A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision rifles and high-magnification optics, and often also serve as scouts/observers feeding tactical information back to their units or command headquarters.
A Vietnam veteran is an individual who performed active military, naval, or air service in the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a person's life or well-being. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in the way a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event. Young children are less likely to show distress, but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk of suicide and intentional self-harm.
Cowardice is a trait wherein excessive fear prevents an individual from taking a risk or facing danger. It is the opposite of courage. As a label, "cowardice" indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge. One who succumbs to cowardice is known as a coward.
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while engaging an enemy, long range ranging errors or inaccuracy. Accidental fire not intended to attack enemy/hostile targets, and deliberate firing on one's own troops for disciplinary reasons, is not called friendly fire, and neither is unintentional harm to civilian or neutral targets, which is sometimes referred to as collateral damage. Training accidents and bloodless incidents also do not qualify as friendly fire in terms of casualty reporting.
Battlefield medicine, also called field surgery and later combat casualty care, is the treatment of wounded combatants and non-combatants in or near an area of combat. Civilian medicine has been greatly advanced by procedures that were first developed to treat the wounds inflicted during combat. With the advent of advanced procedures and medical technology, even polytrauma can be survivable in modern wars. Battlefield medicine is a category of military medicine.
Combat stress reaction (CSR) is acute behavioral disorganization as a direct result of the trauma of war. Also known as "combat fatigue", "battle fatigue", or "battle neurosis", it has some overlap with the diagnosis of acute stress reaction used in civilian psychiatry. It is historically linked to shell shock and can sometimes precurse post-traumatic stress disorder.
David Allen Grossman is an American author and trainer who conducts seminars on the psychology of lethal force. He is a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.
Brigadier General Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, also known as SLAM, was a military journalist and historian. He served with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, before becoming a journalist, specialising in military affairs.
Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their motives and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and large foreign powers.
The South Lebanon conflict, designated by Israel as the Security Zone in Lebanon Campaign, was a protracted armed conflict that took place in southern Lebanon from 1985 to 2000. It saw fighting between Israel and the Catholic Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army (SLA) against Hezbollah-led Shia Muslim and Left-wing guerillas within the Israeli-occupied "Security Zone"; the SLA had military and logistical support from the Israel Defense Forces over the course of the conflict and operated under the jurisdiction of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon provisional administration, which succeeded the earlier Israeli-backed State of Free Lebanon. It can also refer to the continuation of the earlier conflict in this region involving the growing Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon against Israel following the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Jordan after Black September. Historical tensions between Palestinian refugees and Lebanese factions contributed another layer to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), which saw the Maronite-led Lebanese Front and the Shia Amal Movement at war with the PLO. Hence, the South Lebanon conflict can partly be seen as an extension of the civil war that ended in 1990.
Women in combat refers to female military personnel assigned to combat positions. The role of women in the military has varied across the world’s major countries throughout history with several views for and against women in combat. Over time countries have generally become more accepting of women fulfilling combat roles.
Debriefing is a report of a mission or project or the information so obtained. It is a structured process following an exercise or event that reviews the actions taken. As a technical term, it implies a specific and active intervention process that has developed with more formal meanings such as operational debriefing. It is classified into different types, which include military, experiential, and psychological debriefing, among others.
United States Army Basic Combat Training (BCT) is the recruit training program of the United States Army, for service in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, or the Army National Guard.
Military psychology is a specialization within psychology that applies psychological science to promote the readiness of military members, organizations, and operations. Military psychologists provide support to the military in many ways, including through direct clinical care, consultation to military commanders, teaching others and supporting military training, and through research relevant to military operations and personnel. Military psychology as a field has been growing since the early 20th century, evidence that the demands and needs for psychological clinical and operational application is continuing to grow steadily. There are many stressors associated with military service, including exposure to high-risk training and combat. As such, psychologists are critical support components that assist military leaders in designing appropriate training programs, providing oversight to those programs, and assisting military members as they navigate the challenges of military training and their new lifestyle. Military psychology covers a wide range of fields throughout the military including operational, tactical, and occupational psychology. Gender differences between military-trained personnel who seek mental health assistance have been extensively studied. Specific examples include post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) associated with combat, or guilt and family/partner difficulties accompanying extended or frequent deployments due to separation. Clinical providers in military psychology are often focused on the treatment of stress, fatigue, and other personal readiness issues. Previous wars such as the Korean war, Vietnam war, and WW 2 provide great insight to the workings and practices of military psychology and how the practices have changed and assisted the military over the years.
Shell shock is a word that originated during World War I to describe the type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that many soldiers experienced during the war, before PTSD was officially recognized. It is a reaction to the intensity of the bombardment and fighting that produced a helplessness, which could manifest as panic, fear, flight, or an inability to reason, sleep, walk or talk.
Perpetrator trauma, also known as perpetration- or participation-induced traumatic stress , occurs when the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are caused by an act or acts of killing or similar horrific violence.
A moral injury is an injury to an individual's moral conscience and values resulting from an act of perceived moral transgression on the part of themselves or others. It produces profound feelings of guilt or shame, moral disorientation, and societal alienation. In some cases it may cause a sense of betrayal and anger toward colleagues, commanders, the organization, politics, or society at large.
"Men Against Fire" is the fifth and penultimate episode of the third series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Jakob Verbruggen, it premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, together with the rest of series three.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) results after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event which later leads to mental health problems. This disorder has always existed but has only been recognized as a psychological disorder within the past forty years. Before receiving its official diagnosis in 1980, when it was published in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-lll), Post-traumatic stress disorder was more commonly known as soldier's heart, irritable heart, or shell shock. Shell shock and war neuroses were coined during World War I when symptoms began to be more commonly recognized among many of the soldiers that had experienced similar traumas. By World War II, these symptoms were identified as combat stress reaction or battle fatigue. In the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I), post-traumatic stress disorder was called gross stress reaction which was explained as prolonged stress due to a traumatic event. Upon further study of this disorder in World War II veterans, psychologists realized that their symptoms were long-lasting and went beyond an anxiety disorder. Thus, through the effects of World War II, post-traumatic stress disorder was eventually recognized as an official disorder in 1980.
