JULY 12, 2004

IRAQ
Some veterans haunted by the ghosts of war

One in six American soldiers returning from Iraq shows signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychological problems, according to a study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. How will society, including faith communities, help these veterans? How will they and other veterans respond to American life after what they have experienced?

Combat-related psychological problems - sometimes called the "ghosts of war" - can haunt survivors, affecting everything they do. In anticipation, Veterans Administration hospitals and clinics are preparing to treat returning troops, while families and co-workers wonder what changes they might find in soldiers when they come home. This is a story that continues to unfold, especially since Army policy is preventing many military members from leaving the service at their scheduled times.

Why it Matters
The ability of a soldier - and society - to adjust to loss and trauma can involve the search for meaning in the sacrifice. That philosophical, theological and ethical search for meaning is the terrain of religion.

Questions for reporters
• Learn how hospitals, psychiatric and mental health facilities and veterans' organizations in your area are preparing for returning troops. Ask physicians and medical researchers to discuss whether injuries, including psychological traumas, in this war differ from those of the past.
• Are the hardships of U.S. military policies that extend Iraq tours of duty testing the faith of troops and their religious communities? Contact churches, mosques and synagogues that have members in Iraq and find out whether people's attitudes are evolving as time passes.
• In writing about the personal costs of war for returning veterans and their families, enlist historians and theologians to help readers understand how societies have coped with such loss and disruption in the past.
• Write about whether it is possible to both support the troops and oppose the war, interviewing war protesters and supporters, soldiers and family members. Include voices of ethicists, theologians and historians to amplify the question. Ask veterans of previous wars, Vietnam in particular, if the distinction is meaningful or just semantic.
• Poll religious leaders in your area to learn how many have given sermons about the Iraq war (or about veterans) in the last six months.

Skip to background

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

National sources

• Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs at the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, has said that, based on research, the rate of the disorder among returning soldiers could rise. Contact 802-296-5132, matthew.friedman@dartmouth.edu.
• Dr. Jonathan Shay is staff psychiatrist at the Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Boston. He treats Vietnam veterans with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and speaks and writes frequently for active-duty military audiences on prevention of psychological injury in military service. He wrote two books about how war affects the psychology of combatants: Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (Touchstone, 1995) and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (foreword by Sens. John McCain and Max Cleland), (Scribner, 2004). Contact 617-332-5677, jshay@world.std.com.
• Professor Charles Moskos, a military sociologist, is Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Chair in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and teaches sociology at Northwestern University. He has been consulted regarding military policy by several presidential administrations and received the Army's Distinguished Service Medal. Contact 847-491-2705 (after Aug. 15), charlesmoskos@yahoo.com.
• Seth Pollack is executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a group critical of the administration's war policy. Pollack served in the Army for eight years, four of them in Bosnia in the criminal investigation division, where he handled 10 to 15 suicides. Contact him through assistant Ashianna Esmail, 202-543-6176.
• Thomas G. Palaima, Raymond F. Dickson Centennial Professor in the University of Texas at Austin classics department, says modern "disillusioning" effects of war are more severe because American civilians are sheltered from war's effects, compared with rituals and norms in ancient Greece, in Europe and in the United States before the 20th century. Palaima's interests include war and society in ancient and contemporary times. Contact 512-471-8837 or 512-471-5742, tpalaima@mail.utexas.edu.
• Paul A. Lacey is clerk of the board of directors of the American Friends Service Committee, the Nobel Prize-winning Quaker organization founded in 1917 to give conscientious objectors a constructive alternative to military service. Lacey is professor emeritus of English at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. Contact 765-983-1200. Ask Janis D. Shields, AFSC director for media and public relations at the Philadelphia offices, about AFSC preparations in case of a national draft and the Friends' Youth and Militarism program. Contact 215-241-7060, jshields@sfsc.org.
• Larry Tritle, a Vietnam veteran and a professor of ancient history at Loyola/Marymount University in Los Angeles, teaches a course inspired by the work of Jonathan Shay. Tritle wrote From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival (Routledge, 2000). He can discuss issues of society and returning veterans. Contact 310-338-7385, ltritle@lmu.edu.
• Frederico Juarbe Jr., assistant secretary for Veterans' Employment and Training Service, U.S. Department of Labor, can discuss returning veterans and labor force issues. Contact him through John Muckelbauer, chief of staff in the administrative secretary's office, 202-693-4745.
• James N. Magill is director of national employment policy for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Contact 202-543-2239.
• Steve Robertson in Washington, D.C., is legislative director for the 3 million-member American Legion. Ask him to discuss troop health and safety, including exposures to chemical hazards, and changes in treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Contact 202-861-2700.
• Carl Blake is legislative director of Paralyzed Veterans of America. Ask whether, with better body armor, the chance of a wounded soldier surviving a maiming injury is now higher than in previous conflicts, and whether and how medical treatment has improved. Contact 202-416-7708.
• Lt. Col. Ted Westhusing has held various command and staff positions within airborne units and the 2nd Infantry Division, South Korea. He is a professor of English at the U.S. Military Academy and questions some current discussions of post-traumatic stress disorder. Contact 845-938-4011.

