My beautiful brother, (Tony) who has lost the ability to speak due to a rare dementia. A hard watch, but lovely to hear his beautiful and comforting voice again.
Shell shock, battle fatigue, PTSD, different words for the trauma of war for the majority of those who see combat and even some who are too near to it without actually fighting. Including civilians. So many soldiers medicated with alcohol during and after wars becoming alcoholics, but that outcome didn’t usually get tied back to the trauma of war. I’m not surprised this man wanted to get back to the front. Very common to feel they’ve let down the others in their unit by being absent and the "normal" world feels impossibly alien to rejoin. This story is WAY more common than most people realize or want to believe. I’ve read enough history and memoirs to know.
It’s easy to criticise surviving soldiers for self-medicating with alcohol, but it was widely available, inexpensive, and socially acceptable. The hazards were not as well understood as today. Same with smoking tobacco. A greater tragedy is that “modern medicine” still does not provide adequate support to physically and psychologically damaged soldiers. Governments love to send young people in harm’s way for political reasons, but once they come back they are mostly on their own. Government is not interested, and no amount of shaming makes any appreciable difference.
I just love Fiona and her straightforward manner and sense of humor. I live in Northern California and I have been re- searching, reading and loving British HISTORY. Not Monarchy of course that IS a huge part especially in the past. The stories and history. I wish British kids/people really realize WHAT A BEAUTUFUL COUNTRY.
As an ex-serviceman, I'm absolutely amazed that officers received better treatment than the men. Who'd have thought it? Well, certainly not me... (Not a criticism of the unfortunate gentleman concerned.)
My grandather enlisted in the ''British Expeditionary Force'' (He was Australian, one of 138 police in Victoria who enlisted) in the early days. He was a fairly new police constable, resigned from there to enlist and started from private. He rose to lieutenant. He was gassed and convalescented out. From those humble beginings he rose pretty high (There was a lot of societal bias still around at the time apparently, 2 other constables started as lieutenants, a 1st and a 2nd), I wish I had more than one partial memory of him (I was 3? and he had alzheimer's.) He had suffered from poor lungs (2/3rd or less) for the rest of his life.
I gather that in those days they thought that some people with shell shock were just "shirkers" or cowards, so maybe he felt that stigma and wanted so much to get back partly because of that. The poor guy didn't last long after he got back to the front line
During WW1 Officers would communicate with each other using carbon pads and runners. They would write messages on a page of the pad which would automatically keep a carbon copy. The top copy was then torn out and given to a "runner" who would take the message to its recipient. My grandfather kept his carbon pads and they show at least one instance of officers dealing with "Shell shocked" men. They were dealt with mostly kindly and sent back to be looked after. Sure there were many soldiers in the war and no doubt some would have thought of shell shocked soldiers as cowards or Shirkers but there were many who were much more enlightened than that.
@@sarahpiaggio2693 I suppose that is partially true and may have been the reason for the "coverup". It is just that this comment usually goes unchallenged and I wanted to point out that society was more sophisticated than we usually assume.
@@johugra1 Good thinking. We tend to have a caricatured and simplistic view of the past. But I'm thinking in terms of psychology, which doesn't change down the generations. Even today, mental illness is to some extent stigmatised. All that's required for a person to feel stigmatised is a perception of other people's negative attitudes towards you, not even an actual negative attitude. Even if no one ever said a single negative thing to him, he was under a tremendous mental strain so he could have just perceived negative attitudes from people which he couldn't cope with. This is all speculation, but I think it's well enough founded, not because people were ignorant or uncaring, but because human nature then was the same as it is today, What he really needed was to be told that he wasn't allowed back in combat at all. But that would never have happened
@@sarahpiaggio2693 Thinking about it a bit more I agree entirely. For people at home PTSD was not known. But for soldiers who were suffering the same experiences there was a lot of understanding. Gosh just think how traumatised those Russian Conscripts must be in Ukraine. Shot at from front and back! Putin and his crew are the worst people living I recon.
My Grandfather was in WW1 as an artillery man He past on when my father was a young boy .My father would only say about him was that when he came home he became a telegrapher for the railroad and when they closed that station he became a drunk when i asked Grandma about him she would only say he was in WW1 and when he died she pact up all 5 kids and moved away .From what i have been able to learn is that it was a living hell .I know this was not about shell shock but about the man and his family but we can see how it still effects there Family's to this day .
It may well all have come from shell shock . My father suffered after surviving the Dunkirk evacuation and the fighting months before in WW2 . The effect on two marriages went on for years and in some ways effected his five children .
My beautiful brother, (Tony) who has lost the ability to speak due to a rare dementia. A hard watch, but lovely to hear his beautiful and comforting voice again.
