ABSTRACT
Stress is a common part of military life. Although combat is often the first stressor that comes to mind in terms of military stressors, service members may experience many other conditions of stress, including high work demands and family separations due to deployment (Bartone, 2006). While some military personnel suffer from physical and mental health problems related to the stress of military life, many other military members show a high resiliency to stress (Bonanno, 2004). In this chapter, we provide a description of the different types of stressors that military personnel are exposed to in their profession. In the first section, we begin with a description of different classes of stressors (i.e., acute, chronic, traumatic) and focus on how individuals, and specifically military personnel, respond to these stressors. The next section provides an overview of the mental and physical health consequences of stress. In the third section, we describe the various types of stressors that are common to military personnel and provide an overview of research findings on the consequences of these stressors in terms of life functioning and mental health for military members. Finally, we discuss other important factors that may influence how military members respond to stress.
