Examples Of Ptsd In Soldier's Heart

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"War is always, in all ways, appalling." This is how author Gary Paulsen describes war in his novel Soldier's Heart. Soldier's Heart is what we now know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Paulsen displayed many examples of appalling events in Soldier's Heart. Some events were from deaths of fellow men, or traumatic experiences. Many of these events have scarred many soldiers around the world. Here are a few examples of scarring, appalling events included in Gary Paulsen's novel, Soldier's Heart. First, many men Charley had come to know in the military died very quick. As an example, in the Battle of Bull Run, he watched as Massey's head was blown completely off of his body. With all this death, the men still had to fire through at the other side. Even if your own brother was shot, you were expected to keep on firing and leave him in the dust. The amount of deaths would probably lead to depressing thoughts. The thought that the amount of work you put in would end up meaning absolutely nothing if you lost the war. The …show more content…

When Charley was in the infirmary, he had to stack dead bodies to block from the cold. The excuse that they could do that was that, "they won't feel it." I know that the dead would not be able to feel it, but it would be so disrespectful to the men and their families to use his dead body just because you were cold. Another traumatizing experience was during the battle of Bull Run. He was filling his canteen during the night in a river before they went to fight again, and as the day came the river was more visible, and he could see that the water had the blood of several dead men in it. He tried to vomit, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't. Imagine drinking someone else's blood after they were dead. If I was Charley, I would most likely cry for the dead and be disgusted that I had drank the remains of my

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