A) No official knowledge of PTSD, etc... BUT, I do shoot w. quite a few young vets...
B) They get "hinky" when they cannot shoot how they envisioned themselves shooting, on a fairly regular basis. I could see that going very wrong - and no one involved being legally insane - maybe in a jurisdiction which uses the
Irresistable Impulse rule.
I didn't really get the importance of this, until I started reading
Mediatations on Violence - which I have found very useful.
(COMPLETE SWAG Following - I fully and completely admit I could be wildly off base.)
TMK, in the military there's quite a bit of pressure on not being the "f*ck up" of the group... (I've met men who ARE heroes, but I don't think I've encountered any soldiers who WANT to be heroes. As such, I don't think a heroic impulse is the motivation - or, at least not one that any of them have admitted to since the days of Glory.)
And, suddenly, they've become the "f*ck up" in, perhaps, the fundamental task of certain types of soldier - and it combines into a lack of emotional tools to handle it/need to prove their capability/and they get locked into a Very Bad Idea.
I'm beginning to think that some of the "hinkiness" I've seen might have been quite a bit closer to something tragic than I realized.
If anyone else is dealing w. this stuff, thus far, they seem to able to be calmed down by older vets pretty well. Not sure if that's a result of conditioning on their part, or experience on the vets, or what, but if you find a man 25+ years his senior, he can usually put an end to it.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor
A gentleman unarmed is undressed.
Collects of 1903/08 Colt Pocket Auto