The Ongoing Struggle Against Moral Wounds of American Combat Soldiers

A Report  By Robert   R.  Schwarz

Note:  This article comes  from  several interviews         

that included a retired U.S. Army general , an

Army chaplain who did four tours of duty in 

an Afghanistan war  zone , and a psychologist

and social worker caring for  veterans with  Post

Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at the veteran's

hospital in Waukegan, Illinois. For their personal

security, a few individuals  mentioned in this

report requested not to be identified by

name. For the sake  of narrative cohesion, this

reporter has  taken a few minor liberties in

editing some scenes and dialogue. 

                When a  soldier "does  a terrible act, "said Gen. Mukoyama,    

                 "the soldier  believes he is worthless , that nobody can love him, 

                 that God can't love him.  In fact, the soldier gets mad at God."      

          It's 48 degrees on this November night , 2013,  in  northeastern Pakistan. Patches of snow on the 4,800-foot mountain tops have  survived the 100 degree-plus heat from last August. This is a war zone at the Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military base in this country.  Weekly deaths from Taliban rockets, road mines, mortars, small arms fire, and suicide attacks of terrorists have been common since the   Soviet war in Afghanistan in   the 1980's and the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. 

                                     Bringing up the rear in Viet Nam is Captain 

                                    Mukoyama ,soon to be a general and resident

                                    of Glenview, Illinois 

Gen. Jim McConville, Fr. Foley's
     commanding officer in Afghanistan

  

A few minutes before 9 p.m. , both enlisted men and women and officers of our Army and Air Force begin entering a large conference room improvised as a chapel in an undisclosed location . Among them is two-star general (today, he wears four stars) Jim C. McConville, commander of this region. There are approximately   30 soldiers and airmen here; a few might have had dinner a few hours ago  in a military-version of Burger King, Popeye's, Pizza Hut, or Subway. The base  can house at least 10,000 military personnel.  

Shortly, a  Catholic Mass  celebrated by Captain   Fr. Matt Foley, a chaplain and one of 16  American military priests stationed  in this country, will begin. Fr. Foley  is  now in his fourth deployment here and will  soon go  stateside as pastor of the St. James Catholic Church in Arlington  Heights, Illinois. During his time stationed in Afghanistan, he has interacted with several soldiers who later will suffer from   PTSD ( post traumatic stress syndrome); he  will  come to intimately know one of them; Johnny Tidewell. 

The worshippers this night , including Gen. McConville,  take seats at one large table and  wait for Fr. Foley .  No  one knows when or where  the next rocket will hit, or if a Taliban suicide bomber at this moment is  outside their camp trying to  breech security.

       

Fr. Foley, then a U.S. Army captain and chaplain

      Both the lector and the  altar server, as well as members of the military choir are wearing combat-ready gear: a .45  Colt automatic (if  an officer ) or an  M4 rifle (if a low ranked enlisted man or woman ).    Fr. Foley  rises  from a folding  chair , proclaims  the Gospel message, and  begins his homily . All homilies  relate to the daily struggles  experienced by these men . 
 Years later in an interview , Fr. Foley would tell me, " Good people die, just like the sun rises on the evil  and on  the good alike." ( Matthew 5:45 ) .  

          "How true are those newspaper reports about the high suicide rates among the military,? I had   asked him."

          " I don't think the Army has a higher rate, but we do take better statistics.  Though, I do think there are many  battle casualties due to PTSD."

          " And your thoughts,  Fr. Matt, about this   post-traumatic stress disorder?"

          "I'm no expert, but I do believe that the better a veteran processes  his worst combat experiences,  the healthier he'll probably be. The key  here, I think  is—whether he's  a Christian or not—telling his story to certain people."   

           

     Now  the men come to the altar to take the  Eucharistic host ( the  Body of Christ)  from Fr. Foley  and then turn to a comrade holding  the cup  ( the  Blood of Christ )  and drink  from it.  Mass ends with soldiers   singing  "On Eagle's Wings."

           That night Fr. Matt prays that the men he has celebrated mass with  two hours ago will be alive  tomorrow night. He will also pray this  prayer of  St. Michael, the Archangel and patron saint  of the Airborne   military.

An American soldier in prayer at Bagram
(photo by John Moore )

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen

The Most Concealed Enemy of All

                       

A wounded soldier at Bagram playing  his guitar 

                          Moral Injury stems from the participation in acts of combat

                         that conflict with a soldier's deeply held principles. This

                        unseen impairment leads to a sense of guilt, shame, and

                        grief which can manifest itself as self-harm or suicide if

                        not addressed. (from a publication of Military Outreach USA)

                        You learn to kill, and you kill people, and it’s like, I don’t

                        care. I’ve seen people get shot, I’ve seen little kids get shot.

