How do soldiers deal with emotions when involved in a real battle situation ?

Lillian

Now you know why basic is a *****. It's getting you ready. Nothing can make you 100% prepared, but it can help. Training, training, training.

The White Rose

You don't use a bayonet anymore.

Mostly it's mass confusion, fear, LOTS of noise and many just crap in their pants---perfectly natural reaction.

You could start a fire fight and "wake up" 20 minutes later with bare feet and no rifle. You have no idea how you will react. Some laugh like crazymen.

It's not like the movies or what you read on these boards I can tell you that much.

Everyone's different and every situation is different. Things happen so fast it's hard to react rationally.

The better your NCOs the better off you are as then can sometimes straighten you out and get you functioning.

Gerry Atrix

In ACTUAL combat you are too busy to be scared.
After combat in a lull or quiet time it scares the hell out of you.

A loud bang concentrates the mind and constricts the bowels wonderfully.

Hank H

You have to psch yourself into the mission, oblvious to what is around you, youdo it 4 your country, like the perverbial 1000yard stare.

Ginger D

They go through a lot of debriefing and also have mental health professionals to help one on one. I think their debriefings deal with the combat as well as what each one may or may not have experienced personally. There is so much talk about PTSD these days, and the military is really trying to step up and help our guys and gals out.

From my observations of my husband, I think most of them sort of shut off some of their emotions so that they can detach or desensitize themselves from their surroundings and/or experiences. Its kind of like a switch that he turns back on once he is home and safe.

frank_blandori thunder88

well your scared and your heart beats real fast then your mouth gets way dry and you think of your family and look around you and wonder who maybe next or even worst if its your day or will you loose a leg or both arms and the list goes on, but during the firefight its really to fast to explain and so much happens in such a short time! and when the medic is called and they yell out a friends name you get real pissed and want some *** now and if they bag that person and you see that dark plastic bag that holds a man you partyed with or read a family letter with it can damage your very soul! the hurt lasts for years and so do the funny memories, now as for hand to hand combat i have never seen it but i have seen them in the bush and the muzzel flash and the mud fly up around me and the boys.its all bad and the sound of metal hitting a human body is a very sick sound! and then make it back to the base camp and inside the bunker for the night and then to do it again in a day or so, well you figure it out and lets not forget now we have to place your bros items in a box or foot locker and gather all there personal items to send home, where once life once layed now only a darkness stays and then in a few days a new man arrives and it starts all over again. this is what i had to deal with in 1969!

blissman

Soldiers are trained in a lot of ways, from unarmed combat to evading capture.
But they are not trained to deal with the emotional scars after killing a man.
When out on the field it is kill or be killed, the majority of the time you will never see the people you have killed as it is long range fighting, but it is a different ball game when you have to kill a man who is right in front of you.
To see the skull explode in front of your eyes, blood, bone and brain splattering on you and the nearby walls, feeling the warmth of the thick gunge as it drips down your face.
Staring into someones eyes as you cover their mouth to stop them screaming as you plunge a knife under the enemies sternum, twisting the blade into the heart, hoping for a quick kill.
All the training in the world does not prepare you for what you see and really do out there...you either learn to live with it or you crack up....
How strong are you?
This used to be called 'shell shock', now the government agree that it is now called 'post traumatic stress'.
The human brain can only handle so much horror before shutting down.
But..there are a lot of offers for counselling to help soldiers who can no longer cope.

The joker without makeup

well some soilders like in nam do not get over it and they become killers because they could not handle seeing dead bodies ect, the way to deal with it is be cold hearted that is really the only way if you can leak your emotions out then your fine.

GHampshire

u have just got to think just put all the bad thoughts to the back of your head focus your emotions in to killing the enemy

Shoot4TheMoon

It depends on the soldier. Everyone handles things differently. Some become more attached to their loved ones, some become more distant. No on can comprehend the emotion they go through except for the ones who have lived it. I do not envy them, it is not an easy life.

Jamie

repent and reload.

news hound

,the only emotion present with highly trained soldier in face to face contact with the enemy Is kill or be killed, that is why they train so strenuously. it does not mean of course, they do not show any emotion subsequent to the battle they do, -often- if they do not, then there is something radically wrong and it will be spotted, and dealt with, that is what the seniors are also there for.

K.T.S.

its a case of get on with life or go down its hard but you have to fight

TheHitcher

a soldier has to visualise thier fears, and emotions, and then shoot the **** out of it.

Emanuel A

yes becouse they miet die and they will miss there family and the family is going to miss them.

It's That Guy

Well-trained soldiers act more or less mechanically. They make them practice running up to a dummy and bayonetting it, and when they do this with a person they are not really thinking 'Hey, that's a PERSON!' Often it is a matter of kill or be killed.

The great majority of killing in wars today is impersonal. You never see the victim. Pilots fly over 'coordinates' and drop their bombs. They never know who or how many they kill. It's one reason we try to conduct all our wars from the air and with long-distance artillery, etc., cruise missiles, etc.

trish s

A real soldier can't afford emotion.........................

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