Shell-Shocked Veteran: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

If the Shell Shocked Veteran is out for revenge expect him to become an [[Anti-Hero|Antiheroic]] [[The Hunter|Hunter]], with [[Ineffectual Loner|varying degrees of success]] and [[Loners Are Freaks|sanity.]] In an [[Ensembles|ensemble show]] or a [[Five-Man Band]], the Shell Shocked Veteran is usually [[The Quiet One|the Quiet]] [[The Big Guy|Big Guy]] or [[The Lancer]]. Often crosses into [[Aloof Big Brother]] territory if they insist on being a loner. Many a [[Zen Survivor]] has elements of the Shell Shocked Veteran in his [[Backstory]], though the Shell Shocked Veteran is likelier to eventually prove he's a [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]] or a [[Knight in Sour Armor]]. The Shell Shocked Veteran is usually, but not always, older than most of the cast; it seems war, like prison, doesn't take long to change you.

 

A subtrope of [[The Stoic]], also related to [[Heroic BSOD]]. They may be an [[Old Soldier]]. Expect him to have a [[Sympathetic Murder Backstory]].

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Nemo, deposed king of destroyed Atlantis from ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]''.

* Kambei, the main protagonist of ''[[Samurai 7]]'', who has grown so tired of always leading the losing side that it is implied that he has become a [[Death Seeker]]. The same goes for his counterpart in the original live-action classic movie.

* Lucy from ''[[Elfen Lied]]''.

* 16-year-old Sara Werec of ''[[Soukou no Strain]]''.

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Dr. Knox is an Ishbal veteran who was so damaged by the war that his wife and son left him. He's incredibly scarred by what he had to do in the war, and hates any mention of the war or his comrades in it (though he does help out his old war buddy Roy Mustang when pressed). Knox may be redeemable, but he's still living in the war so far.

** The ''Brotherhood''-only Isaac McDougal, AKA the Freezing Alchemist is very badly scarred by the war, and by {{spoiler|what he knows about the [[Ancient Conspiracy]]}}. He goes AWOL for a couple of years, and then shows up again one day, attempting to put all of Central City under ice. {{spoiler|Once you get further in the series, his plan doesn't seem so evil after all...}}

* Gintoki from ''[[Gintama]]''. He lost a lot of allies while fighting on the losing side of the war, which is definitely not played for laughs (although almost every other aspect of his life is fair game).

* ''[[Pumpkin Scissors]]'' has a subversion in Randel Oland, who was all but broken by the war, his mind is a complete mess, and the innumerable people he killed continue to haunt him in his dreams (and, sometimes, his waking hours.) But instead of numbing his emotions, this left unbelievably sensitive and very reluctant to harm other people.

** Not to mention Hei himself, a [[Stoic]], disillusioned [[Anti-Hero]] who only really [[Not So Stoic|lets his real feelings show through]] when someone hits his [[Berserk Button]]: [[Dead Little Sister|his sister]], who disappeared during the weirdness at the end of [[Phlebotinum War|Heaven's War]].

* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'': The horrible experiences he went through in the One Year War made Amuro "Shooting Star" Ray one of these. He only recovered seven years later, in ''[[Zeta Gundam]].''

** [[Mobile Suit Gundam 00|Setsuna F. Seiei]], was once a [[Child Soldier]] tricked into murdering his own parents in the name of God and fighting a fruitless war. Years later, he's still in Krugis. He gets better thanks to the best friend in his life, [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|Marina Ismail]].

** [[Gundam AGE|Flit Asuno]] is slowly becoming one, too, joining the other Gundam protagonists as bitter war veterans. Woolf Enneacle even puts it clearly, that as he fights on, he would want to kill more and more Unknown Enemies, no longer satisfied with a peaceful life.

** Played straighter with {{spoiler|[[My God, What Have I Done?|Noël]]}}.

* Some of the robots in ''[[Pluto]]''.

** The reason Kakashi was always late for his training sessions with the team? [[Harsher in Hindsight|Every morning he spends hours just standing in front of the Konoha memorial to dead shinobi to honor his comrades' memory.]]

