[quote=@gcold] I am not a medieval military historian, so I'm not sure what soldiers back then went through. In addition, most books detailing pre-gunpowder battles tend to focus on tactics and weapons, not so much on the participants (not the grunts anyways). With that said, a lot of my inspiration came from the experience of modern soldiers. [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Things_They_Carried][i]The Things They Carried[/i][/url], by Tim O'Brien, is a great reflection by a veteran. This novel really gets the struggles of a veteran trying to adjust to civilian life, and the comradery he missed. [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Sledge]Eugene Sledge[/url] wrote about his journey from WW2 to post-war America in his [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Old_Breed]two[/url] [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Marine_%28memoir%29]novels[/url], and portrayed in HBO's [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pacific_%28miniseries%29][i]The Pacifi[/i]c[/url]. Interesting thing about Sledge was that he distanced himself from the military when he returned; this guy avoided veteran reunions until thirty years later. As for the combat mentality, Evan Wright's [i][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Kill]Generation Kill[/url][/i] (and the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Kill_%28miniseries%29]TV series[/url]) describes it pretty accurately. I also took pieces of Wright for Madura's character. Only if you count teamkills. [/quote] There was a French knight who literally wrote the book on Chivalry, IIRC, who had medieval PTSD. I think it was Agincourt he took part in and found himself flinching any time he saw a bird fly in the edge of his vision. The difference between medieval knights and the modern soldier though, is that knights were born and bred for their position as warriors. The closest equivalent to the modern soldier would be the Vietnam draftee and a medieval levy. One of the ways soldiers often avoid psychological disorders or great grief is by talking to their comrades. Medieval soldiers had much more time to do this, and it's been theorized that's how they avoided PTSD. The earliest mention of anything that could be interpreted as PTSD is from a 19th Century text that mentions soldiers' "war fatigue."