Hi Irene,

Those are all great comments. My own opinion is that although it’s natural to feel severely anxious in that kind of work, it can still be both counterproductive and harmful. Just as with our police force, I think we should want soldiers to be calm under pressure and in control of their emotional reactivity. That way, they are presumably less likely to make errors that hurt the wrong people (e.g. themselves or civilians).

The other problem — as you highlight — is the trauma after service. If soldiers can learn to exercise greater emotional control during training and combat, it’s possible that it translate into fewer post-traumatic difficulties in later life. We don’t know this for sure yet but it’s a reasonable hypothesis.

Thank you for reading!