** According to {{spoiler|Madara}}, this is what happened to {{spoiler|Itachi}}, and the reason he became a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]. It is definitely what happened to [[A God Am I|Pain]] and Konan, though the latter seems to be more of a case of follow the leader. In general, though, while several ninja are also severely traumatized by war, it was indirect experiences, such as the way they were treated or taught growing up, or being treated as dangerous human weapons.

 

== Comic Books ==

* Suicida, leader of Gang Green in ''[[Marshal Law]],'' is a Zone veteran who never got the chip off his shoulder. He runs with a gang of equally crazy superhero vets fighting other crazy superhero vets and anyone else who so much as meets his eye. He wears a necklace of human ears. The front of his jacket reads ''Nuke me slowly''. In his own words, "You can't turn me on an' off like a tap, man!" and "I just wanna punch the whole world in the mouth!"

** Of course, Marshal Law himself and virtually every "hero" he fights are also traumatized Zone veterans.

* Jackie acts this way in ''[[Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters]]'' when pretending to be a Red Baron, a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Peanuts|Charlie Brown]].

 

* [[Harry Potter]] is already one of these, but many fanfics exaggerate this aspect of him.

* Darkfic tends to turn Max from ''[[Across the Universe (film)|Across the Universe]]'' into one of these. Arguably, he's a bit of one in canon-- "everything below the neck works fine," and all.

* ''[[Forward]]'': It seems to come and go with River. On the one hand, she's (rightfully) traumatized by everything that's happened to her. On the other hand, when she's in control, she has a razor-sharp focus that lets her bury that sort of detail far below conscious thought. And on the third hand she's still a little bit crazy.

** Just about everyone else features shades of it, too. Mal and Zoe, of course, inherit theirs from canon, while Kaylee is still messed up over the [[Near-Rape Experience]] in "Objects In Space" and Book's past (whatever that may be) is clearly still in the back of his mind.

 

== Film ==

* [[Rambo]] was a POW in Nam and was tortured thoroughly. In a scene in First Blood, cops have him locked down in the cell block and torture him with a firehose before restraining him to try and shave him. Rambo has a flashback to getting partially flayed in Nam and freaks out, beating his tormentors and escaping.

* Nick and Michael in [[Deerhunter|The Deer Hunter]].

* Thoroughly played for laughs in the ''[[South Park]]'' movie, where the mercenary hired to help [[La Résistance]] is not discernibly older than the protagonists, themselves nine-year-olds.

* Parodied in ''[[Not Another Teen Movie]]'', with Randy Quaid's character.

* Spoofed in ''[[Airplane!]]!'', where the protagonist is a shell shocked fighter pilot who ends up having to fly a jet airliner.

** ''[[Airplane!]] II: The Sequel''- "I lost my squadron." "Over Macho Grande?" "No. I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande."

* Walter Sobchak in ''[[The Big Lebowski]]''.

* Exaggerated in [[X-Men (film)|X-Men]] Origins: Wolverine, in a bedroom exchange between a traumatized Logan (whose healing powers make him well over a hundred years old) and his lover Silver Fox.

'''Logan:''' All of them. }}

** It's also demonstrated in the first of Singer's X-Men films. Surprising a sleeping PTSD vet is a bad idea. Especially when he's got adamantium-coated bone claws.

* Quint in ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]''.

* Colonel Kurtz is ''technically'' still at war in ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', but boy has the cheese slid off his cracker.

* Ellen Ripley in the [[Alien]] movies (after the first one) is another James Cameron example.

* [[Ax Crazy]] character Bronson in the movie ''[[Street Trash]]'' is an extreme example of this trope.

 

== Literature ==

* All the characters in ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' become Shell Shocked Veterans to one extent or another. Remarque wrote a sequel of shorts, ''The Road Back'', which describes the survivors trying to integrate back into society.

* Marshal Teddy Daniels of ''[[Shutter Island]]'' has a lot of bad dreams and a drinking problem because of the things he saw at the liberation of Dachau.

