The Gourleys narrate their struggles with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which has profoundly affected their quality of life. The condition develops after exposure to traumatic events that overwhelm, frighten, or threaten life. The veteran militants are sent for horrible missions and sometimes get exposed to active combats. The experiences have significant impacts on their mental wellness and their quality of life even after retirement. For instance, 17% of veterans on combat missions to Iraq or Afghanistan manifested with PTSD (Friedman, 2012). A significant number of families in the military population have unreported cases of members suffering from the condition. Therefore, the experiences of the Gourleys depict the life of many individuals serving or who had served in the military.
Militants experience a significant number of traumatic events that subject them to PTSD. The extraordinary demands of war expose them to combats, killings, and accidents, which are among the leading causes of mental health issues among the veterans. As a result of the surging cases of PTSD among the veterans, the Army developed programs to create awareness of the condition and provide treatment therapies to the affected individuals (Friedman, 2012). At the moment, there are initiatives aimed to promote the health of militants and their families. This is done through training on mental wellness and resilience. Therefore, the military department has adopted a culture that promotes resilience among its members and their families to preclude PTSD cases.
The culture of the military plays a significant role in promoting the mental wellness of the veteran population. Psychological fitness is imperative, just like physical health, and all efforts should be aimed at designing programs that create awareness of mental disorders. It is critical to consider every individual subjected to traumatic events at risk of developing PTSD. One of the prevention strategies is training on resilience and early identification of victims at their early stages of developing stress (Friedman, 2012). In addition, military departments need to adopt a deployment plan in which no member stays in active combat for long.
Reference
Friedman, M. (2012). Posttraumatic and acute stress disorders (6th ed). New York: Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland.