Death toll

Joanna Bourke ("When Johnny got his gun", THES, October 16) states that "most servicemen returned home to immerse themselves once more in peaceable, civilian society". This might well be an appropriate conclusion to draw from historical data related to the period immediately surrounding a war.

But further research is needed on the long-term impact on those conscripted for war-time military service that involved killing fellow humans. In my previous post I was a curate-assistant in a Northern Irish parish. I spent much time talking to (non-conscripted) second world war veterans. In private most were tortured with guilt about what they had to do, especially among those who had to do their killing with cold steel, rather than the respectable distance afforded by a gun barrel. My evidence is merely anecdotal and this is not my field, but I hope some of those who study the attitudes of military service people would ask what they thought about killing 50 years after the event.

Mark Walker

Lecturer in theology, University College Chester