What motivated an American soldier to allegedly open fire and kill 16 innocent Afghan civilians in cold blood ? No one knows at this point . The soldier , an Army staff sergeant , seems to have acted alone , and he turned himself in to authorities after the shooting rampage . What we do know is that he had been injured in an accident while deployed to Iraq in 2010 . Despite being diagnosed with traumatic brain injury , he was found fit for duty . It 's common for the military to evaluate service members for fitness for duty . The most important question asked is : Can the soldier safely and effectively perform his job from a mental health or neuropsychological standpoint ? More than a million individuals suffer a traumatic brain injury each year in the United States . Many of these people have experienced problems processing complex information . However , the execution-style killing of innocent people is not something that people with a traumatic brain injury would carry out . So while it 's possible that `` brain damage '' is a contributing factor , it is unlikely to explain the slayings . One convenient answer would be that he is a `` bad apple , '' he simply went temporarily insane . If that were the case , then no military leader or peer could have predicted the rampage . He is a rogue soldier who can plead insanity in the court of justice . The blame falls solely on him . However , one ca n't help but wonder whether the recent spate of events , including the desecration of Taliban corpses by four Marines , the burning of the Quran by U.S. troops , and now , the slaying of Afghan civilians , point to the toll that the Afghanistan war is taking . Has the psychological impact of the long war been underestimated ? Afghanistan , by any standard , is a tough terrain with complex politics and even more complex culture . The mental , emotional and physical burden on our troops is formidable . Most of Afghanistan 's population is uneducated and illiterate , and held in terror by the Taliban , who operate through threats , corruption , extortion , blackmail and intimidation . Our troops must not only deal with the daily risks of attacks from the Taliban , but also mistrust , unease or hostility from the Afghans . While U.S. forces attempt to interact as much as possible with locals , the fact remains that they are foreigners who are mostly stationed on temporary bases , located far away from community centers and operate mostly on mission-based initiatives . War , of course , is always stressful . History has many examples . And the war in Afghanistan is no exception . During the American Civil War , the stress associated with going to war was known as homesickness . During WWI , it was shell shock . After WWII , it was battle fatigue . During the Gulf War , a new term was coined -- Combat Stress Reaction . Combat stress is now thought to be a normal reaction to the abnormal events encountered during war , including different rules of engagement , morale ups and downs , fatigue , sensory overload or extreme weather . Anger toward the civilian community is also considered a symptom . The U.S. military is not naïve to combat stress . Much effort has been made to prepare troops for the symptoms of combat stress before deployment . Once troops are deployed , they can be provided immediate assistance if problems arise and help is nearby . Our military has been a technological leader in building better armored vehicles , using superior aerial surveillance via remotely operated drones and employing ever better laser-guided missiles . But the Pentagon should also emphasize an important nontechnological component in its military training : the need to include a better understanding of the crosscultural challenges that are likely to be encountered when troops are deployed into foreign combat zones like Afghanistan . As we learn more about the 38-year-old married staff sergeant who is a qualified infantry sniper and serving his third deployment in the Middle East , we have already learned one very painful lesson . Namely , there is an expensive psychological cost to sending our men and women to war .
An American soldier allegedly went on a rampage and killed 16 Afghan civilians . Eric Zillmer : Has psychological impact of Afghanistan war been underestimated ? He says the soldier 's horrific act can not be attributed solely to traumatic brain injury . Score: 6 Our military must do more to prepare troops for challenges in combat zones .