PTSD Film

Good article today in the Washington Post about a restored John Huston documentary about "shell shock" and its treatment in World War II.

We now call it PTSD and no longer consider it a psychoneurotic condition. In former times, senior officers (e.g. Patton) considered it "malingering" or worse. During World War I, British officers had more than three hundred soldiers shot for what may have been PTSD. Here is an account (possibly slanted) of how it came about that 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot during that conflict.

PTSD and its effect on the lives of those suffering from it is certainly one of the cruelest consequences of war.