1000 Yard Stare

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The thousand-yard stare can be simply defined as the unfocused gaze of someone who has seen too much. It’s a characteristic of those who have experienced war and combat zones and is most commonly associated with victims of shell shock, or in today’s terminology – PTSD.

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Credit:
Show Created by Daniel Turner (B.A. (Hons) in History, University College London)
Script: Natasha Martell
Narrator:

Chris Kane

[Simplehistory]

The first 200 people who sign up using my discount URL will also get 20% off an annual plan!

[jxgh-lo]

these soldiers are already brave enough to face these horrors head on, but the fact that people have the audacity to call them cowards because they are naturally traumatized makes my blood boil

[MicTheOni]

The ancient Romans called it "Divine Madness" and in the Civil War they called it "Soldier's Heart"

[Dovah]

I’ve seen this in my own father growing up. He served in the Gulf War and there were times he was back over there mentally speaking.

[unilife]

Props to the animators, the facial expressions looked legitimately unsettling

Edit: Yeah ik it was an actual painting, though it was from WWII, not I. The realism in the animated expressions is still unsettling.

[andyroberts]

My best friend came home from Iraq with it. A once very outgoing/goofy fellow he’d now just sit and stare. When you spoke to him he’d just start rambling about his time in combat. He was KIA in Afghanistan in 2005.

[ives]

"War's tragedy is that it uses man's best to do man's worst." - Harry Emerson Fosdick

[insertreference]

To see the horrors of advanced warfare unlike anything seen before, I would be terrified for the rest of my life just like these unsung heros

[djodyssey]

The fact that it took until 2006 for those soldiers to be pardoned for “cowardice” is actually baffling. Rest in peace to those souls.

[JamesFromTexas]

I can't imagine the amount of PTSD that's going to surface from future warfare with the advent of drone-dropped munitions. Just the thought of being in a combat zone with that tech gives me nightmares.

[Jakob_Herzog]

Any people mocking a soldier for Shellshock/PTSD should have been forcefully put on the frontline. If they survived, I highly doubt they would mock that soldier again.

[jesusisalive]

My great uncle was blown out of his foxhole in korea. He went through a period of mental trouble afterwards. He made a full recovery thank God. He is the strongest man I know, he is now 94 years old and lives by himself in the country side. He still chops his own wood and everything else that needs to be done. This after he had his pelvis shattered 10 years ago after a tractor ran him over. There will never be another generation like my uncles.

[codybailey]

And most of these SOBs never saw a fraction of the horrors these men survived. An absolutely unforgivable chapter in military history.

[bbwilkinson]

Ive never served, but I've seen this in the civil world, along with the accompanying wander. His best friend died in a plane crash at an air show that he was watching, I found him afterward just wandering the field, staring off into the distance and just emotionally oblivious. I still feel for that guy, that was the most haunting encounter of PTSD I've seen yet.

[condelocatelli]

My grandfather, who fought in the Italian army during World War II, also suffered from this, but only in the last years of his life did the family manage to see the true extent of the damage that the war caused to his psychology. Before he got sick he didn't let on, he was a great man.

[Khornecussion]

I love that many British people I know talking about WW2 called Americans " barbaric "- and then I bring up the whole " Summary execution " thing that the British and French were infamous for and go " You can call Americans mean for slapping around soldiers that're freezing up, but at least we didn't put a Webley to the back of their head and permanently turn their inner thoughts into outer thoughts all over the nearest trench wall. "

[maira_dog]

As an undergraduate student of psychology I find this video so sweet, just, humane and necessary! Thank you Simple History! ❤

[GeraltofRivia]

Shell shock isn't only PTSD. Its also a physical trauma to the brain from constant concussive blasts from explosions.

[mobucks]

My mom was in college after 'nam and the young men would hide under desks if there was a loud noise. It was all a knee jerk reaction after going through war.

[Darwingreen]

PTSD has to be frustrating for the war medics. Things like bullet wounds, broken limbs and shrapnel they can patch up, but there's no way they can patch up mental wounds like that.