This has been something that's been lurking in the back of many minds for some time, Goesh. There was a fair amount of discussion that the extended voyages home on troopships after WW2 actually allowed the vets on board to decompress and work some things out with others who'd been through the same things. Actually, I'd say that we've seen a PTSD-type situation that is similar to Iraq and Afghanistan before...but it's hard to document due to the elapsed time. It's always been one of my personal theories that many of the waves of western expansion in the US were fueled by folks who had a hard time adjusting after the Civil War and simply "moved on" in the literal sense. A large number of men were demobilized very quickly after that conflict (state volunteer units) and depending on location not all of them had time to "decompress" with others. Also I think the fact that units were so geographically-based would have made losses harder to bear for some of them. It's always been a matter of interest that so many of the "gunslinging lawmen and outlaws" of the post-Civil War period were former military men from the war.
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