                        You see a kid and his father sitting together and he gets shot…

                        And once you’re able to do that, what is morally right anymore?

                        How good is your value system if you train people to kill

                         another human being, the one thing we are taught not to do?

                        When you create an organization based around the one taboo

                        that all societies have?”  ( Comments from a veteran with a

                                moral wound, quoted by David Wood  in the Huff Post )

                                 Our service members in combat are confronted with  split second life and                    death      decisions every day. The enemy is often dehumanized, and there are                                      unconventional terrorist actions disregarding all rules of human decency                   that    often result in an attitude among our military that forces a strict                                              concentration  on accomplishing the mission to protect one's fellow unit

             members  regardless of one's moral code .(Fr. Matt Foley) 

                        

                     Veteran suicides due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( PTSD)

                     and its related moral wounds may be as high as 22 a day, according

                     to a 2012 VA Suicide Data Report, which also reported that  suicide

                     rates are difficult to track and get revised from time to time.  

After the war, a meeting in Chicago about the moral wounds of war 

          

        The panel at the Pritzker Library. Gen. Mukoyamo 
on far right, Fr. Foley  at his side.  

 
      On  September 19, 2016, a retired U.S. Army general, a clinical psychologist,   Fr. Foley, and the executive director of Military Outreach USA met in Chicago to discuss what they believe is an elusive and often life-threatening  casualty of American combat veterans: the so-called moral wound.

         A small audience of veterans and family members , along with various health-care professionals crowded the Pritzker Military  Museum and Library auditorium  to prompt some answers about moral wounds for which,  it is said,  there is no Purple Heart but have existed and  largely ignored for centuries. I learned as an audience member  that day  that a moral wound can be the most difficult  post traumatic stress disorder symptom to treat.  According  to  several published research studies, a moral injury can go undiagnosed for  more than 30 years.   

                                            Fr. Foley with Gen. Mukoyama
     Leading this televised  panel discussion  was Major General Jim Mukoyama ), a Vietnam veteran  who  narrowly survived a moral wound and went on to become a highly decorated  soldier and   the  youngest Army general  at the time. He was the   first  Asian-American to command an Army division. Soon after his retirement, Gen. Mukoyama founded Military Outreach USA, a national not-for-profit, faith-based  organization focused  on caring for veterans with moral wounds and educating the public about the causes of these wounds.    [military outreach usa]    Today,   Gen. Mukoyama's  organization provides free resources, training, and education to  houses of worship. Its goal  is to increase its current national network to thousands of Churches , which he says, can be beacons of light that demonstrate God's love. " 

            Other panel members were John Patrick Bair, clinical psychologist with the mental health and stress disorders program at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center ; Joseph Palmer, executive director of Military Outreach USA and author of  the book "They Don't Receive Purple Hearts "; and Fr. Matt Foley.   

Needed: Not a Medical Doctor but Prayer, Forgiveness, and Counseling

For years, Gen. Mukoyama has maintained that "the main approach for moral injury is not a medical doctor with prescription drugs, but rather one that includes the forgiveness and grace of a moral authority, a loving God, the counseling of clergy, a sensitive therapist, and the fellowship of a spiritual community. " The  church has a major  role to play in healing veterans of moral wounds, " he told his audience.  Recalling how his own church welcomed him back from Vietnam with open arms, he stressed that  "one should never underestimate the power of prayer."       Himself an active, working Christian  since childhood, the general thought that  perhaps the  only way for the aging veteran to heal his year-after-year struggle with unresolved  guilt  over  killing  someone in combat,  lies in service to other people and  becoming  "part   of a forgiving  community ." The general also believes  that in a church community this wounded veteran can  regain the devastating loss of his or her  self-worth .  When a  soldier "does  a terrible act, "said Gen. Mukoyama, "the soldier  believes he is worthless, that nobody can love him, that God can't love him .  In fact, the soldier gets mad at God."

          The panel discussion at Pritzker also pointed out that throughout the  history of warfare, soldiers  have been  exposed to moral wounds. Cited were examples at the battle of Midian  (mentioned in the Biblical book of Numbers 31:19-24 ); also, there was Moses commanding his soldiers returning from battle  to "purify" themselves with  a harsh cleansing of their clothing and other articles; and knights returning from the Crusades  not  being allowed to  participate in the church's holy sacraments  until they performed acts of penance and confession of sins  committed as warriors . 

           
 Although  Gen. Mukoyama narrowly avoided being morally wounded in Vietnam, he did suffer wounds there  from  being exposed to Agent Orange .  He related this story: Just before undergoing   heart surgery after the war, the surgeon leaning over him asked  how he felt. Mukoyama replied: " Since you asked…I am a Christian, Christ is my savior. You are a skilled surgeon, your nurses are skilled. But God's in charge, and whatever He decides, I'm, okay with it. "   The doctor  smiled.

