun in the First World War had seemed liked an adventure

Like thousands of young men in 1914, Clifton Roat couldn’t wait to join the army and go off to war.

For a 22-year-old farm boy from Norfolk, travelling to far-flung lands to fight The Hun was an adventure.

And to begin with, the postcards home spoke of nothing but excitement and high spirits. “Greetings from Egypt” said the cheerful note to his mum Lydia in January 1916, less than six months after he was drafted abroad.

“I’m thinking of you as I send this card. Maybe ’twill bring you joy to know that a message of love has come from your handsome soldier boy.”

But the man who returned was not the same person his parents and fiancée Harriet had waved off from Norfolk.

Like hundreds of First World War veterans, Clifton had seen and ­experienced horrors beyond anything he or his loved ones could comprehend.

Today, 100 years later, post-traumatic stress disorder is a well-known ­phenomenon. Many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are offered therapy and counselling to help them come to terms with their ordeal.

But back then, returning servicemen were expected to simply pick up where they had left off.
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