** It's implied in ''Busman's Honeymoon'' that he's always vulnerable to relapse at the conclusion of a murder case - because in doing his duty, he's sending the murderer to his or her death.

** In ''The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club'', one of the suspects, George Fentiman, is prone to panic attacks and bouts of shell-shock where he has no idea what he's doing. {{spoiler|He didn't do it.}} However, there are many veteran characters in the book, none of whom are so badly affected.

* Pat Barker's WWI trilogy (''Regeneration,'' ''The Eye in the Door,'' ''The Ghost Road'') deals extensively with shell shock, among other war-induced psychiatric disorders.

* Charles Todd's Inspector Ian Rutledge suffers from an unusual form of shell shock: he constantly hallucinates the presence of another soldier whom he was forced to execute during the war.

* Leia is this in ''[[Splinter of the Minds Eye]]''. Vader's [[Mind Rape|torture of her]] in [[A New Hope]] left invisible scars. All the same, Luke admires her for holding up as well as she does most of the time.

* In ''[[Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor]]'', Luke is subjected to a form of torture that amounts to mentally experiencing [[And I Must Scream|thousands of years alone in space watching the stars go out]]; it doesn't break him, but he's affected for the rest of the book with a kind of nihilism and creeping despair. He tells a companion that it's like he's been infected, that "All I know is that it makes me want to die. No. Not die. Just... ''stop''." Being [[The Hero|Luke]] [[The Messiah|Skywalker]], though, he pushes on and tries to act like he would have before that happened in the hopes of [[Becoming the Mask]].

** ''Any'' veteran of the Imperial Guard, who has undoubtedly had his or her nerves shredded by facing some of the [[Cosmic Horror|worst horrors imaginable]] with nothing more than a flak jacket and a lasgun, as seen in ''Eisenhorn''.

*** Not mention they'll have watched lots of living things in general get shredded.

* ''[[The Silmarillion]]'': Beren is described as being like this in various ways in different versions of the story, at least when he arrives in Doriath - unsurprisingly, given that [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]] was a WWI veteran. Fortunately, Beren has a half-elf, half-goddess lover to help him heal.

* [[The Lord of the Rings]]: How many there are...almost all the Elves lefts in Middle Earth (most of whom are thousands of years old, have fought in countless wars which all turned out to be pointless in the end, and have seen or are about to see everything they care about in Middle Earth pass away). Gimli, who's never the same after Galadriel (it isn't just BAD things that can leave you with stress injuries). Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam, who all have scars from carrying the Ring. (Note: All the listed characters ultimately sail to Aman, the approximate equivalent of Heaven, where it is said anyone can heal from anything. The story really ends when Sam goes, on the very last ship, having lived a long, happy, full life, but never having entirely healed from the Ring.)

* Septimus of ''Mrs. Dalloway.'' He watched his friend die in an explosion. As a result, he lost his humanity, he can't feel anything, he has hallucinations of the aforementioned friend, he's possibly schizophrenic, and he eventually kills himself.

* The protagonist of "For Esmé, With Love and Squalor" (in J.D. Salinger's ''Nine Stories''). The viewpoint switches from first- to third-person during the time the WWII soldier is at his lowest ebb, emotionally. However, it's not difficult to guess "Sergeant X" is the narrator. In the paragraph preceding the POV shift, he writes, "I've [[Lampshade Hanging|disguised myself so cunningly]] that even the cleverest reader will fail to recognize me." (Unlike X, the other characters in this passage have names.)

* [[Meaningful Name|GSV Lasting Damage]] {{spoiler|later the Masaq' Hub mind}} from Iain M. Bank's [[The Culture|Culture novels]] is a rather [[Driven to Suicide|depressed]] veteran of the Culture-Idirian War.

* All of the [[Animorphs]] become this by the end of the series. Also, Loren describes her father as a shell of his former self ever since he came home from Vietnam.

** The main character, Harry Potter, himself is obviously suffering from PTSD, that gets worse by the time of the fifth book.

