The killing of sixteen Afghan civilians including women and children by a US soldier is tragic, shocking and deplorable, but this is not something new in warfare where many unspeakable things happen.
On many occasions during WWII, people were rounded up by Nazis and shot for little or no reason. Also, citizens were placed inside buildings and burned alive; others inside concentration camps like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau were herded into "shower" rooms and then killed using Zyklon-B gas dropped through the ceiling.
At My Lai Vietnam (March, 1968) 504 Vietnamese (men, women, children) were rounded up outside their village and massacred in cold blood by US marines. Although many participated in the massacre, Lt. William Calley was assigned the blame. Back home, those participants were ordinary citizens who were perfectly normal in every way, but once engaged in combat and witness to the devastation and horrors of war, their lives were altered forever.
As a young boy just after WWII when soldiers returned home, I remember a young man in his twenties who often walked down our street in an apparent daze. He often talked and smiled to himself as he walked in a world all his own. Later, I learned that he was "shell-shocked".
I also once worked with a retired, artillery captain who fought in France and Germany when a shell landed in their midst and his entire squad was killed except for him. Shocked, and with memories of the horrific carnage, his life was never the same.
Later, I worked with a young German who had been recruited into the Hitler Youth during the final days of the war and, at the tender age of fifteen, he was posted to the Eastern Front. During a major battle with the advancing Russian Army, the field was thick with gun smoke. Suddenly, out of the cloud came a Russian soldier about the same age; they looked at one another for a moment in stunned silence but then he pulled the trigger and fired. He lived; the young Russian soldier died, but from that moment on he relived it every day and every night.
During the Vietnam War it was difficult, and sometimes impossible, to differentiate between friend and foe which added to soldiers' stresses and at times - like that of Lt. Calley - they went off the "deep-end" and lashed out at the unseen enemy. It is obvious from observed behaviours that war turns ordinary citizens into unrecognizable monsters.
During past wars, "shell-shock" was not identified as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) needing treatment and soldiers were simply left to cope with it on their own. No psychotherapy was given to those needing it and incidents of suicide and ones like those in Afghan happened occasionally.
We must remember that armies are made up of ordinary men and women from a country's citizenry and recruited and trained to kill, but when the actual event happens it is extremely difficult for ordinary persons to cope with the horrific acts they see and/or must commit in the name of their country - beyond the soldier, there is the fragile, human being who must endure these terrible reminders for the rest of their days. It is not something that can be forgotten or erased from their memories.
There are many stories of Afghan soldiers going berserk and turning their weapons against their NATO-ISAF allies when they believe that their nation or their religion has been insulted - the incident of US soldiers urinating on dead Taliban soldiers and the recent Qur'an burnings are just two such examples.
PTSD is prevalent in all armies.
