Science & Technology / Psychology & Cognitive Studies / Clinical Psychology & Psychoanalysis

I Led UN Troops in Rwanda. The PTSD Nearly Killed Me.

Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD

Roméo Dallaire

This is the story of General Roméo Dallaire, the man who commanded the UN peacekeeping mission during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In his memoir 'Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD,' Dallaire reveals the brutal truth: PTSD isn't just a mental struggle—it's a permanent brain injury. He describes the moral injury of watching 800,000 people die while the world did nothing, the institutional failure of the Canadian military that ignored his trauma, and his decades-long fight with suicidal depression. This isn't a tale of recovery; it's a raw look at how some wounds never heal, and how one man turned his pain into a mission to end child soldiers. If you want to understand the real cost of war and the hidden battle veterans face, this video is for you.