A significant portion of our soldiers will suffer from PTSD at some point, and the fact that this posttraumatic stress is being both taken seriously and thereby being medically treated is a testimony to its real existence and its debilitating affect upon those suffering from it. It must be said, though, that PTSD, is not just something that only those that are veterans of western nations suffer from, but quite obviously the other side's combatants and enemy soldiers also are susceptible to. Further to the point, and somehow seemingly ignored, is the quite obvious fact, that civilians caught in the middle of battles, engagements, civil wars, strife, violence, bombing, and the like are quite clearly going to also suffer from PTSD, and by virtue of the fact that these civilians consist of all people and of all ages, including in particular, women and children, in which all of these people are non-combatants and are not soldiers, than it is more than likely that their personal traumatic stress is unmistakenly going to be something that would be especially pernicious to them.
The above would signify that to the degree that it can be controlled, that nations and soldiers engaging in warfare have an absolute obligation to engage in such away from civilian populations, as much as possible; and that any battles being considered that will consist of soldiers engaging with or surrounded by civilians as well as the infrastructure of that civilian population, should be avoided, to the degree that it can be avoided. This signifies that in fairness to all non-combatants and civilians, alike, that those that are considering engaging or pursuing the enemy, have an absolute obligation to take into real consideration, that the pursuit of the enemy, wherever it may be, must be seriously weighed against the harm or potential damage needlessly done to civilian infrastructure and the population of it.
Again, in recognition that PTSD is real and debilitating, nations need to take into more consideration, that the engagement of the enemy, in areas in which there is a high likelihood that the civilian population will suffer death, injury, and the accompanying trauma that comes with it, must be a salient factor so weighed by those decision makers. So too, part of the suffering of PTSD, has also to do with the guilt that certain soldiers will feel when those of the opposing side that have been harmed or killed, are in fact, women and children, as well as those others that are truly non-combatants.
So then, the pursuit of the enemy to the ends of the earth must be mitigated by the conscious consideration, that all those that are not directly part of the battle, and are in fact, civilians --should be, to the reasonable extent possible, protected from harm to their physical bodies as well as to their psyche, by the avoidance of having to see or to be part of the injuries, death, destruction, and trauma of battlefield engagements. This signifies, that any nation with a real conscience, will recognize that those that are born on the other side of conflicts, but are not enemy combatants, do not deserve to suffer from that which they are not an active participant of.