** Note that Katniss already had this problem, as her father was killed in a mine explosion years ago.

** The third novel in the trilogy, ''Mockingjay'', shows a Katniss which is the full-blown embodiment of this trope. A good chunk of the novel could even be considered a psychological breakdown of the effects of war and PTSD, including Katniss' addiction to 'morphling' and frequent panic attacks. It all culminates in her eventual {{spoiler|attempted suicide by nightlock.}} Pretty dark for a YA novel.

* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|The January Dancer]]'', the advantage of fighting for a nobler cause is that a Shell Shocked Veteran, waking cold and shaking from [[Bad Dreams]], can sometimes get back to sleep.

* ''Lighter Than A Feather'', a WWII Alternate History novel, features a US Marine who believes every Japanese he kills is the same one, and thinks they/he is playing some kind of trick on him.

 

* The quote above comes from ''[[Babylon 5]]'' and is Delenn's response to a veteran of the Earth-Minbari war who kidnapped her; decidedly one of the scarier foes she would face.

** There's at least one group in the Minbari Warrior caste who want to resume the war, or at least kill Sheridan. And let's not even get started with the whole Narn-Centauri thing.

** Also, the man who thought he was [[Napoleon Delusion|King Arthur]], in the episode "A Late Delivery from Avalon".

* In the ''[[Andromeda]]'' Season 1 finale and Season 2 premiere Rommie appears as a [[Shell Shocked]] Veteran when a hidden computer file of her first meeting with the magog comes to the surface and subverts her programming

* Captain Jack falls into this mode now and then in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' and ''[[Torchwood]]'', having lived through ''at least'' two Dalek wars (In "Bad Wolf", he recounts a fleet of ships being destroyed), [[World War I]], and [[World War II]] ''twice''. The Doctor himself also occasionally falls into this mode when he thinks about the Time War that [[Last of His Kind|killed the rest of the Time Lords]]; his role in the war outside of its final act hasn't yet been made explicit, but it's been made clear that he was directly responsible for the (more or less) complete genocide of both species as some kind of last resort to end the war since the Daleks were winning and {{spoiler|both sides would have wiped out ''every'' other species in the universe}}.

* Played straight in ''[[Blue Heelers]]'' with There Last Night, The Cull and a few others. For several years around Anzac Day or Rememberance Day there would be an episode where they invoked this trope.

'''Zoe:''' Once you've been in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn to live there. }}

* Parodied on ''[[Seinfeld]]'' with George's father Frank. He was a chef during the Korean War, but swore never to cook again after a horrifying incident ... he served some overseasoned/slightly rancid meat and "sent fifteen of my own men to the latrine that night!" He's eventually convinced to start cooking again and helps out at a big dinner, only {{spoiler|to go nuts when it looks like a guy's throwing up and knocks everyone's plates to the floor}}.

* Dr. Hunt in ''[[Grey's Anatomy]]''

* Parodied in ''[[Father Ted]]'', when Ted and a local policeman are hunting the recently-escaped Father Jack:

'''Policeman''': Ah, no man. You know -- the films. }}

* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Soap]]'' with the Major who's still convinced he's fighting in the second world war and attacks the neighbours because he believes them to be Nazi spies.

* This is [[Played for Laughs]] on ''[[Drake and Josh]]'' with their grandfather, who goes crazy and thinks everyone is a German spy out to get him and even talks into a [[Shoe Phone]].

* Rick Simon on ''Simon & Simon'' experienced PTSD in the "I Thought The War Was Over" episode.

* ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]:''

'''Kate:''' Yeah, he told me not to worry and that he wasn't going to rape me. He told me that after what Santa saw in the Gulf War he could never be with a woman again. }}

* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', a possible alternate future version of {{spoiler|Dean Winchester}} turns into this after {{spoiler|Sam gives in to Lucifer, Bobby is killed, and the Croatoan virus wipes out most of the planet}}.

* Nurse Veronica Callahan on ''[[Mercy]]''.

* [[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia|Frank]] tries to pass himself off as this. The rest of the Gang see through it, but he doesn't miss a beat.

