Lithuanian soldiers volunteers are well evaluated for their participation in international missions: in Serbia and Montenegro, the province of Kosovo, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Their professionalism is positively evaluated by the high officials of other foreign states thus physical health and healthy state of mind of every soldier volunteer as well as appropriate rehabilitation after the return from mission is very important. Hypothesis. When in mission soldiers volunteers experience various reactions caused by stress events (e.g. dizziness or faintness attack, sleeping disorders, muscular convulsion, difficulties in decision making, low self-confidence, alcohol addiction, etc.), thus they require psychological and medical rehabilitation that would result in quicker and more effective return of the soldiers volunteers back to their service, work, family and society. The object of the research is the social rehabilitation of the soldiers volunteers who returned from missions. The aim of the research is to analyze the peculiarities of social psychological rehabilitation of the soldiers volunteers who returned from missions. The following are the objectives of the research: 1) Discuss the concept of soldiers volunteers and the aspects of historical development in Lithuania. 2) Reveal the peculiarities of social psychological rehabilitation in the rehabilitation process of soldiers volunteers. 3) Analyze the social psychological... [to full text]

This essay attempts to bring the experiences of eight soldiers to light, seven of them Swedish and one English, that took part in the fighting on the western front as volunteers in the French foreign legion during World War One. The main source material consists of letters sent between these soldiers and another Swedish ex-foreign legionnaire, Sven Blom, both during Mr. Bloms recovery from wounds which put him out of service in late 1914, and through Mr. Bloms work as first secretary of the Swedish consulate in Paris, with the last letters dating to 1918. The letters, which are part of a large archive left behind by Sven Blom, are transcribed and analyzed in this essay to answer five questions posed in order to ascertain the experiences and mindset of these soldiers. Are there any common themes in the soldiers’ letters? Are there any examples where Swedish national identity is commented on by the soldiers? What is their experience of the war, and what do they choose to tell Mr. Blom about? How do they feel they are treated by the French system and French soldiers? And, what are the soldiers’ opinion of reports from the war, like their fellow Swede Elow Nilson’s articles in the Swedish newspaper Vecko-Journalen?