One of my grandad's was in the army, He had a lucky escape when three of them were using a communications trench between the first and second lines, where they were a bit more exposed than they realized and a German machine gunner opened fire as he swung the gun to kill all three of them bullets killed the one in front and the one behind my grandad with head wounds. Fate meant his head was between two shots.
During a German attack the person next to him went to throw a Mills bomb and dropped it, my grandad kicked it round the corner where the trenches were castellated which saved their lives, but his foot and ankle took the blast and he was injured and had a hole in his weak ankle for the rest of his days. Needless to say, that was the end of his active service. Before the war where he came from a poor family he was a delivery boy, as part of his rehabilitation at the end of the war he was able to go Huddersfield Technical College and get a good job as a result. I've managed to find his war record online which is interesting.
I had several great uncles that saw active service, including one who fought on the Somme, but they all got through WWI unscathed. One of them worked as a coal miner after WWI and was trapped for several days he wrong side of a roof fall that killed several of the miners he worked with. That was the end of his career as a miner where he suffered from claustrophobia as a result.
My other grandad was a CPO in the RN and fought in the Battle of Jutland and suffered from PTSD in the 1920's which made him violent, so he volunteered to go into a mental hospital and was never released. I suspect this was a common fate for PTSD suffers as it wasn't understood or considered treatable.I can't find his war record but many were destroyed in the 1940 blitz on London. My mum came from a military officer's family with my grandma being born in India where the family was posted there at the time.
I never met either of my granddads where one died a few days from his 60th birthday from an aneurysm, which was several years before I was born and I was never allowed to visit the one in a mental hospital.
My dad had only just started work at 16 in 1941 and was in a reserved occupation, so saw no action and my only uncle was a Bevin boy and worked in a coal mine at the end of WWII. Due to a shortage of miners towards the end of WWII 1 in 10 that were called up were made to go and work in the mines.