'''Frank:''' And a lot of good men died in that sweatshop! }}

** Gene Hunt could be seen in this light, given the big reveal in the final episode: {{spoiler|Gene is in a policemen's limbo/purgatory, unable to come to terms with having been killed as a young man in the line of duty, and thus condemning himself to fight an endless war against imaginary criminals.}}

* Subverted with Dr. Watson in ''[[Sherlock]]''. His psychosomatic injuries and therapy indicate that he's haunted by the war, but he actually ''[[In Harm's Way|misses it]]''. This leads to him helping Sherlock Holmes.

* Largely averted in [[Magnum, P.I.]]. Although the main characters served in Vietnam and still bear the scars from it, they seemed to re-integrate back into civilian life.

** The recurring character Mac might be this, or he might just be using it as part of his ongoing cons. As part of the character's backstory is having had a serious brain injury in Vietnam, AND being a conman, it's hard to tell.

* Anthony/Victor from ''[[Dollhouse]]'' became a Doll after returning home from Afghanistan with severe PTSD.

* [[Alternate Character Interpretation|According to]] [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]], [[Power Rangers]]' Tommy becomes this by the time of [[Power Rangers Dino Thunder]] due to years of fighting evil, where the current evil ''all used to be his friends''.

* Leonard on ''[[Community]]'' claims to have participated in several wars, and this trope may be an explanation for his current wild and course nature.

* ''[[Homeland]]'' has Brody, returning home after several years of torture as prisoner-of-war. He blanks out, has mood swings, nightmares, sleeps on the floor so as not to hurt his wife and may well have undergone a [[Face Heel Turn]].

* ''[[Bomb Girls]]'': Lorna's husband Bob.

 

== Music ==

* [[Sonata Arctica]]'s song ''Replica'' is about this.

* Mac Singleton from the music video for the Travis Tritt song [[wikipedia:Anymore|Anymore]].

== Stand-up Comedy ==

* In one of his stand-up routines, [[Bill Bailey]] discusses a conversation he had with someone about the traditional "things to do before you die" life-ambition of swimming with dolphins; apparently, the dolphins this person had swam with had previously been used for military service and consequently had "a glazed, far-away look in their eyes".

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

 

== Video Games ==

* Auron in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', he's even [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|got the scars]] to prove it.

** Forget scars, Auron takes this trope to whole new level: {{spoiler|he didn't even ''survive'' his own pilgrimage, yet through ''sheer force of will'' he maintained his corporeal form in order to assist the present-day heroes on ''their'' pilgrimage.}}

* Cloud from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' is a prime candidate for post-traumatic stress. He even spends a large portion of the game [[Heroic BSOD|in a coma!]]

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' is made up of these characters. Solid Snake, in particular, was nearly completely emotionally crippled by war by the age of thirty and had to work his way out of it again. Big Boss's [[Start of Darkness]] showed the beginning of his slide, but he didn't recover. {{spoiler|Even the young Raiden gets in on it, having been one of Africa's [[Child Soldiers]].}}

'''Snake:''' ''I don't have any more tears to shed.'' }}

* Kratos from ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' exhibits tendencies of this trope from the very beginning. As you get further out in the game, the party learns that he has a very, ''very'' long and rocky history to explain it.

* Most of the main cast of ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', one way or another, though it seems to be played straightest with Basch.

* Spoofed in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: San Andreas'', where one of the guests on a radio talk show, ''Entertaining America'', is a washed up action movie hero who earnestly believes everything that happened in his movies, including his friend dying in Vietnam, happened for real. And the host gets shot and killed by him when he calls him out on it.

** Then turned around and played ''terrifyingly'' straight in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]] IV'', with Nico Bellic. You don't need to come up with complex justifications for any crimes he's committed; fighting in Eastern European civil wars, he's seen the very worst a human being can do. It says something about how bad a place is when going to Liberty City ''is an improvement.''

* The Psychopath Cliff in ''[[Dead Rising]]'' is a Vietnam vet caught in a flashback; he ambushes you from the vents and wields a machete. Once you take him down, he comes to his senses, and tells you as he dies that he went back to the war on seeing zombies devour his granddaughter.

