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Originally Posted by rabbitfast
... You're also right to point out the shell-shock issue with Septimus. I guess now it's called PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder)...I wonder how aware of it people really are even today...
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You're absolutely right that it's still not given proper and serious attention today by many – although I think it's less in the armed services now with what Woolf would have called 'shellshock' and more complaints that I hear about people in other areas of work (fire and police services etc) where personnel need counselling after particularly stressful experiences. In the UK at least, I've certainly heard people whinging about how, if you go into such a job, you should know what to expect (as if you could 'know what to expect and know how to put it out of your mind if you've just had to go into the blown apart carriages on 7/7, for instance). Or that – perhaps even more absurdly – that 'in the olden days we just got on with it – we didn't have all that counselling nonsense'.
In terms of military veterans, in the UK at least, it's more a question of ignoring things such as Gulf War Syndrome (or trying to downplay it), and treating veterans pretty dismally anyway.