PTSD In Soldiers: Movie Summary

After watching the movie, I went online to look into PTSD specifically searching for shellshock. It was very eye-opening for me to read about how soldiers with PTSD were treated in the past before more was known about their condition. I can only imagine the emotional trauma they went through as a result of their disease. I was sad to read that a lot of them were subjected to additional emotional trauma because of the perception that they were weak or cowardly or had some defect in their character because of the disorder. I read more than a few old quotes that implied that the soldiers who had PTSD, (shellshock as it was called in most of them), were pretending or using it as a deliberate way to avoid their posts on the battlefield. I understand that a lot of these misinformed opinions were simply a reflection of how much was known about the disorder and the approach to psychiatric treatments but it was chilling to read about the numerous soldiers that were denied treatment and pensions as a result.
While reading about PTSD, I began to understand more about Mike, Steven and Nick’s behaviour in the deer hunter. The event that I think inflicted the most damage on their psyche was the Russian roulette game their captors made them play. Steven got tortured and lost his ability to walk while they were escaping while Nick bore the brunt of the psychological trauma. He must have felt guilty about the fact that he was the only one that was able to escape in the helicopter. His condition is probably what made him more likely to participate in the Russian roulette games. I read a quote attributed to Philip Gibbs that I think perfectly summed up their experience:
Something was wrong. They put on civilian clothes again and looked to their mothers and wives very much like the …show more content…
A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists, 1914-1994. London, Jonathan Cape, 2000 qtd. in "Shell Shock." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Apr. 2017. Web. 24 May