Thousand-yard stare

2025-06-02T07:05:12Z

2601:410:8081:1FB0:3909:9D23:A658:386:

{{Short description|Dissociative gaze}}
{{About|a military-related term|the band|Thousand Yard Stare (band)|the album by The Fauves|Thousand Yard Stare (album)|the Chicane album|Thousand Mile Stare}}
[[File:Thomas C. Lea III - That Two-Thousand Yard Stare - Original.jpg|thumb|upright|[[War artist]] [[Thomas C. Lea III|Thomas Lea's]] ''The Two-Thousand Yard Stare'']]
[[File:Marine after Eniwetok assault.jpg|thumb|upright|An exhausted [[United States Marine Corps|U.S. Marine]] exhibits the thousand-yard stare after two days of constant fighting at the [[Battle of Eniwetok]], February 1944.]]

The '''thousand-yard stare''' (also referred to as '''two-thousand-yard stare''') is the [[Blank expression|blank]], unfocused gaze of people experiencing [[Dissociation (psychology)|dissociation]] due to acute stress or traumatic events. It was originally used about war [[Combatant|combatants]] and the [[Post-traumatic stress disorder|post-traumatic stress]] they exhibited but is now also used to refer to an unfocused gaze observed in people under any stressful situation, or in people with certain [[Mental disorder|mental health conditions]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Peleliu as a paradigm for PTSD: The two thousand yard stare - Hektoen International |url=https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/peleliu-as-a-paradigm-for-ptsd-the-two-thousand-yard-stare/ |access-date=2024-01-22 |website=hekint.org |language=en-US}}</ref>

The thousand-yard stare is sometimes described as an effect of [[shell shock]] or [[combat stress reaction]], along with other mental health conditions. However, it is not a formal [[Medical terminology|medical term]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mills |first1=M. Anthony |last2=Mills |first2=Mark P. |date=2014 |title=The Invention of the War Machine |url=https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-invention-of-the-war-machine |journal=The New Atlantis |issue=42 |pages=3–23 |issn=1543-1215 |jstor=43152788}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kudler |first=Harold |title=Principles and Practice of Hospital Medicine |publisher=McGraw-Hill Education |year=2017 |chapter=Combat Stress and Related Disorders}}</ref>

==Origin==
The phrase was popularized after [[Life (magazine)|'' Life'' magazine]] published the painting ''Marines Call It That 2,000 Yard Stare'' by [[World War II]] artist and correspondent [[Thomas C. Lea, III|Tom Lea]],<ref>'' Life'' magazine, 6/11/1945, p. 65. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_EkEAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22tom+lea%22&pg=PA65 link]</ref> although the painting was not referred to with that title in the 1945 magazine article. The painting, a 1944 portrait of a nameless [[US Marine Corps|Marine]] at the [[Battle of Peleliu]], is now held by the [[United States Army Center of Military History]] in [[Fort Lesley J. McNair]], Washington, D.C.<ref>Jones, James, Tom Lea (illustration), (1975). - [http://www.milhist.net/global/2000yard.html "Two-Thousand-Yard Stare"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061109000830/http://www.milhist.net/global/2000yard.html |date=2006-11-09 }}. - ''WW II''. - (c/o Military History Network). - Grosset and Dunlap. - pp.113,116. - {{ISBN|0-448-11896-3}}</ref> About the real-life Marine who was his subject, Lea said:

{{blockquote|He left the States 31 months ago. He was wounded in his first campaign. He has had tropical diseases. He half-sleeps at night and gouges Japs out of holes all day. Two-thirds of his company has been killed or wounded. He will return to attack this morning. How much can a human being endure?<ref name=ADM438>{{cite web |accessdate=2006-10-27 |archivedate=2006-10-26 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061026072828/http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/438/ |first1=Gene |format=Transcript of televised broadcast |last1=LaRocque |publisher=Center for Defense Information |title=War Through the Eyes of Artists |url=http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/438/ |url-status=dead |work=America's Defense Monitor, Program Number 438 |year=1991}}</ref>}}

When recounting his arrival in [[Vietnam War|Vietnam in 1965]], then-Corporal Joe Houle (director of the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas in 2002) said he saw no emotion in the eyes of his new squad: "The look in their eyes was like the life was sucked out of them". He later learned that the term for their condition was "the 1,000-yard stare". "After I lost my first friend, I felt it was best to be detached," he explained.<ref name=Houle>{{cite news |title=Retired Sgt. Maj. Joe Houle recounts Vietnam tour |publisher=Marine Corps News |date=2002-05-02 |first=Sgt. Arthur L. |last=Stone |url=http://www.lejeune.marines.mil/News/tabid/1099/Article/511426/retired-sgt-maj-joe-houle-recounts-vietnam-tour.aspx |access-date=2015-07-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150707234744/http://www.lejeune.marines.mil/News/tabid/1099/Article/511426/retired-sgt-maj-joe-houle-recounts-vietnam-tour.aspx |archive-date=2015-07-07 |url-status=live }}</ref>

==See also==
* {{annotated link|Catatonia}}
* {{annotated link|Combat stress reaction}}
* {{annotated link|Defence mechanism}}
* {{annotated link|Hypervigilance}}
* {{annotated link|James Blake Miller}}
* {{annotated link|Post-traumatic stress disorder}}
* {{annotated link|Shell shock}}

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{commons category|Thousand-yard stare}}

[[Category:1940s neologisms]]
[[Category:Aftermath of war]]
[[Category:Anxiety disorders]]
[[Category:Military medicine]]
[[Category:Military psychiatry]]
[[Category:Military slang and jargon]]
[[Category:Post-traumatic stress disorder]]
[[Category:Psychological stress]]
[[Category:Thomas C. Lea III]]

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Thousand-yard stare