Why Veterans Feel Addicted to Combat (2024)

2022 will be the first year that we do not have troops fighting the war on terror. It is the first year that some adults get to experience a year that doesn't involve either training to go to war or being in a combat environment. This is a big life change for those soldiers who were deployed to combat consistently over the past 20 years. The military during peacetime compared to the military during wartime can be thought of as the weather in the summer compared to the weather in the winter: extreme highs vs. extreme lows.

In my recent book, Cavalry: A Solidier's Memoir, I described what it felt like to be back in a normal environment while on R&R (Rest and Relaxation) for two weeks during the middle of the war. I had something that I call “The Itch,” which is a yearning to go back to the dangerous situation I was in because that’s what I was used to at the time. Bombs exploding, random sniper fire, and seeing people die around me felt normal. It fueled my brain with dopamine and my body with testosterone because, as a man, I was in an environment where masculinity was celebrated.

I describe "The Itch" as the love a service member used to being in combat feels for the situation. It's like a form of Stockholm Syndrome. According to a 2014 research paper on the topic, common symptoms (of Stockholm Syndrome) include:

•Victim having positive feelings toward the abuser

•Victim having negative feelings toward family, friends, or authorities

There is no way to ignore this feeling. Veterans will often chase the high he or she felt while in combat. When I was in basic training, my drill sergeants described the war as "an environment where a man can be a man without repercussion." This is why I believe that many veterans have an addiction to war and the dopamine high that being in combat gave them.

There are two movies that best describe PTSD, Dissociative Disorder, and a symptom that I call “The Itch.” The first is The Hurt Locker which was ironically released the year after I was injured in Iraq (2008). The movie is about a soldier that felt more comfortable in war than back home in the United States, with his own family. He was an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) soldier. He fell in love with his abuser (the war), and the danger that came with it. He struggled to build a relationship with his family, too in love with the adrenaline rush that detonating bombs gave him. The second movie is called Man Down, which portrays a former soldier (played by Shia LaBeouf) with PTSD who cannot tell the difference between the real world and what he experienced in combat. In the end, this disparity caused a major issue in his family and the authorities had to get involved.

Many veterans that deployed to combat come back to the states and chase the high that they felt on the battlefield. They go through an experience called “numbing.” According to the Treatment Improvement Protocol, “Numbing is a biological process whereby emotions are detached from thoughts, behaviors, and memories.” This happened to me when I was medically discharged from the Army in 2010. My suicide attempts didn’t mean anything to me because I was emotionally separated from my family. I was numb to the emotions and feelings of my family and my friends. There would be times when I would look at my own mother and feel nothing. I was dead inside because the only thing that I'd known from age 18 to 23 was, “kill the enemy.” When I was taken out of that environment, I had to retrain myself to be a civilian. Like many veterans, the adjustment to civilian life was hard. So hard, in fact, that I tried to re-enlist even though I had fought so hard to get out of the Army. Some people say that soldiers are “brainwashed,” but I just fell in love with the military life...even the war.

When I was 18 years old, I learned how to kill a man. I was stationed at Ft. Knox (in Kentucky) for my basic training. One of the first lessons I learned was where to shoot to kill a man, and where to stab him with a bayonet (the long knife attached to the end of an M-16). I wasn’t the only 18 year old in Bravo Troop, 6-15 at that time. There were a bunch of young, adolescent brains learning how to kill, just a couple of weeks after they learned about solving systems of equations as high school seniors.

There is a reason that the military has age requirements for individuals to join. However, there is also a downside. Young bodies also mean young brains are joining. A 2013 article from Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment states, “The prefrontal cortex is one of the last regions of the brain to reach maturation, which explains why some adolescents exhibit behavioral immaturity.” Speaking from experience, I was in basic training with many teenagers.

When I got to Colorado, there was a unit there called the 3rd ACR (Armored Cavalry Regiment a.k.a. Brave Rifles). We heard reports about the members of this unit killing their family pets and getting into abusive domestic abusive episodes with their wives. I was new to the Army at the time and didn’t talk to many people, but these were stories going throughout the entire post (Ft. Carson, Colo.).

“Do whatever you have to do not to go,” is what some of the soldiers from 3rd ACR used to tell me. When those soldiers came back from war, they admitted they were not the same person that left. These soldiers explained to me the sights, sounds, and smells that they lived through while in Iraq and how some of their battle buddies kept reliving them when they got home from the war.

Like how some athletes can’t leave the game of football, even knowing the dangers of the game, many soldiers can’t leave the battlefield. Being exposed to the adrenaline and the fame associated with being a soldier creates a dangerous addiction.

Former service members who have become civilians often try to put themselves back into the dangerous situations they were in as a soldier. We become private contractors, security guards, or work for the government in dangerous positions because we are used to putting ourselves at risk. We fall in love with the risk because of the recognition it gives some of us. Combat is the latest drug that a group of people (service members like me) will have to wean off of until it is out of our system.

Our brains and our bodies continue to degrade after years of war. However, knowing the dangers that face them on the battlefield, many veterans continue to volunteer to serve the country. I’ve been in many group therapy sessions with veterans of all eras who have said they wish they would have “died on their shields” while in battle.

It took me years to wean myself off of the military. In my hometown of Rochester, N.Y., I hung out with other veterans who had deployed to Iraq. Just talking about the war wasn’t enough, we missed the adrenaline high that being in the war gave us. Driving fast on the highway, chasing after older women, and getting into bar fights made us feel like we were back on active duty. We were numb to everything around us, even each other. We didn’t see the danger that we were putting each other in because we looked death in the face every day on the battlefield and we loved it.

There is a way to get the same high that combat gives veterans. Many veterans leave the military and go into law enforcement. The similarities are obvious: in a law enforcement role you still carry a gun, and there is still a form of toxic masculinity associated with the power of being in an "enforcer" role. Jumping from active duty to law enforcement scratches that same itch they had when in a combat environment.

This year, many veterans will want to scratch that itch they felt when they were in combat or still in the military. Young men and women all around the country will chase the high that being on the battlefield gave them while deployed. There are many mental health resources available for veterans of all eras.

If you know of any veteran struggling with the transition from military to civilian life, please have them find the NAMI branch (National Alliance On Mental Health) nearest them at www.nami.org/home.

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