Examining the role of combat loss among Vietnam War veterans

Abstract

Military combat often presents service members with a dual burden of coping with traumas of various types while also grappling with the deaths of close personal friends. At present, much less is known about the effects of bereavement in the context of war compared to other combat-related stressors. Studying a sample of combat veterans from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), we examined the contribution of combat loss in psychological functioning and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When controlling for gender, age, ethnicity, educational background, exposure to nonbereavement combat stressors, and recent bereavement experiences, combat loss was uniquely associated with past and current functional impairments among the veterans, βs = .07 and .06, respectively, but was not related to the severity of PTSD. These findings highlight that combat loss might act as a uniquely challenging stressor among many service members and more empirical research is needed on this topic.