My job is to help soldiers do their jobs. A large part of that work entails making them deployable - ready for war. Although not a pleasant metaphor, they are like missiles - instruments of war, ready for war. Yet unlike missiles, soldiers are reusable. My job is treating the effects of their war experiences so that the soldiers can be reused. When they are suffering or are impaired by war, the goal is to improve their functioning so they can be redeployed. If not deployable, they may be medically discharged from the service. I am well aware of how war affects them. I am growing in awareness of how our civilian society impedes the functioning of soldiers.
Soldiers are on the front line in military conflicts. Much has been written about these experiences. Yet we have known for a long time that 99% of society knows little about the 1% who carry on our wars. I was surprised recently to learn that soldiers can be on the front line in societal civilian issues as well. These problems are ones created by civilians that can influence and affect the military; while not necessarily violent, they may become so. These stories are not so widely known. Civilian conflicts, unlike military conflicts, are not necessarily violent but may become so.
These civilian societal problems are often an outgrowth of the way society organizes and confronts evolving social issues. These issues may involve guns, violence, discrepancies in income and education. Immigration policy as well as a bellicose foreign policy not sufficiently supported by money and manpower. How do soldiers, employed by the military, become negatively affected when they come in contact with civilian policies? Let’s look at the work of one recruiter whom I recently interviewed.
The interview instantly brought me face to face with these issues. This soldier recently purchased her own gun for protection. I asked why she felt it necessary and from whom she was seeking protection. “A fellow soldier,” she replied. A few years ago, as a commander of a unit at another base, she disciplined this soldier. He blamed her for his subsequent problems. He posted on social media threats to kill her. He was hospitalized, treated, and dis- charged. He apparently remained threatening. Even though my patient had been transferred to another base, she remained traumatized by this experience. The threatening soldier was separated from the military but lived in a state that allowed his purchase of guns. Hence, my patient felt it necessary to buy a weapon for protection against the former soldier. Living with this potential threat, the trauma was reinforced by having a gun in her own home. Soldiers, trained to be killers, sometimes adapt poorly to civilian life. A change in our gun policies might make this stalker less threatening. My patient is clearly threatened by the availability of guns to her stalker and to herself.
The patient continues her job as a recruiter. “It is a ‘numbers’ game,” she says. She has to get a certain number of persons to commit to the service each month. If she does not meet her quota she can be penalized. The pressure is intense. She is anxious and depressed. She also knows that recruiters have a high rate of suicide.
To do her job, this recruiter offers high school students an educational future, potential job security, travel benefits, free medical care, potential retirement benefits and an opportunity “to be all that you can be.” She travels to high
schools in wealthy suburban communities to recruit qualified students. Parents are allowed to “check a box” to prevent their sons and daughters from having contact with recruiters. In these upper and middle class neighborhoods, the parents readily “check the box.” They want their kids to have no access to recruiters. She waits in the office and no one comes, no one signs up. These students have an educational future, potential job security, free travel, as well as medical and potential retirement benefits. However, these parents have decided that no wartime service is necessary for their children. They will provide. But when these parents provide, rather than expose their children to national service, have they deprived them of something important?
So my patient is forced to go to high schools in geographical areas where the “future is not so certain.” These parents readily check “yes” for recruiter access to their children. Immigrants are willing to serve even if they are not citizens. Our “volunteer” Army is recruited from these disadvantaged areas of society. Sometimes these students are not qualified. They may not pass the physical and mental tests. What does a recruiter do! We have had a war in Iraq and Afghanistan and some of us want one in Syria. So we need soldiers. Often those, relatively speaking, less qualified students willing to volunteer are looking for a “leg up” in society.
The rules get changed. Students with poor grades, or students who are obese and out of shape or who have used drugs or who have criminal records are selected and sent to basic training. Some have felt that the front line was a lot safer than living in their high school neighborhoods. Some of these recruits make it through basic and advanced training and some do not. Some have a career “as promised.”
My patient, the recruiter, gets her monthly numbers from this population for the most part; but she is quite anxious and unsatisfied. She worries about “the numbers” game. She was brought up in a leadership culture; that cared about a soldier’s personal and family life. She works nightly and most weekends. There is no time for herself and her family or “fun stuff.” She is a little puzzled as to how difficult society has made her recruiting job for wars that the same society says it wants.
I think I understand society’s ambivalence. But when does an ambivalent society become an irresponsible society? I know I was very ambivalent about serving when drafted into the Army in 1967. I ultimately felt I could not be a conscientious objector because I reached that position only when faced with the draft. Now we all check that recruiting box, “No contact with my children.” Our middle class young adults are not only being kept from speaking with soldiers who serve but shielded from the entire concept of national service to our country as a whole.
Yes, I know many serve in soup kitchens but there are wars going on, threats of terrorist attacks, and tens of thousands of displaced refugees. Yet we are unwittingly standing in the way of the soldiers who we have asked to protect us. Talking to this recruiter made the issue loud and clear. What do we as a community – parents, teachers, school boards, educators – think and want to do?
Service, if not as a citizen soldier, then at least as a citizen of national service should be mandatory. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and to this recruiter.
Ted Beal
Edward W. Beal, MD, Psychiatrist, Department of the Army, Department of Tele-Health, U. S. Army Medical Department Activity, Fort
Meade
