"Battles leave scars. Some you can't see."
Shell-Shocked Veterans in western cartoons.— Kanan Jarrus, Star Wars Rebels, "Relics of the Old Republic"
- 101 Dalmatians: The Series: Lt. Pug will often panic in mundane situations that he mistakes for something much more serious.
- Steve Smith on American Dad! becomes one after participating in a Vietnam War reenactment for one day at a golf club. Though it was really because participating in the reenactment was the only thing Stan was ever proud of him for.
- Referenced in an an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.Err: Is he alright man?Ignignokt: Cliff hasn't been 'all right' since the Lunar War.
- Archer: Woodhouse was an enlisted servant on a Royal Flying Corps base, and didn't see any combat... until the death of his officer, Reggie Thistleton, broke his heart and his mind and sent him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. It's implied that his experiences are the reason for his heroin addiction, as he is seen smoking opium not long after the war.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Iroh downplays it, but he's clearly haunted by his six-hundred-day siege of Ba Sing Se (including the loss of his son). It doesn't stop him, notably, from taking it back in the finale.
- Zuko, whose childhood was a constant battle for survival against his father, grandfather, and sister tormenting him and/or trying to kill him. The way he reacts to reminders of his father's horrific abuse in "The Storm," the narrative flashbacks in "Zuko Alone," and his dreams in "The Earth King" (among other indicators) all seem to suggest a certain level of post-traumatic stress.
- Jeong Jeong was an officer in the Fire Nation Navy, and Zhao's former mentor. He deserted because he's since become haunted after seeing the destructive potential of firebending and how people like Zhao have become only fueled by hate and a desire for power. It's led him to become reclusive that he will rarely teach firebending to others. And when he does, he puts a lot of emphasis on discipline and restraint because he's worried his students might end up like Zhao.
- It's hinted that the museum curator that Spellbinder brainwashes to steal the Princess Audrey line of clothes in Batman Beyond was of this trope, as the method he used to brainwash him involved him in an unspecified war where he was carrying an injured comrade (actually the Princess Audrey line of clothes) through the jungle and then placing his "comrade" in a support chopper (actually Spellbinder's vehicle) to evacuate from the warzone, and told the chopper to leave without him when soldiers from the enemy's army approach (actually Batman), and it is hinted that the reason why Spellbinder chose that specific way to brainwash him was because the curator, a parent of one of the High school students, told Spellbinder's true identity, the High School's guidance counselor, about it during a parent-teacher session.
- Used in the Big Mouth episode "Duke", where, while Duke is telling his Coming of Age story in the 1910's, Maurice's penises are fighting in World War I as a background event. One of them is heavily traumatized by watching his best friend die in his arms and he returns to the United States, embittered, an alcoholic, and a heroin addict. Over the course of the episode he is shown landing in the hospital, where he falls in love with the nurse treating him, they marry, have children, and he finally visits his friend's grave where he is finally able to be at peace.
- Beavis And Butthead: In "Foreign Exchange" Tom Anderson has a flashback to when he was held as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese during World War II after he's struck in the head by a mudball that was hit by Beavis.
- Parodied on Family Guy when Peter and Lois' restaurant becomes a popular hang-out for cripples:Peter: Oh, God. I hope there's not one of those angry, handicapped Vietnam guys with a bandanna on his head. Oh, there he is.Crazy Vietnam Guy: I've seen some things, man, and some stuff. I wouldn't recommend it!
- It is implied in Kim Possible that Mr. Barkin is this. He often refers to his time in 'Nam and at least once retreats into his private Cloudcuckooland when he and Ron are trapped together in a container.
- In King of the Hill, Cotton Hill falls into this somewhat, although he seems to revel in his past war experiences a bit more than is healthy. This trope comes into full effect during an episode when Cotton's VFW group attempts to reach out to some Vietnam vets (whom Cotton thinks of as wimps who got off easy compared to him). This ends with the Vietnam vets suffering flashbacks and chasing Cotton and Hank into the woods, where they finally earn his respect by managing to capture him.
