I think what your question alludes to is the core of the definition of the four causes of operational stress injury, the four causes that we developed in cooperation with the U.S. Marine Corps in the 2007-08 era.
Very clearly one is trauma. I believe it's very fair for me to say that if you are in a combat situation, you are experiencing high-intensity trauma. That's the trauma perspective, or the trauma lens, that allows, unfortunately, some people to develop mental health conditions from traumatic events.
The three other causes of operational stress injury are those causes that are under-endorsed, misunderstood, and often ignored. This goes back to an earlier question. These are the three other causes which, by the way, remain to this date, despite years of fighting in Afghanistan, I believe, the top causes of why soldiers decompensate. They are fatigue, the cumulative wear and tear on the soul.... I'm not talking about being tired and wanting to sleep. I'm talking about the fatigue of really having a hard time continuing to do what you're doing because there have been too many mass graves.
There's grief. Grief is that sense of loss. When you look at grief as a cause of stress injury, you don't need to know your friend or you don't need to know the person who died. It's a sense of loss. It's a corporate sense of loss. Mr. Alexander was in Afghanistan. There were a lot of ramp ceremonies, weren't there? The entire contingent grieves. I lost only two soldiers on my tour of duty. I knew them very well. I grieved at a different level. But every time a coffin came back to Canada, there was institutional grieving, and there's a cost to that.
Finally, there's the moral conflict. Moral conflict is probably the most important cause of stress injuries, and I think it's what you're alluding to. You went overseas thinking you would do x, y, and z, and all of a sudden you're confronted with situations that don't quite fit. You're not too sure what to make of all of this. It causes moral conflict, questioning, and it opens a Pandora's box.
Whether you need treatment, sir, I couldn't say, but the fact that you're talking is a good thing, and it just shows your humanity. For that, I applaud you.