The main idea of the third chapter, “In Bitter Safety I Awake”, of Junger’s book Tribe, as well as one of the, arguably, main causes of PTSD, is that when they return home from combat in another country, veterans have the need to feel as though they are needed at home, not victims or witnesses of war. This concept is continuously explained and supported by several stories of wartime throughout history as well as studies done to investigate the mental disorder that is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Junger explains that one of the main reasons that PTSD ignited from a wartime experience is so difficult to recover from and tends to last longer than PTSD that has originated from some other traumatic experience is because there are aspects of combat that are positive and worth retaining. This was compared to PTSD from a rape which, initially, is more extreme and traumatic, but tends to be recovered from quicker as the victim tends to not want to remember any part of the experience.
Junger goes on to explain that the trauma of war seems to be giving it up. A soldier admitted, “For the first time in [our] lives...we were in a tribal sort of situation where we could help each other without fear.” (91) Similarly, “after WWII, many Londoners claimed to miss the exciting and perilous days of the Blitz.” Junger…show more content… However, not all of these systems are helping in the way the government had hoped as “lifelong disability payments for a disorder like PTSD, which both treatable and usually not chronic, risks turning veterans into a victim class that is entirely dependent on the government for their livelihood. The US is a wealthy country that may be able to afford this, but in human terms, the veterans can’t.”
