May 2018 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
STORIES FROM OUTSIDE OUR MORAL UNIVERSE:
By Ted Beal
“Never think that war no matter how necessary nor how justified is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead. No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one. You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.”
(Hemmingway, Introduction to Treasury of the Free World, 1946)
Civilians live in a conventional moral universe with rules of behavior dictated among other things by the Bible, the Koran, the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. They learn the good rule of “doing unto others what you want done unto yourself.” They know the prohibition against killing, learn about the common good, and proclaim a country united by a common creed.
Soldiers do not operate within this universe. Soldiers exist in a combat space, a universe that disregards our conventional moral one. They learn of “just wars” that set out rules of engagement – the end game is to kill the enemy. These rules are highly technical and instructive and, as such, give legitimacy to this space. They include proportionality in how to fight, how long to fight and with whom to fight and kill. This universe brings with it a morality profoundly at odds with our conventional one.
“Their bible is the Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad” Field Manual - 340 pages long. It sets aside conventional morality by graphically describing the primary role of a soldier. Infantry war “is close combat… characterized by extreme violence and physiological shock,” which “is callous and unforgiving. “ This universe is measured in minutes and meters, and its consequences are final. The field manual describes “every aspect of the physical, mental and spiritual’ standards that count most in battle. Recruits are carefully selected, trained and deployed to meet or exceed these dimensions. Pg 3-21.8. In this way war turns conventional morality upside down by asking soldiers to deny life, liberty and property to others. Actions considered clearly criminal in the civilian moral universe are condoned in the moral universe of combat.
With their new moral compass soldiers grapple with questions of life, death and responsibility in this combat space. Although the rules of engagement are thorough and detailed, the application of these guidelines is complicated and fraught with error. In the fog of war ambiguous circumstances arise increasing the possibility of making mistakes. Incorrect decisions are made. The wrong people are killed. Women and children and noncombatants are maimed or murdered. Circumstances of battle sometimes make it impossible to help them. They cannot always protect a buddy from the same fate. Witnessing intense suffering combined with the fatigue
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of battle can lead to anger, guilt, and revengeful acts. Lacking time to grieve soldiers say “don’t get sad, get even.”
Soldiers become aware that in the heat of battle they can engage in behavior “evil” by any standard. Needless killing of an enemy can perversely make up for the loss of a buddy. Sometimes behaviors violate not only the civilian moral codes but the combat moral codes. They can enter into spaces not previously imagined.
Inevitably soldiers journey back from the combat moral universe to the civilian moral universe. While engaging in what was previously morally repugnant behavior, their lives, personal networks and moral self-images are changed. They have defied the gravitational pull of conventional morality to explore the outer reaches of the moral/immoral boundary and arrive back home scarred and self-questioning. In addition to their physical and psychological wounds, there must be an internal reckoning of the moral trauma. The adjustment is profound and difficult.
While citizens are not directly responsible for the soldiers’ combat experiences, citizens do have a responsibility to help with the suffering experienced by these men and women who served in our place. Citizens have the responsibility to help remediate the physical, psychological, and moral suffering experienced by these, our proxies.
Citizen responsibilities are both institutional and personal. The Veterans administration network of hospitals and outpatient medical centers provides an institutional response. Despite obvious difficulties of a large bureaucracy, the VA works comprehensively and creatively. Physical trauma repair and rehabilitation by the VA and the Army is remarkable and instructive. Their prototypes readily and successfully benefit civilian trauma programs. Civilian trauma directly benefits from the lessons learned in treating warrior trauma.
How can we personally assist our veterans? The answer rests in our awareness and resulting action. The military has identified two routes to moral repair-one involving emotions and one involving acceptance. The emotional route involves telling one’s story, one’s experience in war. This route requires the speaker to self regulate and the listener to be able to hear what seems “unhearable.” Skilled mental health professionals working with soldiers have developed psychotherapy techniques to facilitate this process. Additional research suggests that subsequently, citizens, who are able “to listen” can also help. There are multiple opportunities in book clubs, libraries, school rooms, town meetings, churches, synagogues, and YMCA’s for citizens to listen.
The second route involves the moral repair of being accepted back into the civilian moral universe. Having engaged in “necessary criminal behavior,” a soldier must make peace with himself back home while finding acceptance among us. These individuals who have witnessed or performed mortal atrocities must be able to find redemption within themselves and in our midst. Within our moral universe they must find and experience a sense of goodness. Good people sometimes do awful things and must find a way to live with it and beyond it. Veterans who cannot find their way commit suicide every day at an alarming rate. We owe them the opportunity to share in their moral grief. Frequent acts of kindness are effective.
But it is not just a national duty; or moral obligation that citizens owe to soldiers who fought in their place. There are benefits. Knowing soldiers and their experiences is an extraordinary opportunity. It seems counterintuitive to confront trauma and find peace, to see death and find life, to experience paralysis and find choice or experience loss and find connection. Knowing a soldier personally is perhaps the most powerful intervention of all. It goes beyond treating him or her as a hero by thanking him for his service or saluting him at a baseball game. It involves an ongoing connection with that soldier, his family or his orphan and to hear and witness how he/she pieces a life together again. His or her struggle will enlighten your struggle and your journey. It is a reciprocal relationship. We owe it to one another. They went to war in our place and now we must welcome them back to our home. It is important to the future of our society, for all that divides us, that we collectively witness their narrative.
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If you have any doubt about the transformative effect of listening to soldiers, turn to the life and poetry of Walt Whitman, arguably America’s greatest poet. Visiting and listening to thousands of soldiers during the America Civil War, he “saved himself” describing the experience as
“the greatest privilege and satisfaction of (my) life.”
There is no guarantee you will become a poet, but you will become a more mature and informed adult. America needs you.
Edward W. Beal, MD, Psychiatrist, Department of the Army,
Department of Tele-Health,
U. S. Army Medical Department Activity,
Fort Meade
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