Axios.com political coverage: on Homeland Security

Pete Buttigieg: Suffered post-deployment depression, but not PTSD

Why it matters: This is a new window into Buttigieg's unusual experience of serving as a 32-year-old, then returning to resume his job as mayor of South Bend, Indiana. "Of course, it's the effect of having been exposed to danger," Buttigieg said. "I think, also, some moral pressure." He continued, "Any time, in any way, you are even remotely involved in killing, it takes something out of you, and it takes a lot of work to process that." Buttigieg told me the feeling lasted about a year, and that he never felt he needed medical treatment.

Buttigieg, who was an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, noted that "It's the displacement--the fact that you are trying to come back into a civilian world whose rules are just different than when you were deployed."