Yeah, people who haven't read the book in now way get to judge the author's mental state. Doesn't that seem the least bit ridiculous to you, Roland00?

Are you unaware that movies occasionally differ from their books so far as to be unrecognizable? For example, the book I, Robot shared only a title and the existence of the three laws of robotics with the film adaptation. There was literally nothing else the same. Pretty hard to judge Asimov based on what happens to Will Smith.

Now, to the question at hand, yes, in the book Ender is put through the wringer. He is a child soldier, something that exists today. He is subjected to a violent environment which is none of his creation, also something which exists today, both in adult and child life. You're clearly not trained in psychiatry. Card would not have had to experience any of this in order to be able to write accurately about it. He would have just had to read a couple books (This being WAY pre-Wikipedia.) Despite that old gem, write what you know, it's not actually nessecary to have been a child soldier to write a book about one. You know, the whole Sci-Fi genre.

Sorry, try again.

BTW, the entire book only exists because Card needed to write background for the rest of the series, which is actually the point.