* ''[[Gears of War]]'':

** Marcus Fenix.

'''Marcus:''' Not really. }}

** Dom, too.

'''Dom:''' Shit, I still do.... }}

* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', Leon occupies this role, having changed his name (from [[Final Fantasy VIII|Squall Leonhart]]) out of guilt over being unable to save his world from [[The Heartless]].

* The ''[[Warcraft]]'' universe has several. [[Memetic Badass|Varok Saurfang]] and [[Iron Woobie|Farseer Nobundo]] come to mind. (Those two even qualified by being on opposite sides of the same conflict.)

** Drek'Thar feels remorse for the atrocities he committed as part of the Old Horde, and because the Forsaken commit similar deeds without feeling anything, he refuses to help them.

** It's heavily implied that the Exile has this even worse then Bao-Dur; the game doesn't even allow (canonically) her to recount her experiences in the war, or any other part of her life. Other characters remark on this in her absence.

* [[Metroid|Samus Aran]] is said to be this, and [[Iron Woobie|understandably so]]. This is heavily hinted in ''[[Metroid: Other M]]'' during {{spoiler|her [[Heroic BSOD]] while confronting a cloned Ridley}}, as well as the similar event near the beginning of [[Metroid Prime]] with the cyborg of the original. Not to mention her severe dependency issues when it comes to authority figures.

** Actually, it was hinted at in the manga as well, although how much was actually PTSD is never elaborated, especially when the ending has her defeating and mocking Ridley. Another hint at it was in the ending of [[Metroid Prime]] 3: Corruption, where she sits in thought reflecting of the allies she was forced to kill.

* In [[Quake III Arena]], this trope applies to many of the characters from previous Id games, especially from the Slipgate and Stroggos wars. Wrack, Grunt and Major are [[All There in the Manual|said to be this]].

* Jack Krauser is strongly implied to be this in ''[[Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles]]''. To put it simply, he held a long, extensive, and extinguished service in the military as a SOCOM operative, and also underwent mercenary business whenever he had any days off from SOCOM, he has spent enough time on the battlefield to sense something is terribly wrong in an area due to it "smelling like a battlefield," and lastly is unable to function in regular society and thus needs the battlefield to function. This last part is ultimately what drives his [[Face Heel Turn]] by the time of ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', as {{spoiler|a serious injury to his arm that he received during his fight against Hilda Hidalgo essentially resulted in SOCOM firing him due to it never recovering.}}

 

== Web Comics ==

* Thaco the monk, from the webcomic ''[http://goblinscomic.com Goblins]'', is the oldest of the main cast; in fact, the barbarian is his son. He was held captive and tortured some years ago. It took him long enough to get over it that his eventual recovery—[[Not Worth Killing|by ignominiously beating down]] the person responsible—was a major character development point.

* Spoofed in ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' with Frank, a Vietnam vet turned EB Games store manager.

 

== Web Original ==

* Shoutan Himei from ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'' begins the story like a classic example of this trope. And just when you think things couldn't get worse for her, [[It Got Worse|they inevitably do]].

* Miss Henderson, the librarian at Whateley Academy in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]''. She's the only survivor of a [[Cosmic Horror]] experience. And probably Phase's mother, whose horrific trauma was when she was only six, and she's never really recovered from it.

* The character Flippy from the ''[[Happy Tree Friends]]'' flash animations is a parody of this trope.

* [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ptsd-clarinet-boy PTSD Clarinet Boy] is this trope [[Played for Laughs]].

 

== Western Animation ==

** Parodied in ''Team Homer'', where it looks like he's going into angry flashback mode, except...

** Also, one episode (the one where Samantha arrives at the school as a new student) had Skinner at one point angrily reminiscing about Vietnam while Samantha was being checked out, the two flashbacks he was angrily thinking about was being trapped in a Tiger cage while in Vietnam, as well as his being spat on presumably when he returned from Vietnam when he was promised with a parade.<ref>This is a [[Truth in Television]], as Vietnam veterans were not treated well by some of the populace, some of their actions including, yes, being spat upon.</ref>

* In ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' (of all things), Ratchet breaks down into this during his first in-series combat situation against Lockdown, complete with Vietnam-esque flashbacks. He gets over it eventually after talking it over with Optimus.