Is There  Any Moral Justification  to Kill Someone in Warfare ?

          The moral justification  of  killing in warfare was a multi-faceted, debatable  topic which often that day took center stage at the Pritzker Library.   " A moral wound breaks down the best of our thinking," VA clinical psychologist John Patrick Bair stated.  Dr. Bair, a Unitarian,  annually treats nearly 300 veterans with PTSD at the federal health care center in  North Chicago. Patients normally remain there for seven weeks.

       Former Army Ranger Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman wrote in   his book, "On Killing " (Open Road Integrated Media, Inc., New York, copyright 2009) that "the vast majority of soldiers are loath to kill in battle," then adds, "unfortunately, modern armies, using Pavlovian and operant conditioning, have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion." 

       The soldier learns a "warrior code "   Gen. Mukoyama told the panel. " You don't have to be the one who pulls the trigger. You might be a witness or someone who could have prevented it [ a killing ] . But in combat, one does not have time  to reflect on this, and so you repress it . Later,  you have more time on your hands to think, and then  the moral  injury bubbles up to the surface. Almost 70 percent of veteran suicides are of vets older than 50. The suicide  rate among our veterans is at epidemic levels. We have lost more veterans due to suicide  in one  year than all the combat deaths since 9-11. "

                In his December, 14-15 , (2019 Wall Street Journal article,   " A Lifetime in America's Longest War [ in Afghanistan ], author Michael M. Phillips quotes  a  Marine Corps soldier describing what it was like to kill : "Your heart rate is uncontrollable. Your pulse rate goes up so much  that your ears kind  of stop up. Everything  goes kind of in slow motion. Your brain  focuses on minute details to help you get  through engaging the enemy before  he  can kill you. "

        Fr. Foley, who served five and a half years   as an Army chaplain in Afghanistan  and has since comforted several veterans with moral wounds ,  said in a later interview with me  that a soldier  in a firefight with the enemy "can't hesitate. "  Firing his weapon at the enemy "is an instinct ", he said.  He noted that the military can't talk about Christian values due to Constitutional provisions covering the relationship between church and state.  "Their incredible pain and inability to remember the act that caused this pain" is what most stands out when Fr. Foley thinks of those morally wounded veterans. 

A Problem Posed to the Military

Two questions that  were begged that  evening at Pritzker ( and not answered clearly) were:  (1) how should the military deal with a young soldier with Christian values and a moral code going into battle who admits he does not want to or refuses  to kill the enemy ;  and (2) how would our government   deal with a future situation where several thousand of our military had to quickly prepare for  an aggressive attack on the enemy with the majority of them having  very strong moral codes against killing?

          Addressing this issue in a telephone conversation with Joseph Palmer after the panel discussion , he explained that the military  should start  training  its fighting men and  woman  soldiers for this kind of  battle situation , should it ever occur. He also proffered the unambiguous   5th Commandment  Thou Shall Not Kill but , but added, "In defense of your country, saving  someone's life is neither a sin nor a crime.".

What about  WWI Hero Sgt. York ?

       Military historian Colonel Douglas V. Mastriano told an Army  veteran audience how the World War I hero Sgt. Alvin York  ( depicted by Gary Cooper in the 1941 movie "Sergeant York " )  unsuccessfully resisted   being drafted into the Army after being converted to Christianity. According to Col. Mastriano,  who spent 12 years researching his  book, "Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of Argonne ",  York  replied to his  draft board order with these words: "Okay, I'll serve but not kill "  York, however, when seeing his fellow soldiers being killed by German machine gun fire,  shot dead several of the enemy and heroically captured 132 German soldiers.  He was awarded the Medal of Honor. 

      "The truth of your moral character comes out in battle,"  Mastriano told those veterans .  "A hero is someone who  has built his  moral character all his life. "  

                      Fr. Foley told fellow panel members that his warfare experience in Afghanistan   taught him that  killing to save the  life of one's   buddy in  combat  will override any other moral code of a soldier.   A 2004 study of Vietnam veterans by  Ilona Plvar, now a psychologist with Dept. of Veterans  Affairs, found that grief over losing a combat buddy was comparable  to that of a bereaved spouse whose partner had died in the previous six months.

     As Fr. Foley and I walked out of the Pritzker museum that night, we agreed that moral injuries are also regularly inflicted upon people in their ordinary, daily lives. "Such as?" I asked."Such as abortion, " he replied with conviction.  We sort of summed up the recent  panel discussion by agreeing that War, indeed, is Hell and that moral wounds can be more tragic than physical wounds.   

***    

Next Sunday: Will Our American Culture  Soon Require a Postmortem ? 

A few mind-penetrating  opinions added by a noted  licensed social worker.

The End 

All comments are welcome.

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©2019. 2020, 2024  Robert R. Schwarz