The Psychological and Physiological Stresses Endured by Prisoners of War

Prisoners of War Review Paper
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Prisoners of War Review Paper
The commonly held understanding of captivity in war experienced by prisoners of war is usually a mild version of what was experienced. It is not easy for a person who has not been a prisoner of war to fully understand the kind of experiences that the prisoners of war went through. Some commonly held notions and understanding of captivity in war are that the person does not have freedom. To a great extent, this is true. Prisoners of war are denied most of their fundamental rights and freedoms (Soleim, 2020). The second kind of understanding commonly held is that prisoners of war work under orders from those who have taken them captive. While this is true, the commonly held understanding is often shallower than what the prisoners of war go through. The other common notion revolves around the provision of insufficient foods or drinks. The common person has it somewhere in the back of their mind that a prisoner of war received little food and drink per meal, but they have no idea of the extent to how little it was or even the health effects it had on the prisoner. The other commonly held notion and understanding of captivity in war is that prisoners of war endured hard labor.
There are several forms of treatment prisoners of war experienced and reported. The following are some forms of treatment received by the prisoners of war. Let us start with housing. The kind of abodes they used to have is nothing short of just a shelter. The shelters mainly were made of bamboo bundled together to form a structure that mimics a hut. In most cases, the prisoners of war were not provided with blankets and mosquito nets to guard them against cold/mosquitoes at night. The sanitation conditions were also horrible. The prisoners would occasionally be provided with a crude form of soap and a little towel. Further, the kind of life that the prisoners of war had was full of torture, neglect, and severe mistreatment. For instance, sometimes, they would be tied up together and beaten as a form of punishment. Sometimes, the prisoners of war were required to work. The most common forms of work included chopping firewood to prepare meals, making repairing shelters, and even fishing in nearby streams. The amount of food rations that the prisoners of war received barely kept them alive.
The conditions in which the prisoners of war were held during captivity were mostly inhumane, degrading, and aimed at robbing the prisoners of their dignity. One of the most notable conditions is the lack of adequate food supply. Most prisoners of war were starved, which led to severe malnutrition (Springer, 2018). As recounted by the prisoners, most of them became emaciated to the extent that they looked like mere skeletons. The starvation was often coupled with hard labor, which complicated the situation and made their life very difficult. The other condition that was most common among the prisoners was overcrowding. In most cases, many prisoners would be bundled together and forced to share a single hut. Some prisoners of war recount that about six to seven men would be forced to share a single standard size bed. The over...