Combat Experience and Emotional Health: Impairment and Resilience in Later Life Glen H. Elder, Jr. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Elizabeth Coledck Clipp Duke and VA Medical Centers Dvirham, NC ABSTRACT War's influence on emotional health includes potential psycho- logical gams as well as losses In a sample of 149 veterans from longitudinal samples at the Institute of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley, this study explores two questions on the legacy of combat m World War II and the Korean conflict The first concerns the subjective expenence or meanings of combat that veterans hold m later life, with particular attention to how such accounts are linked to the seventy of combat and postwar adaptations The second question links these accounts to the psychosocial functioning of vet- erans before the war and in later hfe using reports from veterans and their spouses and Q-sort ratings in adolescence and at age 40 Findings center on vet- erans of heavy combat Compared to the noncombatants and light combat vet- erans, these men were af greater nsk of emotional and behavioral problems m the postwar years In mid-life, they hold mixed memones of painful losses and This article is based on a program of research on social change in the life course We are grateful for support from the National Institute of Mental Health through Grant MH 37809 (Glen H Elder, Jr, pnncipal lnvesogator), the Veterans Admin- istration Ment Review Program (Elizabeth Clipp and Glen H Elder, Jr, co-pnnci- pal investigators), and a Senior ScienUst Award (MH 00567) to the first author We are indebted to Cathenne Cross for her statistical assistance, to the Institute of Hu- man Development (University of California, Ba-keley) for permission to use archi- val data from its files, and to the (fenatnc Research, Education, and Clinical Center at the Durham VA for its support of our work <MI military service in aging and health Con-espOTidence should be directed to Glen H Elder, Jr, Carolina Pbpulation Cen- ter, University of North Carolina, CB #8120, University Square East, Ch^ Hill, NC 27514 Journal <f Personality 57 2, June 1989 Copynght © 1989 by Duke University Press CCC 0022-3506/89/$! 50