• DOI:10.1176/APPI.AJP.163.4.586
• Corpus ID: 34976221

Posttraumatic stress disorder among military returnees from Afghanistan and Iraq.

@article{Friedman2006PosttraumaticSD,
  title={Posttraumatic stress disorder among military returnees from Afghanistan and Iraq.},
  author={Matthew J. Friedman},
  journal={The American journal of psychiatry},
  year={2006},
  volume={163 4},
  pages={
          586-93
        }
}

• M. Friedman
• Published 1 April 2006
• Psychology
• The American journal of psychiatry

Mr. K, a 38-year-old National Guard soldier, was assessed in an outpatient psychiatric clinic several months after he returned home from a 12-month deployment to the Sunni Triangle in Iraq, where he had his first exposure to combat in his 10 years of National Guard duty. Before deployment, he worked successfully as an automobile salesman, was a happily married father with children ages 10 and 12 years, and was socially outgoing with a large circle of friends and active in civic and church activities. While in Iraq, he had extensive combat exposure. His platoon was heavily shelled and was ambushed on many occasions, often resulting in death or injury to his buddies. He was a passenger on patrols and convoys in which roadside bombs destroyed vehicles and wounded or killed people with whom he had become close. He was aware that he had killed a number of enemy combatants, and he feared that he may also have been responsible for the deaths of civilian bystanders. He blamed himself for being unable to prevent the death of his best friend, who was shot by a sniper. When asked about the worst moment during his deployment, he readily stated that it occurred when he was unable to intercede, but only to watch helplessly, while a small group of Iraqi women and children were killed in the crossfire during a particularly bloody assault.