Collateral Damage: Traumatized Soldiers

War has always been used by governments and political groups to achieve certain political goals (Brodie, Rein, and Smith 166-168). Though it leaves a lot of casualties behind, warfare’s victims are not only limited to the soldiers and civilians who perish as a result of the conflict. Many military men who survive the battlefield are forever haunted by what they witness during their service which leads their demise: “In every war in which American soldiers have fought in this century, the chances of becoming a psychiatric casualty – of being debilitated for some period of time as a consequence of the stresses of military life – were greater than the chances of being killed by enemy fire” (Gabriel 77). The wounds inflicted on their bodies soon disappear, but their souls often remain scarred which ruins the remainder of their life and extends to their surroundings: The anger, sadness, fear, and distress they experience are often manifested through abuse and violence directed at their loved ones resulting in the emotional and physical anguish of their families. The emotional wounds and suffering endured by soldiers’ families are depicted throughout Timothy Findley’s “Stones”.
Often, we imagine the return of soldiers from foreign lands to be a festive one; people gathered on every street corner cheering the return of their loved ones - the return of their heroes. As a child, Ben, the narrator of “Stones”, also had that expectation – “I wanted drums. I wanted bugles. Surely this ghostly, implacable sound of marching feet in the deadening sand was just a prelude to everyone standing up and cheering and the music blaring forth” (Findley 139). After all, these soldiers had survived the war; they should be happy to be alive, and their fa...

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...s who have witnessed destruction and have come out of it physically unharmed– fear of surviving the war. Upon their return, soldiers relive what they have seen during their service over and over again, and this leads to their demise and to the destruction of their families; a traumatized soldier never truly becomes whole again – unlike a broken bone, a broken spirit cannot be mended.

Works Cited

Boemeke, Manfred, et al. The Treaty of Versailles: Reassessment After 75 Years. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Brodie, Janine, Rein, Sandra, and Malinda, Smith. Critical Concepts: An Introduction to Politics. 5th ed. Toronto: Pearson, 2013
Findley, Timothy. “Stones”. English 1801: Introduction to Prose Fiction. Brad Simkulet. Mount Allison University, 2013.
Gabriel, Richard. No More Heroes: Madness and Psychiatry In War. New York: Hill and Wang, 1988.