War changes soldiers | Esmeralda Kleinreesink | TEDxEde

When I returned home from a deployment to Afghanistan, I had been transformed. Not in a good way: I was quickly startled at loud noises and suddenly spending fortunes on speeding tickets. I will take you on a personal and scientific quest to find out how common such a transformation is.

Dr. Esmeralda Kleinreesink is a lieutenant-colonel with the Royal Netherlands Air Force. As an assistant professor at the Netherlands Defence Academy, she studied international military Afghanistan memoirs (On Military Memoirs, Brill, 2017). She published several short stories and a military memoir (Officier in Afghanistan, Meulenhoff, 2012) about her own deployment to Afghanistan.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx