Thousand-yard stare

The thousand-yard stare is the blank, unfocused gaze of people experiencing dissociation due to acute stress or traumatic events. The phrase was originally used to describe war combatants and the 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 health conditions.
The thousand-yard stare is often associated with shell shock, combat stress reaction, and other trauma-related mental health conditions.

Origin

The phrase was popularized after Life magazine published the painting Marines Call It That 2,000 Yard Stare by World War II artist and correspondent Tom Lea, although the painting was not referred to with that title in the 1945 magazine article. The painting, a 1944 portrait of a nameless 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. About the real-life Marine who was his subject, Lea said:
When recounting his arrival in Vietnam in 1965, then-Corporal Joe Houle 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.