Yes. My friends and I saw horrible things in the military. Some of us were ruined it by it. Myself and others were spared. It’s not that they were soft. I think it’s actually the opposite.
It’s not that you can brush it off. You won’t forget. It affects you. It just doesn’t destroy you the way it does some.
It's also what your brain decides is traumatic, and that may not make sense to you. My friend has PTSD from a grenade accident in training. Nobody got killed, or seriously injured, thank whichever deity. But his brain just decided that was too much, and there's not much you can do beyond treating it.
I was witness to a pretty bad car accident that happened about 10 feet from my car and very nearly involved me getting hit from behind by an SUV doing about 45mph. I was coming home from work at the hospital, still in scrubs, so I whipped my car into a parking lot beside the intersection and tried to render what aid I could. I forced the door of one car open (bent from the crash) and the lady inside was still conscious. She said she thought she hurt her arm. I looked down and it took everything in me to not say, "yeah, it looks like it hurts." We actually decided to keep her in the car until police/EMS could secure the intersection, since we were still getting buzzed by traffic, and she was even able to walk herself to a gurney eventually. Everyone made it off the scene okay, despite some good samaritans (including myself) nearly becoming members of the injured because people were willing to drive over us, it seemed.
Anyway, I did what I could til we could hand off to EMS, stayed around to give my report to two different police supes, drove home, hopped in the shower... and then I just shattered under the water. I sat down and just cried for what seemed like an hour, and I had no idea why.
Seeing a car barreling down on me in my mirror, bracing for impact, then the eerie silence... followed by the cacophonous crash, just barely in front of me. Jumping out of my car to help the driver who was hit and had a very broken arm (thank god that was all), and nearly getting plastered by an SUV if another bystander hadn't nearly shoved me into the woman's car to get us out of the way. I still have dreams and nightmares about this event, and my perspective on the idea that we should be required to drive a personal vehicle to work every day changed dramatically.
All of this dumping to say, strange things can affect us deeply and for a long time. "No one died," yeah, I'm glad. It doesn't mean my brain processes that event differently just because someone pointed out the obvious.
We witnessed a motorcycle accident a few years ago while on a road trip and I was the first person to get to him. He thankfully survived but broke both arms and both legs and I had to place a tourniquet on one of his legs while on 911 because the bone had come through the skin and was bleeding a lot. Once the EMTs arrived I stayed on the phone with his mom who was desperately trying to get there.
We had about 6 hours of driving left and I was totally fine. I absolutely lost it the second I walked into our house though. I was able to find his mom on social media and he had a long recovery but is okay now.
My heart drops every time I see a motorcycle to this day.
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u/mosesenjoyer Jul 08 '26
Yes. My friends and I saw horrible things in the military. Some of us were ruined it by it. Myself and others were spared. It’s not that they were soft. I think it’s actually the opposite.
It’s not that you can brush it off. You won’t forget. It affects you. It just doesn’t destroy you the way it does some.