Washington Post:
I guess it is mysterious to those who think that war and the military turns everyone into a head cse. In reality it is pretty simple. Like any experience that test your abilities, when you finish that experience you are made stronger, be it studying in college or physical training. Some people are tramatised by school but most grow and become stronger. Surviving war gives you the confidenced that no matter what you face in the future it will not be as scary or life threatening. It is that confidence that makes you realize that most of life's challenges are not nearly as serious as those who have not faced the test of battle would know.
As Hilbert Caesar told his harrowing war story one night recently in the living room of his apartment, he patted the artificial limb sticking from a leg of his business suit. "This, right here," he said, "this is a minor setback."
Eighteen months after Caesar's right leg was mangled by a roadside bomb near Baghdad, and after weeks of coming to terms with what he thought was the end of his life, the former Army staff sergeant believes he has emerged a richer person -- wiser, more compassionate and more appreciative of life.
Asked whether he would endure it all again, he replied: "The guys I served with were awesome guys. . . . I would go through it again -- for the guys that I served with. Yes. Absolutely. I wouldn't change it for the world."
Although the shattering psychological impact of war is well known, experts have become increasingly interested in those who emerge from combat feeling enhanced. Some psychiatrists and psychologists believe that those soldiers have experienced a phenomenon known as "post-traumatic growth," or "adversarial" growth .
Although war left him with a leg of plastic and steel, Caesar, 28, of Silver Spring, appears to be among those who return home with psyche intact and a sense that they are in some mysterious way improved.
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