Bereavement in combat

Despite the obvious fact that loss and bereavement are an integral part of the war experience, surprisingly little has been written about bereavement and grief in combat. This article discusses reasons for the resistance to the concepts of loss and bereavement in military psychiatry, distinctive aspects of combat bereavement, factors that impede appropriate grieving in war, and, with the aid of case vignettes, the varieties of bereavement states seen in combat situations. The authors conclude that the clinical phenomena of grief run like a connecting thread through the various presentations of combat-related psychiatric syndromes, including post-traumatic stress disorders, and that more research in this area is called for.