essay on feeling of a soldier
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If soldiers felt nothing about taking the life of another human being, that would be indicative of sociopathy
VA researchers recognised the epidemic, and over the past five years conducted a series of studies trying to drill down. Overwhelmingly, the work showed that veterans who killed others in war were at greater risk of psychiatric problems and psychic break. In a 2010 paper in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, VA researchers studied 2,797 US soldiers returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Some 40 per cent of them reported killing or being responsible for killing during their deployment. Even after controlling for combat exposure, killing was a significant predictor of PTSD, alcohol abuse, anger, relationship problems – and suicide risk.
Armed with these results, VA clinicians developed a disruptive new theory they’ve termed ‘moral injury’ – the notion that it’s not simply witnessing trauma that undoes combat veterans, but guilt; and in particular, guilt over two things: killing and not being killed. The implication is that we humans are fairly resilient in our ability to see horrible things and somehow continue functioning, but we’re not so good at living with what we consider our more shameful deeds. Even if killing seems justified by the demands and duties of war, it sends our moral compasses spinning.
According to the VA psychologists Shira Maguen of San Francisco and Brett Litz of Boston, both experts on military trauma, the key precondition for moral injury, our so-called Achilles’ heel, is a sense of ‘transgression’, a betrayal of what’s right. ‘In the context of war,’ they write, ‘moral injuries may stem from direct participation in acts of combat, such as killing or harming others, or indirect acts, such as witnessing death or dying, failing to prevent immoral acts of others, or giving or receiving orders that are perceived as gross moral violations. The act may have been carried out by an individual or a group, through a decision made individually or as a response to orders given by leaders.’ Indeed, commanders are not just responsible for the physical wellbeing of their soldiers, but through the moral consequences of their orders, their future mental health.
Some military leaders are disturbed by the findings, and say the term moral injury impugns the character of their soldiers. But researchers argue it’s quite the opposite: if soldiers felt nothing about taking the life of another human being, that would be indicative of sociopathy. Disturbance caused by killing indicates the presence of morality, not its lack.
Indeed, Maguen and Litz report, the combatant might see himself as ‘an evil, terrible person’ and ‘unforgivable’ because of acts done in war. Veterans might feel betrayed by the society that sent them to war or the superior officers who placed them in a situation where accidental killing of their own men or innocent civilians occurred.
‘When a leader destroys the legitimacy of the army’s moral order by betraying “what’s right”,’ writes the psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, an expert in combat trauma, in his book Achilles in Vietnam(1994), ‘he inflicts manifold injuries on his men.’ Returning vets who have killed are far more likely to report a sense of alienation and purposelessness caused by a breakdown in standards and values. They withdraw from or sabotage relationships. The sense of self-condemnation, those feelings of guilt, betrayal and shame, might remain hidden inside the warrior’s head until he returns home, and once the Trojan horse is safely inside the gates of Troy, the agents of destruction are unleashed.
This could be what happened to Corporal William Wold, who, not unlike Homer’s Achilles in the Iliad, was a brave and accomplished warrior made vulnerable by a fatal flaw. Wold’s mother Sandi said he was fine for a while when he first got home, but after a few months the darkness seeped out. He couldn’t eat and he never slept.
The transgression that bothered him most wasn’t the carnage in the mosque, but another, even more disturbing incident, an accidental killing at a vehicle checkpoint in Iraq. The vague description Sandi gave to a local television reporter is horrifying: ‘A vehicle came through that hadn’t been cleared,’ she said. ‘The lieutenant says: “Take them out.” He took them out. They went to the van – it was a bunch of little kids. And he had to take their bodies back to the family.’
VA researchers recognised the epidemic, and over the past five years conducted a series of studies trying to drill down. Overwhelmingly, the work showed that veterans who killed others in war were at greater risk of psychiatric problems and psychic break. In a 2010 paper in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, VA researchers studied 2,797 US soldiers returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Some 40 per cent of them reported killing or being responsible for killing during their deployment. Even after controlling for combat exposure, killing was a significant predictor of PTSD, alcohol abuse, anger, relationship problems – and suicide risk.
Armed with these results, VA clinicians developed a disruptive new theory they’ve termed ‘moral injury’ – the notion that it’s not simply witnessing trauma that undoes combat veterans, but guilt; and in particular, guilt over two things: killing and not being killed. The implication is that we humans are fairly resilient in our ability to see horrible things and somehow continue functioning, but we’re not so good at living with what we consider our more shameful deeds. Even if killing seems justified by the demands and duties of war, it sends our moral compasses spinning.
According to the VA psychologists Shira Maguen of San Francisco and Brett Litz of Boston, both experts on military trauma, the key precondition for moral injury, our so-called Achilles’ heel, is a sense of ‘transgression’, a betrayal of what’s right. ‘In the context of war,’ they write, ‘moral injuries may stem from direct participation in acts of combat, such as killing or harming others, or indirect acts, such as witnessing death or dying, failing to prevent immoral acts of others, or giving or receiving orders that are perceived as gross moral violations. The act may have been carried out by an individual or a group, through a decision made individually or as a response to orders given by leaders.’ Indeed, commanders are not just responsible for the physical wellbeing of their soldiers, but through the moral consequences of their orders, their future mental health.
Some military leaders are disturbed by the findings, and say the term moral injury impugns the character of their soldiers. But researchers argue it’s quite the opposite: if soldiers felt nothing about taking the life of another human being, that would be indicative of sociopathy. Disturbance caused by killing indicates the presence of morality, not its lack.
Indeed, Maguen and Litz report, the combatant might see himself as ‘an evil, terrible person’ and ‘unforgivable’ because of acts done in war. Veterans might feel betrayed by the society that sent them to war or the superior officers who placed them in a situation where accidental killing of their own men or innocent civilians occurred.
‘When a leader destroys the legitimacy of the army’s moral order by betraying “what’s right”,’ writes the psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, an expert in combat trauma, in his book Achilles in Vietnam(1994), ‘he inflicts manifold injuries on his men.’ Returning vets who have killed are far more likely to report a sense of alienation and purposelessness caused by a breakdown in standards and values. They withdraw from or sabotage relationships. The sense of self-condemnation, those feelings of guilt, betrayal and shame, might remain hidden inside the warrior’s head until he returns home, and once the Trojan horse is safely inside the gates of Troy, the agents of destruction are unleashed.
This could be what happened to Corporal William Wold, who, not unlike Homer’s Achilles in the Iliad, was a brave and accomplished warrior made vulnerable by a fatal flaw. Wold’s mother Sandi said he was fine for a while when he first got home, but after a few months the darkness seeped out. He couldn’t eat and he never slept.
The transgression that bothered him most wasn’t the carnage in the mosque, but another, even more disturbing incident, an accidental killing at a vehicle checkpoint in Iraq. The vague description Sandi gave to a local television reporter is horrifying: ‘A vehicle came through that hadn’t been cleared,’ she said. ‘The lieutenant says: “Take them out.” He took them out. They went to the van – it was a bunch of little kids. And he had to take their bodies back to the family.’
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