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Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

And I'm Sam. In this programme we'll be hearing about the extraordinary life of a well-known BBC journalist,

Furgle Keen. As a BBC war correspondent, Furgle witnessed some of the most violent events in recent history.

Furgle's reporting helped his television audiences make sense of the horrors of war,

but underneath there were more personal reasons attracting him to the front line.

Despite the danger, Furgle found himself going back again and again to report from war zones.

It gave him something he couldn't get anywhere else, a massive rush of adrenaline,

and Furgle started to worry that he was becoming addicted to war.

In his new book, The Madness, A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD,

Furgle discusses living with PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder,

a typo-psychological suffering that results from witnessing extreme violence.

We'll hear about some key events in Furgle's life, and as usual, we'll be learning some new vocabulary as well.

But first I have a question for you, Sam. The term PTSD is quite new,

but descriptions of the mental suffering of war go back to ancient times.

Something similar to PTSD is mentioned in Viking sagas, and in stories about both world wars.

So what was the name of the PTSD-like condition suffered by many soldiers during the First World War?

Was it A, nostalgia, B, shell shock, or C, combat stress?

I think the answer is shell shock.

Okay, Sam, I'll reveal the answer later in the program.

Furgle Keen, who was born in Ireland, had seen violence ever since the early days of his career covering the fighting in Belfast.

He had already reported from wars all over the world when, in 1994, he was sent to cover the Civil War in Rwanda.

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