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WWI's Secret Shame: Shell Shock

Watched this last night on BBC. Presented by Dan Snow.

Quite awful stories about this psychological trauma that basically wasn't recognised. Neither was PTSD until after the Falklands war.

Young men suffering were accused of malingering, sent back to fight in WWI . Such sad reminiscences of one lad of 24 who could no longer fight due to psychological breakdown. He was given the death sentence and shot by his friends who were instructed to do so !

I like Dan Snow, but it must have an impact on him too, as his gt.gt. grand father was the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, during WWI.

I can remember seeing the occasional man from time to time, in Liverpool city centre, during 1950's, who I now think could have been suffering from shell shock. They'd be shaking from top to bottom as they walked along the street . Not knowing, a child's perceptive was to 'keep clear'. Maybe that applied to many, but how awful for those who suffered.

I think the saying cannon fodder as terrible as it sounds fits the bill perfectly, that's how the majority were seen by those that played the chess of war, the means to take an objective, Wellington was allegedly to have said about the army "the ... of the earth" I don't know what they do to the French but they frighten me, and no doubt that was the feeling of many by the time of the great war.

Watch the final episode of Black Adder goes forth goodbyee, says it all.