Soldiers are often portrayed as stoic, emotionless warriors who carry out their duties without hesitation. However, the reality is that soldiers are complex human beings who experience a full range of emotions, even amidst the chaos of war. Understanding the emotional lives of soldiers is important for supporting their mental health and their successful transition back to civilian life.
Do soldiers feel fear?
Yes, soldiers absolutely feel fear. Fear is a natural reaction to dangerous situations that soldiers frequently encounter during combat. A soldier may feel fearful when under enemy fire, when entering a combat zone for the first time, or when facing the unknowns of battle.
Despite their extensive training, it is completely normal for soldiers to feel fear in life-threatening situations. In fact, an absence of fear could indicate poor judgment or a lack of awareness of real dangers. However, soldiers are trained to manage their fear and use it constructively to sharpen their senses and reflexes.
How do soldiers cope with fear?
Soldiers use various techniques to cope with and overcome fear on the battlefield:
- Trusting in their training and relying on instinct
- Focusing on the mission objectives
- Drawing strength from their fellow soldiers
- Managing physiological responses like heart rate through breathing exercises
- Visualizing positive outcomes rather than dwelling on potential dangers
- Pushing fears to the back of their mind and compartmentalizing
Veteran soldiers also often mentor new recruits in coping with fear before their first deployments. Overall, the camaraderie of military units provides an important source of courage and reassurance in the face of fear.
Do soldiers feel sadness and grief?
Yes, soldiers often experience profound sadness and grief related to the hardships of military service. Causes of sadness for soldiers may include:
- Missing major life events back home like births, deaths, weddings, etc.
- Spending months or years away from loved ones due to deployments
- Witnessing the deaths or serious injuries of fellow soldiers
- Being unable to prevent civilian casualties in war zones
- Feeling responsible for subordinates who are killed or injured
- Taking lives in combat
- Seeing intense human suffering in war-torn regions
The grief felt by soldiers over fallen comrades is often described as survivor’s guilt. Sadness and grief can also turn into depression or PTSD if not addressed appropriately. Commanders and mental health professionals play key roles in validating these emotions and helping soldiers work through them productively.
How do soldiers mourn fellow soldiers?
Soldiers have particular rituals for mourning and honoring fellow soldiers killed in action:
- Holding memorial services and burials with military honors
- Flying flags at half-mast
- Saluting the fallen soldier’s boots, rifle and helmet
- Leaving spaces for the fallen at mess hall tables
- Getting memorial tattoos
- Sharing stories and reminiscing about the fallen
- Providing extra emotional support to the families of the deceased
These rituals help provide closure and also strengthen the bonds between surviving soldiers. Remembering fallen comrades is an important part of military culture and sacrifice.
Do soldiers feel guilt or shame?
Yes, guilt and shame are very common emotional responses experienced by soldiers. Some reasons soldiers may feel guilt include:
- Surviving when colleagues died in battle
- Making decisions that led to comrades getting killed or wounded
- Accidentally killing civilians, especially women and children
- Not being able to save more lives
Soldiers may also feel shame about things they witnessed or participated in, or about trauma responses like PTSD. These emotions can eat away at them if left unaddressed. Seeking help from others, practicing self-compassion, and finding constructive ways to make amends can help soldiers work through guilt and shame.
What causes moral injury in soldiers?
Moral injury refers to inner conflict about experiences that transgress a soldier’s moral values and ethical codes. Some potential causes include:
- Being ordered to or feeling pressured to do something unethical
- Bearing witness to intense human suffering
- Making split-second life-and-death decisions under duress
- Being unable to stop something horrendous from happening
- Committing or failing to prevent what they perceive as atrocities
These types of experiences during deployment can deeply challenge a soldier’s sense of right and wrong, causing guilt, shame, and moral conflict. Moral injury is not a formal mental health diagnosis, but addressing it requires time, emotional processing, and support from others.
Do soldiers feel anger or rage?