** He also displays a pathological hatred of upgrades after being tortured at the hands of an upgrade addict. Problematic when they become necessary over the course of the series- he practically has a [[Freak-Out]] over Optimus getting a Jetpack.

** In ''[[Transformers Prime]]'', Arcee has a slight form of PTSD, that didn't get showed until the twelfth episode, there she meet Airachnid again, the same Decepticon who captured her, tortured her and killed her partner in front of her eyes during the [[Transformers: War for Cybertron|war]]. She almost has a [[Heroic BSOD]] when she meets her again.

* Referenced in an an episode of ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]''.

'''Ignignokt:''' Cliff hasn't been 'all right' since the Lunar War. }}

* [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath|Brock Samson]] from ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' shows elements of this, especially in the beginning of the series, as his name is basically a household word to most people in the army and he is described as a "god" by those who served with him. His first response to anyone who surprises him is to brutally murder them and the only emotions that he normally shows throughout the series is apathy, annoyance, and [[Unstoppable Rage|extreme sociopathic rage]].

** He acts relatively normal ''most'' of the time in the later seasons. I don't remember him brutally murdering anyone over surprising him, but he's been known to do so over simply being rude to him.

* Parodied on ''[[Family Guy]]'' when Peter and Lois' restaurant becomes a popular hang-out for cripples:

'''Crazy Vietnam Guy:''' I've seen some ''things,'' man, and some ''stuff.'' I wouldn't recommend it! }}

* In ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Cotton Hill falls into this somewhat, although he seems to revel in his past war experiences a bit more than is healthy. This trope comes into full effect during an episode when Cotton's VFW group attempts to reach out to some Vietnam vets (whom Cotton thinks of as wimps who got off easy compared to him). This ends with the Vietnam vets suffering flashbacks and chasing Cotton and Hank into the woods, where they finally earn his respect by managing to capture him.

* In [[Family Guy]], Stewie ended up becoming severely traumatized with being in the car after an incident where Lois was forced to crash the car due to Peter pooping on it from a highway bridge as part of one of his reality shows.

 

* At once more and less prevalent than it used to be. War is no longer so much about hacking apart other people at arm's length or closer, and more advanced weapons tend to make for less in-your-face combat, which takes some of the edge off. But those weapons are also far more lethal, more diverse and more easily made or obtained than ever before. The last century in particular has seen the advent of 'total war' and the rise of guerrilla warfare, which has redefined the relationship of civilians to warfare in a way that just asks for atrocities to happen.

** Total war is not in any way a new thing. Pretty much right up until the Age of Sail, it was standard operating procedure for invading armies to kill '''everyone''', and historically the reason soldier's pay was so low is because it was assumed that the vast majority of their income would be looted from the bodies of the slain and the homes of their families. Women were included amongst the things to be looted, naturally.

*** Total war is ''not'' killing everything. While the line between civilian and combatant blurs, and thus "kill everyone" did become more frequent, total war is not simply the slaughtering and sacking of an enemy combatant. Total war is the near total mobilization of the country's population, industry, economy, and resources to fight the war. Since even noncombatants are involved in the war effort, some would argue that they become, depending on their particular role in the war effort, legitimate targets. Since everyone and everything is mobilized, complete destruction is often called for in order to render the enemy state incapable of fighting back, as simply defeating the enemy army on the field of battle no longer meant the war was lost. In order for a state to participate in total war, it has to have an advanced infrastructure and technology, which meant that states prior to the Industrial Revolution were for the most part incapable of waging total war. The decentralization of authority that prevented wholesale conscription and mobilization of the population and lack of technology to fully exploit resources as well as overcome natural obstacles (such as winter, which pretty much ended an army's ability to wage war) meant that total war had to be a relatively recent phenomenon. It was only during the tail end of the 18th century, with the French Revolutionary Wars, that total war began to take shape, finally culminating in its ultimate form of World War II.

* There's a saying among veterans and survivors of horror ordeals: There Last Night. As in a discussion between two vets where one would say they were in Vietnam in 68, and the other might reply, "Mate I was there last night." For some they can never let it go. The tragic real life trope of Shellshocked Veteran led to the forming of groups such as Legacy.

** An issue has been a perception of weakness if a veteran were to seek treatment while in service; part of the US military's efforts as a result of Iraq (and particularly of "traumatic brain injury" due to so many explosions) has been to both facilitate treatment and to encourage service members to take advantage thereof.

* [[wikipedia:Audie L. Murphy|Audie Murphy]], one of the most highly decorated American soldiers in [[World War II]], suffered from shell shock. Later, based on his own experiences, he campaigned for support of [[Korean War]] and [[Vietnam War]] victims of what was called "battle fatigue" at the time Murphy served. Prior to that point, discussing war-related mental illnesses was considered taboo in many circles.

* [[wikipedia:Roméo Dallaire|Roméo Dallaire]], one of the most admired people in Canada, commanded UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide there and is credited with helping to save more than thirty thousand lives. He later had problems with depression and alcohol, including a suicide attempt. He is often cited as an example of a strong and heroic person who was nevertheless vulnerable to PTSD, and has spoken about it publicly in order to destigmatize the condition.

* The term 'shell shock' originates in part from the trenches of the First World War; due to the immense and near-constant heavy bombardment that many troops were forced to live in and the vicious, near-uninhabitable living conditions, many soldiers simply snapped from the pressure and suffered mental and emotional breakdowns. Unfortunately for some of them, their superiors ([[Armchair Military|whom, it should be noted, were frequently many miles away from the front]]) were in too many cases not at all sympathetic. That is to say, they had the soldiers court-martialed, and often ''[[Kick the Dog|executed]]'', for "cowardice".

** Other factors also greatly reduce or prevent PTSD. They include acknowledgement of the person's experience (it goes a surprisingly long way just to help the person know that they aren't flawed for feeling the way they do), having social support, and no previous history of mental illness. Also, the older a person is when the traumatic experience happens, the less likely they are to develop PTSD, possibly because they have established ways of coping with the trauma and context for what is happening to them.

** There is some evidence that certain types of activities that 'desensitize' a person to violence (such as playing some types of video games) seems to reduce the effects of combat on many people. Given how debilitating PTSD is, anything that may help to reduce the incidence and severity needs to be looked at seriously.

* William Tecumseh Sherman, second in command of the Union armies during the [[American Civil War]] had previously been relieved after having a near psychotic break. He's the [[Trope Namer]] for [[War Is Hell]] for a reason.

** They were not alone. Doctors diagnosed "soldier's heart", which we can see, with hindsight, was PTSD. This was particularly likely in the final part of the war, where unrelenting campaigns racked up a fearful death toll.

* Adolfo Scilingo, a pilot responsible for dumping bodies during Argentina's Dirty War. He's so thoroughly traumatised by his experience that he actually wants to go to prison for his crimes, doesn't sleep, can't interact with his children, and generally speaking, [[The Atoner|hates himself]].

** Apparently not uncommon among Argentine military personnel compelled to participate in the activities of the security services, presumably to [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten|ensure their loyalty to the regime by making them accomplices]]. Several ended up in long-term psychiatric care.

* There was a psychologist who worked with autistic war veterans who had PTSD, but didn't get it from combat as one would expect. They had it because they had been bullied as children so badly that they had lasting psychological trauma from it.

* On that note, not all people with PTSD are even involved with military combat. People can be lastingly traumatized by anything that presents a threat to a person's psychological, physical, or sexual integrity or causes psychological or physical harm.

** The idea that a person could face long-term traumatization from anything besides military combat came into fruition in the psychological community initially because some psychologists noticed that some rape victims suffered psychological symptoms similar to those who had "battle fatigue."

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Hollywood Psych]]

[[Category:Internal Conflict Tropes]]

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Has Had a Hard Life]]