Life Losses and Gains in British Korean War Veterans: The Late Life Legacy

Deidre Wild*

Received: June 11, 2019;   Published: June 23, 2019

DOI: 10.26717/CTBB.MS.ID.000120

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Abstract

In 2001, a survey of the veteran members of the British Korean War Veterans Association was conducted with support from the Royal British Legion. As a part of this survey, the present inquiry addresses the relationship between older combatant and noncombatant veterans’ levels of combat exposure, their losses and Gains in life and current psychological symptoms. Nine hundred and ninety-four British Korean War veterans provided data for four measurement scales: The Combat Exposure Scale (CES); the Losses from life scale and the Gains from life scale, and the Impact of Event Scale (IES). Significant positive correlation effects were found between life losses (but not life gains) with and between the CES and the IES. Combatants had an overall score on the IES that clearly exceeded its recommended cut-off level but notably the score for non-combatants was just approaching the cut-off, indicating that some of them were also experiencing psychological symptoms just from being in the war zone. Although it is now some 65 years since the cessation of fighting in 1954, the findings seem to suggest that their life losses are not positively influenced by their life gains, rather they appear to co-exist.

Keywords: Korean War; veterans; losses and gains; combat exposure; psychological symptoms

Abstract| Introduction| Review of the Literature| Methodology| Results| Limitations| Discussion| Conclusion and Recommendations| References|