BACKGROUND CONTEXT The current approach to the evaluation and treatment of military casualties in the Global War on Terror is informed by medical experience from prior conflicts and combat encounters from the last 10 years. In an effort to standardize the care provided to military casualties in the ongoing conflicts, the Department of Defense (DoD) has published Clinical Practice Guidelines (CP...

Combat exposure is associated with increased rates of mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety when Soldiers return home. Another important health consequence of combat exposure involves the potential for increased risk-taking propensity and unsafe behavior among returning service members. Survey responses regarding 37 different combat experiences w...

CONTEXT Previous studies have demonstrated subtle neurologic dysfunction in chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) manifest as increased neurologic soft signs (NSSs). The origin of this dysfunction is undetermined. OBJECTIVE To resolve competing origins of increased NSSs in PTSD, namely, preexisting vulnerability factor vs acquired PTSD sign. DESIGN Case-control study of identical twi...

SGT Francis I. Fonseca, a combat medic with Charlie Company, 703d Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry Division, fires an M4 carbine weapon, during an advanced marksmanship course at Fort Stewart, GA, 21 February 2012. (U.S. Army, SSG Tanya Thomas) A FIRST, THE obvious question concerning the role women will play in the U.S. Army in the next 20 years is, “Whe...

OBJECTIVE The relationship between combat stress and post-concussive symptoms in service members with mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) is poorly understood. It was hypothesized that the co-occurrence of combat stress would have a significant effect on the severity of post-concussive complaints, specifically on emotional and cognitive symptoms. METHODS Four hundred and seventy-two combat-d...

While the game design and game studies communities have analyzed combat both in specific games and game genres, and while combat is clearly central to many types of games, there is no general account of combat that is portable across diverse games. We provide such an account in the form of criteria which are satisfied by games that players interpret as “having combat.” These requirements are ev...