There's an established body of work dealing with the cultural effects of trauma: the Northern Irish, Sarajevans, Palestinians and plenty of other groups are witness to the fact that psychiatric disorders always follow in the wake of conflict.
Joshua Tabor is a prime example. The US soldier came home and asked his four-year old daughter to recite the alphabet. When she couldn't, he waterboarded her (i.e. semi-drowned her, a technique officially listed as torture).
Still, I might try it in my seminars. That'll teach them to misprounounce "þæt þu lagu drefde, / siþþan þu gehyrde on hliþes oran / galan geomorne geac on bearwe".*
From The Seafarer. 'That you disturb the ocean / after hearing on the hill's brow / the mournful singing of the cuckoo in the grove'.
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