- In the first part where Hank, Peggy, and Bobby accompany Cotton to a peace ceremony in Japan, Cotton has to be restrained and stuffed into an overhead compartment of the plane after he hallucinates the 50 men he killed coming back for him.
- In Book Four of The Legend of Korra, Korra herself is a straightforward example; her near death experience and paralysis at the hands of Zaheer left her unable to do much of anything. The second episode of the season shows her dealing with her PTSD for roughly three years, complete with flashbacks of being attacked by Zaheer and being stalked and attacked by an apparition of herself in the avatar state. This is after she tells her friends she'd only be gone for a few weeks.
- This is Wood Man's personality in Mega Man: Fully Charged. Involved in the Hard Age (a war between humans and robots), he went missing in combat and was assumed destroyed. However, such was not the case, and when he reemerges, he is similar to Hiroo Onoda
, believing the war to still be on, and misinterprets an argument between Mega Man and his human sister Suna Light as a fight between Child Soldiers. He proves himself incredibly vicious in combat, and attacks Mega Man relentlessly under the belief of him being a deserter. However, he also underwent Sanity Slippage as a result of isolation, making him see trees and rocks as companions, giving a Big "NO!" after Mega Man strikes a rock in combat as if it were a soldier killed in action, and also developed severe paranoia and need for stealth. When he finds himself in Silicon City, he goes on a rampage, believing humanity and robotkind are still fighting one another. Even with Mega Man able to prove that humans and robots are at peace, he admits to feeling uncomfortable around so many humans, instead choosing to isolate himself and slowly reintegrate himself with time. - Matrix from Reboot. The war for Mainframe, the loss of his hero to betrayal, and his own experiences in the games have left him this way.
- Samurai Jack has become one of these in Season 5. Jack, a One-Man Army Action Hero, was constantly fighting against Aku and his troops for 50 years straight, both for his own survival and to save as many innocent people as he can. However, the toll of seeing how many innocents he failed to save, combined with not being able to succeed at his original goal (of escaping this wretched world), has caused Jack to fall into a deep state of insanity; he's now an extremely anxious, depressed, and paranoid shell of his former self, who suffers from nightmarish visions borne from his guilt and self-loathing. He even regularly argues with his own subconscious, as he's constantly considering whether or not to commit "honorable" suicide just to put an end to his misery.
- The Simpsons brings us Principal Skinner and his occasional Vietnam flashbacks, usually Played for Laughs and triggered by something totally unexpected:
- In "Bart's Friend Falls in Love", Skinner welcomes Samantha to the school as a new student and suddenly starts thinking about his war experience:Skinner: Samantha, I've always been suspicious of transfer students. Other principals unload problem cases that way. Lord knows I do.
Samantha: I'm a good student.
Skinner: Yeah, sure... and they told me I'd get a big parade when I got back from 'Nam. Instead, they spat on me.note I can still feel it searing... (brightens up) So, let's just see what the permanent record has to say! No detention, fairly good attendance... oh, I see you beat that bedwetting problem in the second grade!
Samantha: That's in there?!
Skinner: (laughs) Don't worry, they'll forget. (turns serious) Just like they forgot about me in that tiger cage for eighteen agonizing months! Every night, I wake up screaming! (brightens up again) Well, let's meet your classmates! - In "I Love Lisa", Skinner goes on the school intercom on Valentine's Day to tell off whoever's distributing candy hearts with rude messages on them (it's Bart, of course). He then immediately flashes back to Valentine's Day 1969 in Vietnam, when his best friend gets shot (or more accurately turned into Swiss cheese) in the middle of writing a letter to his girlfriend back home.Skinner: (on the intercom) Johnny! Johnnyyyyyy!!!
