Male combat veterans’ narratives of PTSD, masculinity, and health Nick Caddick 1,2 , Brett Smith 2 and Cassandra Phoenix 1 1 European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK 2 Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK Abstract This article uniquely examines the ways a group of male combat veterans talk about masculinity and how, following post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they performed masculinities in the context of a surfing group, and what effects this had upon their health and wellbeing. Participant observations and life history interviews were conducted with a group of combat veterans who belonged to a surfing charity for veterans experiencing PTSD. Data were rigorously explored via narrative analysis. Our findings revealed the ways in which veterans enacted masculinities in accordance with the values that were cultivated during military service. These masculine performances in the surfing group had important effects both on and for the veterans’ wellbeing. Significantly, the study highlights how masculine performances can be seen alternately as a danger and as a resource for health and wellbeing in relation to PTSD. The article advances knowledge on combat veterans and mental health with critical implications for the promotion of male veterans’ mental health. These include the original suggestion that health- promoting masculine performances might be recognised and supported in PTSD treatment settings. Rather than automatically viewing masculinity as problematic, this article moves the field forward by highlighting how hegemonic masculinities can be reconstructed in positive ways which might improve veterans’ health and wellbeing. A video abstract of this article can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaYzaOP1kAY Keywords: combat veterans, PTSD, health and wellbeing, masculinities, narrative A vast body of psychological literature highlights the emotional distress that some combat vet- erans experience following traumatic events in war. Prolonged and intense distress is often referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), characterised by many ‘symptoms’ such as nightmares, flashbacks, anger, anxiety and ‘hyper-arousal’, and a profound sense of morbid sadness. In the UK, estimates place the rate of combat-deployed troops experiencing PTSD at around 6.9% (Fear et al. 2010), with men vastly overrepresented in this population. This amounts to a small but significant (and increasing) number of men experiencing severe distress following combat trauma (Forbes et al. 2011). Yet despite the preponderance of male combat veterans affected by combat trauma, there is a dearth of research investigating the experience of PTSD from a ‘men’s health’ perspective (Gough and Robertson 2010). © 2015 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2015 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Maiden, MA 02148, USA Sociology of Health & Illness Vol. 37 No. 1 2015 ISSN 0141-9889, pp. 97–111 doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.12183