You're living in cloud cuckoo land
I wouldn't disagree that most if not all of these people should be respected for what they have given (politics aside), but to say they're all happy and fluffy is utter bollocks.

I know a lot of forces and ex forces people, and more than a few of them have been permanently and negatively affected by what they've seen and done.

You're probably seeing them before the adrenaline has worn off, and while they're still being intensively cared for.

Go back in a year when they've left the care system and see how they are. Even the ones that stay in the Army are rarely the same. Bitter, angry and hateful is pretty much the exact description.

Bear in mind a lot of them have wives and kids that bear the brunt of it, and you've got a fair few unhappy people.
(username failed moderation, Mon 20 May 2013, 16:22, 3 replies)

You think they know pain?
My office has blocked access to facebook - if I couldn't go home and take it out on the missus, I swear I'd go mad.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 20 May 2013, 16:35, closed)

Yeah? Well, Costa didn't have any marshmallow toppers this morning.
FML
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 20 May 2013, 16:41, closed)

I just hate how
big the lumps are in my crunchy nut clusters.

I sometimes have to hit them with a spoon.
(username failed moderation, Mon 20 May 2013, 17:04, closed)

You ought to be
locked up.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 21 May 2013, 9:49, closed)

......
I can only speak as I find. I don't doubt that many are angry and bitter but as I said in my post outwardly they don't display, or at least they don't to me. I'm no psychiatrist or psychologist so I have to take things the way they seem.
(kickstandrich last had sex with your mum/sister/wife/daughter on, Mon 20 May 2013, 18:53, closed)

Just because your experience is different from that of
the OP doesn't mean that his experience is invalid.
You weren't there man so you saw no bollocks.
Oh, and there's no requirement for you to type on behalf of ex-forces personnel.
The vast majority of us can still communicate effectively, that is without having to plant our own words in other people's sentences.
Happy and fluffy my arse.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Mon 20 May 2013, 21:40, closed)

I'm not sure if we disagree or not
but he's obviously in contact with people who are being looked after, in the early stages of their recovery.

I'm talking for example about someone who did several tours in Bosnia, was not injured but was closely involved in the aftermath of some of the atrocities that happened there.

He has not been the same since he was there. He is perfectly functional, still in the Army, but is basically a horrible person most of the time. His wife and kids bear a lot of that.

Those are not the people this guy is talking about, and there are thousands of them.
(username failed moderation, Tue 21 May 2013, 11:28, closed)

I'm not sure if we agree or not.
It's not what happened to you, it's how you see what happened to you.
Your perception can change and of course perceptions of the same incident differ anyway. Care has improved but severe trauma is just as hard to deal with as shell shock was.
A very common "belief", even amongst dreadfully injured servicemen is that they should have died instead of their mates. That's a bastard to shift because it's all in the training.
Ongoing care is often needed but up until recently the army specialist hospitals would sign off a traumatised patient simply because his service had come to an end.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Tue 21 May 2013, 16:58, closed)

OK.
My original point was: It is kind of naive to think a soldier you meet in the early stages of care after a war injury is happy about everything.

So I think we agree.
(username failed moderation, Tue 21 May 2013, 17:34, closed)

I don't

( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Tue 21 May 2013, 23:14, closed)

Ok, so I have no idea what you're saying,
but I'm not really interested anyway.
(username failed moderation, Wed 22 May 2013, 8:45, closed)