I need information on this, and I figure whether it's fiction or non-fiction, it's fair game as long as it's realistic and intimate. I specifically want to know some of the problems "war heroes" might go through after a war. I know if I just make this stuff up, it's going to be one of those generic characters who's plagued with violent flashbacks. Any documentaries (preferably not movies), video interviews, books, psychological research, etc. I'm not asking anyone to find my materials for me, just seeing if anyone knows of a superb source off the top of their head.
Thanks, will find a book on him. Yes, I know a lot of this is a Google's search away. I'm looking for specific pieces of work that people may know of, something that gives unexpected insight.
Operation Homecoming is a very raw, tear-jerking book. I think it is exactly what you're looking for.
Usually if you’re considered a hero that means things got pretty bad to the point someone had to do something that others would consider above and beyond. It also means it’s likely most everyone died. You wouldn’t much feel like a hero just because you walked away, would you? Guys in combat learn to be alert, you sleep light, ready to react. That doesn’t go away just because you’re back in the world. For a long time you’re a wound up spring ready to release at any perceived threat. It’s not just a mental thing, your body is trained and geared to it.
Thoroughly recommend Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. It is movingly intimate and her research is impeccable. The works feature and draw heavily upon the work of the magnificent WHR Rivers, a psychiatrist who treated Great War veterans. (As is the way with these things, it need hardly be said that these veterans were young.) One of Rivers' seminal papers: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2066211/
there is a new guy on here called Ryan who is in the marine corps and currently serving in afghan, he posted the other day in the newcomers forum. I cant give you any specific works other than text books, but i can tell you many stories (I am an ex military nurse, and still married into the military) I know that isnt tangible info, but they are real life scenarios. For example, I know a young man who was sent to Bosnia at the end of genocide. His unit were tasked with moving the many (i mean thousands) of dead bodies from roads. They literally just had to pick them up and throw them on the back of a truck. As with many soldiers he recorded his experiences with his camera. Anyway, he finished his tour, returned home to the UK, had a de brief and went on leave. Some weeks later the day after his little girls birthday party, he collected the photos of the party from the chemist. He took them home and began to look through them with his wife. Half way through the picture went from happy childrens snaps to mangled dead bodies and blood spattered roads. He had a break down there and then..... So very very sad. Sorry if this is not what you were meaning.
A bit of advice on writing PTSD. Don't just rattle off horrors. It's much more powerful if you hint at the trauma. Have the guy refuse to talk about the war, but hint at what happened by what makes him freak out. Or if it's from his perspective, focus on emotions and snatches of imagery, such as the way his best friend's dead eyes looked, or the rage that fills him and he's not sure what got him mad (but the author has to know what it is). Plus, don't have him look at his own issues objectively. Have him insist (even to himself) that it didn't affect him, or feel guilty because he blames himself for not saving someone, or feel weak for being traumatized, or something that the reader could tell is illogical but is something many people who've gone through that trauma actually believe. (I have an abused child who thinks it's his fault that his mother beats him, for example, because he keeps messing up and dropping plates or whatever.)
How about Siegfried Sasoon? He was a soldier in World War One, and also a poet and author. He wrote up his own experiences in poems and also in a fictionalised autobiography. Here's the wiki article on him. His works are pretty famous so it shouldn't be hard to get a copy of his work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon
I had a friend who was a young war veteran. He became a heroin addict just to deal with the horrors, wouldn't talk about it other than to say it's all bullshit, he was most hurt by his family rejecting him after the war (because he was weird and a junkie, not their idea of a proud war hero), and he died of an overdose on the beach we used to play at as kids. Absolutely tragic.