Shell shock, battle fatigue, PTSD, different words for the trauma of war for the majority of those who see combat and even some who are too near to it without actually fighting. Including civilians. So many soldiers medicated with alcohol during and after wars becoming alcoholics, but that outcome didn’t usually get tied back to the trauma of war. I’m not surprised this man wanted to get back to the front. Very common to feel they’ve let down the others in their unit by being absent and the "normal" world feels impossibly alien to rejoin. This story is WAY more common than most people realize or want to believe. I’ve read enough history and memoirs to know.
It’s easy to criticise surviving soldiers for self-medicating with alcohol, but it was widely available, inexpensive, and socially acceptable. The hazards were not as well understood as today. Same with smoking tobacco. A greater tragedy is that “modern medicine” still does not provide adequate support to physically and psychologically damaged soldiers. Governments love to send young people in harm’s way for political reasons, but once they come back they are mostly on their own. Government is not interested, and no amount of shaming makes any appreciable difference.
WHAT IS PTSD. HELEN KNAPP
PTSD is the abbreviation for post traumatic stress disorder.
@@garywagner2466 what I wrote was out of compassion. If your comment was meant for me, check your projections and assumptions.
@@juju1896, if your first comment, judgemental as it was, is compassion then your second comment is virtue signalling.
I just love Fiona and her straightforward manner and sense of humor. I live in Northern California and I have been re- searching, reading and loving British HISTORY. Not Monarchy of course that IS a huge part especially in the past. The stories and history. I wish British kids/people really realize WHAT A BEAUTUFUL COUNTRY.
As an ex-serviceman, I'm absolutely amazed that officers received better treatment than the men.
Who'd have thought it? Well, certainly not me... (Not a criticism of the unfortunate gentleman concerned.)
My grandather enlisted in the ''British Expeditionary Force'' (He was Australian, one of 138 police in Victoria who enlisted) in the early days. He was a fairly new police constable, resigned from there to enlist and started from private. He rose to lieutenant. He was gassed and convalescented out. From those humble beginings he rose pretty high (There was a lot of societal bias still around at the time apparently, 2 other constables started as lieutenants, a 1st and a 2nd), I wish I had more than one partial memory of him (I was 3? and he had alzheimer's.) He had suffered from poor lungs (2/3rd or less) for the rest of his life.
I gather that in those days they thought that some people with shell shock were just "shirkers" or cowards, so maybe he felt that stigma and wanted so much to get back partly because of that. The poor guy didn't last long after he got back to the front line
During WW1 Officers would communicate with each other using carbon pads and runners. They would write messages on a page of the pad which would automatically keep a carbon copy. The top copy was then torn out and given to a "runner" who would take the message to its recipient. My grandfather kept his carbon pads and they show at least one instance of officers dealing with "Shell shocked" men. They were dealt with mostly kindly and sent back to be looked after. Sure there were many soldiers in the war and no doubt some would have thought of shell shocked soldiers as cowards or Shirkers but there were many who were much more enlightened than that.
@@johugra1 I was thinking more of the attitude of people at home who knew nothing of the conditions
@@sarahpiaggio2693 I suppose that is partially true and may have been the reason for the "coverup". It is just that this comment usually goes unchallenged and I wanted to point out that society was more sophisticated than we usually assume.
@@johugra1 Good thinking. We tend to have a caricatured and simplistic view of the past. But I'm thinking in terms of psychology, which doesn't change down the generations. Even today, mental illness is to some extent stigmatised. All that's required for a person to feel stigmatised is a perception of other people's negative attitudes towards you, not even an actual negative attitude. Even if no one ever said a single negative thing to him, he was under a tremendous mental strain so he could have just perceived negative attitudes from people which he couldn't cope with. This is all speculation, but I think it's well enough founded, not because people were ignorant or uncaring, but because human nature then was the same as it is today, What he really needed was to be told that he wasn't allowed back in combat at all. But that would never have happened
@@sarahpiaggio2693 Thinking about it a bit more I agree entirely. For people at home PTSD was not known. But for soldiers who were suffering the same experiences there was a lot of understanding. Gosh just think how traumatised those Russian Conscripts must be in Ukraine. Shot at from front and back! Putin and his crew are the worst people living I recon.
My Grandfather was in WW1 as an artillery man He past on when my father was a young boy .My father would only say about him was that when he came home he became a telegrapher for the railroad and when they closed that station he became a drunk when i asked Grandma about him she would only say he was in WW1 and when he died she pact up all 5 kids and moved away .From what i have been able to learn is that it was a living hell .I know this was not about shell shock but about the man and his family but we can see how it still effects there Family's to this day .
It may well all have come from shell shock . My father suffered after surviving the Dunkirk evacuation and the fighting months before in WW2 . The effect on two marriages went on for years and in some ways effected his five children .
She thinks she is a left wing activist!!!! Terrible on question time so biased
Click bait...very little info about the condition 'shell shock'.
@@highcountrydelatite OK but your video does not explain that, which the title "The truth about shell shock" claerly implies.
@@hayloft3834 I was simply pointing the title of your video is missleading. I'm sorry you think that truth is trolling.
A Tory lackey?