Anger and rage are certainly emotions experienced by soldiers, often as a result of trauma, loss, frustration, and high stress levels during deployments. Anger can arise in response to:
- The deaths of fellow soldiers and perceived injustice
- Threats toward themselves or civilians back home
- Inability to retaliate against enemies like roadside bombers or snipers
- Being deployed long past original end dates
- Feeling used or unappreciated by military and government leaders
- Physical or emotional pain and trauma
Soldiers have to keep their anger in check on missions. But it can boil over during interactions with civilians, enemy combatants or fellow soldiers. Anger management is an important skill for all soldiers both on and off the battlefield.
How do soldiers control angry impulses?
Techniques used by soldiers to control angry impulses include:
- Taking deep breaths to calm down
- Going for runs or workouts to vent physically
- Using humor to express frustrations more positively
- Journaling about angry thoughts and feelings
- Talking out issues with trusted others like chaplains
- Channeling energy constructively into tasks and missions
- Practicing mindfulness and meditation
Military training emphasizes responding rather than reacting while angry. Anger management is also taught during resilience training programs.
Do soldiers feel joy?
Yes, in the midst of the stresses of military service, soldiers absolutely experience joy related to meaningful moments and accomplishments. Sources of joy for soldiers include:
- Camaraderie and deep bonds formed with fellow soldiers
- Helping recover wounded civilians or soldiers
- Liberating towns from oppressive rule
- Learning new skills and capabilities
- Earning promotions and opportunities
- Completing demanding missions successfully
- Welcoming new recruits to their units
- Winning athletic competitions on base
- Being able to call or video chat with loved ones
- Celebrating religious and cultural traditions together
These types of shared meaningful experiences help build morale. Commanders also boost joy and satisfaction by praising accomplishments, both big and small.
How do soldiers unwind and have fun?
During downtime on bases, soldiers engage in many activities for fun and stress relief including:
- Sports – football, basketball, volleyball, weightlifting, etc.
- Card and video games
- Humorous pranks and dares
- Listening to and playing music
- Watching movies and videos from home
- E-mailing, calling and video chatting with family
- Reading books, magazines, comics
- Socializing and joking around
- Eating, cooking, grilling together
These recreational activities provide necessary respite from stressful operations. They strengthen social support and rejuvenate soldiers emotionally and mentally.
Do soldiers feel love?
Yes, forming bonds of love and loyalty is a profound part of the soldiering experience. The primary love felt by soldiers is for their military comrades, who become like family. Soldiers depend on each other to survive, leading to extremely close platonic love.
Soldiers also feel intense love for spouses, children, parents and other family back home. Letters, care packages, phone calls and reunions help sustain these loving bonds across distance and time. Additionally, soldiers may form romantic bonds and marry fellow soldiers while serving together, finding love in unexpected places.
How does love help soldiers cope with war?
The love soldiers feel for others provides meaning, courage and motivation to endure harsh battlefield conditions. Specifically, love helps in the following ways:
- Keeps their humanity intact amidst destruction
- Motivates them to protect and save their comrades
- Provides comforting memories and hopes for the future
- Eases loneliness and homesickness when separated
- Encourages taking safety precautions to return home
- Helps manage and recover from trauma and injuries
- Inspires sacrifices for a greater good
Thinking of loved ones back home also encourages soldiers to behave ethically and avoid actions that might shame their families. Love is a force that reigns in war zones, spurring selflessness and heroism.
Conclusion
In summary, despite stereotypes about the stoicism of soldiers, they feel the full spectrum of human emotions. They frequently contend with fear, grief, guilt, anger, and inner conflict amidst the chaos of combat. But they also experience profound joy, fun with comrades, and deep loyalty and love for each other and for friends and family back home.
Understanding the emotional lives of soldiers leads to better mental health support and successful reintegration into civilian life. Emotions run high in war zones – it is the willingness to confront fear and harness love for one another that underpins noble military service and sacrifice.