ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and argues that it is an involuntary commemoration of war. Because of the memories they bring home, those who go through wars can, and often do, become involuntary walking memorials to that experience. The tragedy lies in the involuntary nature of their remembering. They do not choose to be walking war memorials but are helpless victims of their memories. Rather than mentally browsing old war zones by choice, as if on an armchair commemorative tour recalling fallen comrades, they submit to memory's visits. They are chronically possessed by certain overwhelming memories so strong that the war is re-experienced with all its nightmarish force. Their remembrance is neither chosen nor gracious, but imposed upon them by the particular ways their brain processes personal memories of collective combat.