Background

• Read "Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care," an article in the July 1, 2004, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
• Read a Feb. 18, 2004, United Press International interview in which the commander of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the Army's biggest hospital in Europe, says that on average, 8 percent to 10 percent of casualties treated there have psychiatric or behavioral health issues for which they were evacuated. The story is on the site of Veterans for Common Sense.
• A study issued June 24, 2004, by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus examines the mounting costs of the Iraq war, including the toll on troops' mental health.
• An April 11, 2004, story by the Toronto Star, posted on the Veterans for Peace site, discusses 24 suicides by servicemen and women in Iraq and other suicides by recently returned troops.
• Read a June 26, 2004, Oregonian story saying that the state, having lost more National Guard members in Iraq than at any time since World War II, is gearing up for an influx of war-related mental health issues.
• Much of the work on psychological readjustment from war came from the Vietnam era. Post-traumatic stress disorder was not even included in the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" until 1980. Similarities between the Iraq and Vietnam wars can be found in the lack of a front line and the difficulty distinguishing between enemies and friendly civilians - factors known to cause enormous stress for troops.
• See the Iraq War Veterans Organization online, with military announcements, war stories, family support and deployment information, photos by soldiers and other information, including many links about post-traumatic stress disorder. The founders write that they are two Vietnam War vets who want to ensure that future veterans don't suffer the same lack of public support they did.
• Read a paper, "Civilian Knowledge of War and Violence in Ancient Athens and Modern America," at the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies site. In it, Thomas G. Palaima, Raymond F. Dickson Centennial Professor in the classics department of the University of Texas at Austin, says that "embedded" news reportage and media coverage of the Iraq war in general give the public limited exposure to what service members experience, contributing to the gap in understanding when troops return home.
• Read a CBS News 60 Minutes interview with former Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, 28, before he was convicted of desertion May 21, 2004, in a military court in Fort Stewart, Ga. Mejia was sentenced to a year in military prison for refusing to return to his Florida National Guard unit after a two-week leave. He had been in Iraq five and a half months and said he was torn between his principles and orders to participate in activity he believed was criminal. He remains jailed awaiting an Army decision on his request for a discharge as a conscientious objector.
• Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey describes his Iraq war experiences in a May 16, 2004, Paul Rockwell column in the Sacramento Bee.
• Read about Operation Homecoming, a series of National Endowment for the Arts workshops that give returning troops a chance to write about their wartime experiences. Classes will be led by noted writers, including Tobias Wolff, Jeff Shaara, Bobbie Ann Mason and Tom Clancy. Contact NEA spokeswoman Ann Puderbaugh, 202-682-5570.
• Read Homecoming After Deployment, a paper at the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a program of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
• A June 18, 2004, story in USA Today tells about difficulties some reservists are having returning to work, now that 233,000 of 387,000 reservists called up since Sept. 11, 2001, have been demobilized. Included are state-by-state numbers of complaints to the Department of Labor's Veterans' Employment and Training Service.
• A June 3, 2004, Washington Post story discusses how active-duty personnel and reserve troops now face extended terms after their formal contracts expire. Read an Army news release on the policy and a June 7, 2004, ABC News story about families of reservists whose military missions in Iraq have been extended twice, for a total of nearly two years.

POLLS AND SURVEYS
• Military sociologist Charles Moskos conducted a survey of troop morale in Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq between Nov. 29 and Dec. 7, 2003, for the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Ask Moskos for a copy of his preliminary report to Les Brownlee, acting secretary of the Army. Moskos found generally good morale among active-duty soldiers, but reservists - who often felt like second-class citizens - had lower morale. Chaplains provide a crucial role as mental health counselors, he found. Contact 847-491-2705 after Aug. 15, or email charlesmoskos@yahoo.com.
• Read a March 26, 2004, Washington Post story, posted at Iraq.net, reporting that 52 percent of troops surveyed in late summer 2003 said morale was low, and three-fourths said they felt poorly led by their officers. Read a March 25, 2004, Department of Defense news release on the same study. It reports on suicide trends (rates spiked in 2003 but have fallen in 2004) among troops in Iraq.
• A Pew survey in early May recorded a 44 percent public approval rating for President Bush. Veterans were more likely to favor him; 50 percent supported the president, compared with 42 percent for Kerry. The survey had a margin of error of 7 percentage points.