Personal Involvement of U.S. Vietnam Veterans in Harming Civilians and Prisoners: The Roles of Antisocial Predispositions and Combat Situations

Abstract

Our previous research with U.S. Vietnam veterans focused on war-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We used data from a clinically diagnosed subsample of 254 men from the 1986–1988 National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS). We found that one of the most important factors associated with war-related PTSD was veterans’ participation in harm to civilians and/or prisoners (13% of the veterans). In the present research, we used the larger sample (1,183) of NVVRS male veterans to investigate the relative importance of veterans’ predispositions to antisocial behavior by contrast with their combat situations in their involvement in harm. We found that severity of combat situation is much more important. However, veterans who harmed both civilians and prisoners have elevated scores on prewar antisocial behavior and the most elevated Vietnam-related guilt feelings. In addition, harmers as a whole are more likely than nonharmers to have died by the time of a 2012–2013 follow-up of the NVVRS study.