As a civilian, I’ve been trying to understand combat trauma and the problems veterans face in returning to life at home after deployment in a war zone. Depression is a big part of their experience, but it’s combined with multiple problems. A couple of thoughts from a powerfully honest veteran blogger explain a lot about combat trauma and the behavior that’s come to be known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD.

“... now that I am back I am not really back. I am still there fighting for my life... PTSD is a defense mechanism not an illness. Its a way to survive.” - The Mind of a Retired Shooter

As so many veterans have described their experience, Retired Shooter recounts in his blog the difficult story of bringing home the combat hypervigilance that got him through the war in Iraq. Driving fast and aggressively to avoid roadside bombs, sitting in a restaurant where he can see the door and everyone in the room, drowning out the voices in his head with alcohol, raging about minor disturbances. The impact of all this on his family and friends was to drive them away completely, leaving him alone and having to put together a completely new life.

Fortunately, he seems well on the way to doing that. A turning point came for him when he got help from the Veterans Administration and realized that he was not alone in this experience. And that is the message he frequently repeats to other veterans going through this crisis of adapting to civilian life. You are not alone.

PTSD has become a diagnostic label linked to trauma of many types. The terrible experiences of child abuse, sexual assault and rape, in which the victim is overpowered and helpless, can inflict psychic damage for a lifetime. Witnessing violence and disaster can do the same thing, and surviving a disaster that has claimed the lives of loved ones can add to the shock of the event itself the deep sense of guilt about still being alive when the others are gone.

But in addition to the impact of the violence soldiers witness and the violence done to them is the impact of the violence they do to others. Soldiers may become trapped by enemy fire and watch helplessly as their buddies are blown to bits - and so many of the stories veterans tell are about those constantly repeated memories and dreams of their worst moments. They are also trained to kill, and to do that their moral universe has to be turned upside down.

Violence and killing become right instead of wrong. The society that punishes these acts at home demands that you do them in the special setting of war. They are not to be considered ends in themselves but a means to the all-important goal of completing each mission. The enemy is dehumanized, an obstacle to getting the job done that has to be taken out. To do what you’ve been taught is wrong all your life, you are also trained to strip away all emotion and keep your mind solely on the mission and on protecting your comrades for a safe return.

Many soldiers, though, may suddenly lose that flipped sense of right and wrong and see themselves killing real people, quite likely some who are civilians. They feel they’ve lost an essential quality of being human and take the blame and guilt on themselves. That, combined with surviving through hypervigilance under extreme stress for long periods and the shock of losing fellow soldiers, create deep wounds that make re-entry to ordinary life so hard.