Bart: Cool, I broke his brain! - In "Team Homer", Skinner is reminded a T-shirt with a racy slogan ("Up With Mini-Skirts") worn by one of his men in Vietnam. He then launches into an angry monologue about his experience there, but with a twist:Skinner: I spent the next three years in a POW camp, forced to subsist on a thin stew made of fish, vegetables, prawns, coconut milk, and four kinds of rice. I came close to madness trying to find it here in the States, but they just can't get the spices right!
- In "Skinner's Sense of Snow", Skinner flashes back to a comrade's attempted escape from a POW camp, which went horribly wrong when he got eaten by an elephant.Skinner: That elephant ate my entire platoon.
- In "Bart's Friend Falls in Love", Skinner welcomes Samantha to the school as a new student and suddenly starts thinking about his war experience:
- Played for Laughs in Star Trek: Lower Decks: Boimler casually brings up Shaxs' home planet, Bajor, in conversation, causing Shaxs to go berserk. In Trek canon, Bajor was under military occupation by the Cardassians until relatively recently, and Shaxs was apparently part of the resistance movement. In any other circumstance, however, he's always eager for a fight.
- Played incredibly straight concerning Beckett Mariner. She lost her friend Sito Jaxa to the Cardassians and lost more friends due to the Dominion War. Scared of becoming a general who’ll send her friends to their deaths, she acts out as a drive to keep herself as an Ensign.
- Steven Universe:
- Lapis Lazuli was a civilian caught up in a Rebellion battle, imprisoned under the assumption she was another Crystal Gem, and interrogated for ages before being left behind and uncaringly stepped on, cracking her gemstone. Saying the Gem war did a number on her psyche would be an understatement.
- Throughout the series, Steven has various life-threatening encounters with Gems that want to kill him, but it's not until Steven Universe: Future that these events are revealed to have seriously affected him, to the point he can barely go through a check up without freaking out; Dr. Maheswaran even flat out states that his childhood traumas have warped his mind and body's reaction to stressful situations, meaning that even minor inconveniences leave him reacting like he's in mortal danger.Steven: How do I move on from all the stuff I've been through? How do I live life when it always feels like I'm about to die?
- In Transformers: Animated (of all things), Ratchet breaks down into this during his first in-series combat situation against Lockdown, complete with Vietnam-esque flashbacks. He gets over it eventually after talking it over with Optimus.
- And you really can't forget the helpful effect of taking his revenge on Lockdown by forcibly removing the grapplers Lockdown stole and causing some apparently serious pain.
- As the Season 3 opener has shown through a combination of more traumatic flashbacks and severe self-esteem issues? He's got a lot more to get over.
- This can also be seen in his attitude towards life in general. He's usually cranky, especially at "turbo-revving young punks" like Bumblebee who enjoy putting on mods and show off their battle prowess, and is dismissive of Optimus Prime's idealization of what the Great War must have been like. He was in it, and it sucked. He's often described as "Having one servo in the scrapheap." That's robo-speak for "one foot in the grave", FYI.
- He also displays a pathological hatred of upgrades after being tortured at the hands of an upgrade addict. Problematic when they become necessary over the course of the series — he practically has a Freak Out over Optimus getting a Jetpack.
- In Transformers: Prime, Arcee has a slight form of PTSD, that didn't get showed until the twelfth episode, there she meet Airachnid again, the same Decepticon who captured her, tortured her and killed her partner in front of her eyes during the war. She almost has a Heroic BSoD when she meets her again.
- Brock Samson from The Venture Brothers shows elements of this, especially in the beginning of the series, as his name is basically a household word to most people in the army and he is described as a "god" by those who served with him. His first response to anyone who surprises him is to brutally murder them and the only emotions that he normally shows throughout the series is apathy, annoyance, and extreme sociopathic rage.
- Played very straight in Wing Commander Academy: Archer is forced to kill a fellow cadet who had gone insane and was going to destroy the Tiger's Claw. To twist the knife a little more, he had confessed his love to her only hours before. After that, Archer tended to hesitate before firing because she didn't want to take another life, which nearly got her wingman killed at least twice because they were still actively fighting in a war.
