Killing Vets Softly With Our Apathy

Lily Casura, who runs the site HealingCombatTrauma.com, has been rallying vets and concerned citizens behind calls for the government to do more to reduce veteran suicides. Often the topic is not far from our minds, particularly for those who have served in the military and/or worked or lived in a war zone, but rarely does one figure out what to do about it.

She recommended this event recording from Swords to Ploughshares during which experts discuss this very question. To add background, I asked her if she'd list any must-reads for people new and old to the topic of combat stress and treatment.

"In five years of reading literally everything I can find on the topic, there are really only three articles that have stood out as superb," Casura said. 'The Long Shadow of War,' by Kathy Dobie, published in GQ, December, 2007; 'Denial in the Corps,' by Kathy Dobie, published in The Nation, January 31, 2008; [and]  'The Life and Lonely Death of Noah Pierce,' by Ashley Gilbertson, published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall, 2008.'

The topic of suicide among veterans reminds me of how difficult it is for many people, including active duty soldiers, to empathize with someone living with post-combat stress or unrelated stress as a combat vet.

Growing up, even learning my great uncles fought in the South Pacific and my uncle fired artillery in Vietnam, I never asked them about it. I'd gleefully dive into war films, even sensing the actors, young Martin or Charlie Sheen, going through some kind of mental metamorphosis, but I never thought that had anything to do with my uncles.

When I joined the US Marine Reserves eventually, I was too busy trying to be a bad ass to ask recent veterans of the first Iraq War, Lebanon, and Panama how they prepared themselves or treated themselves mentally. There were definitely four channels soldiers split into, however. There were thinkers and there were doers; there were those who would have to kill and those who would be in the back with the gear. The toughest group were the thinkers who would have to kill; toughest in spirit, but also the most vulnerable to mental wrestling.

Repelled from any hardcore emotional talk with fellow Marines due to the hyper-competitiveness of my units, I only really got it after going to war zones as a civilian.

Right after the Bosnian War ended in 1996, I traveled over land doing research and stayed in Zivinice with two brothers who were very recent veterans from trench warfare along the Banovici front. They split two ways.

Sadik, the younger brother, turned his needs outward. "My girlfriend is coming and we're going to fuck," he told me, a relative stranger. He ended up working for Brown & Root translating for Americans building US military bases. He was all about going out and meeting people and blowing off the war experience whenever he could. He told me he saw horrors, lost teeth, but generally thought it best to have physical catharsis.

But his older brother, Mehmet, was twisted inside. He showed me how he had lost the four fingers off of one hand when a grenade went off, killing his fellow soldiers. But more telling was what he wouldn't talk about.

His wife waited until he went out of the room and then explained how he was feeling guilty for being a burden on the family. It was hard for him to work, so he remained at home. However, his sleeping was so erratic and disturbed that even his two sons, aged 4 and 6, had begun having nightmares about their father having nightmares. The veteran was working on his own issues, only to have them spill over onto the rest of the family, and it overwhelmed him with guilt.

Veteran suicide is not only about the guy who volunteered for war. It's about him, about his wife and kids, his parents, the people he works with, the people who own the lot where he spends time pacing, the social service agencies, the people he fought to protect and on and on. Sometimes we have to mind our own business. But the least we can do as concerned citizens is respect that there's much more to a person than appearances, and that each vet is an equal part of our community, if not a leader among us.

Check out HealingCombatTrauma.com for additional reading and networking on these issues.

Also, see our very own Michael A Jones' previous post here on Change.org: "Veteran Suicide Rate Skyrockets."

Photo credit: Beverly & Pack