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This makes perfect sense. Taking a ship back from Europe for a couple weeks is like a built in therapy detox group session.

The way my grandfather talked about WWII was different than other folks I've heard talk about wars after. My grandfather was at peace about it within himself in a way I haven't seen since. The things he saw and had to do were no doubt just as horrific.

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I've done some reading on the topic - and what surprises me is that none of the professional literature (that I've found), touches on this.

But for me as a reader of history, it's blindly obvious - in particular with the strategy used to treat PTSD, which is functionally group therapy with over vets with similar experiences.

FWIW, Jonathan Shay's /Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character/ [1] touches on this. It's a good book.

IDK if Shay's book qualifies as "professional literature", but he was certainly a professional (VA psychiatrist), and I have the impression it was fairly influential.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Achilles-Vietnam-Combat-Undoing-Chara...

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