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Military Community

The United States military includes active duty, National Guard and Reserve forces. The military force has changed substantially since the 1960’s and 70’s. The military is a volunteer force whose population includes far more women, married and more highly educated service members. These changes have resulted in new stressors for specific subgroups of military personnel. The single service member faces a new community with a new culture and the demands of both a peacetime and war military, often including difficult and dangerous training and missions. The married service member with children may experience more intense separation from family that is part of deployment.

Understanding the stress of deployment, combat and training on Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine service members and their families is important to sustaining the nation’s security. Training, leadership, self care and rest and recovery are all part of managing the stressors of military life. Life threatening events which are a part of combat and war, are always frightening and require opportunities to share fears and to rejoin buddies and families as part of a normal recovery process. Psychological responses to life threatening events of war can also include posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse and family conflict. Recognizing these and obtaining care early on, which is often facilitated by a primary care provider, is an important part of sustaining our military forces, their families and our nation.

It is important for military healthcare professionals, for service members and their families to recognize that most common, mental health conditions such as depression are highly treatable through early identification and help-seeking. Primary care settings play an important role in this process. There are also excellent resources available for military and their families such as MilitaryOneSource and many community-based services on posts and bases. Mental health issues are best handles by early recognition, help-seeking, and treatment.

The Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress has developed a number of educational and support resources for healthcare providers, military command and service members and their families available on our site under Fact sheets and Resources