Yeah, the governments are indeed responsible for the deployment of a country's troops for military actions. And only relatively recently, do they acknowledge their reponsibility to the mental well being of troops.

You can send in 100 people into a situation of high stress. 99 of them may not be affected at that time. The next 100 sent in to the same scenario, you may get 80 not getting affected. It's so hard to know what will happen. And there will be differing levels of anxiety and stress amongst those traumatised.

On the Vietnam vets over here. In my old RSL, I used to have fascinating conversations with these blokes. One in particular, who is highly intelligent, but literally just drinks all day, every day. Often with his mates for the last 40 odd years. He always talks about his mate "porky pete" who was the rich kid in the platoon as was always the "tail end charlie". He said to me that he has no idea how that bloke spent most of his time there walking backwards. Yet if you saw this bloke, you know there's something not quite right with him. Yet he is still capable of empathy for his mate.