COURTESY OF STEPHEN CANTY
THE GRUNTS
Most people enter military service “with the fundamental sense
that they are good people and that
they are doing this for good purposes, on the side of freedom and
country and God,” said Dr. Wayne
Jonas, a military physician for
24 years and president and CEO
of the Samueli Institute, a nonprofit health research organization. “But things happen in war
that are irreconcilable with the
idea of goodness and benevolence,
creating real cognitive dissonance
HUFFINGTON
03.16-23.14
— ‘I’m a good person and yet I’ve
done bad things.’” Most veterans
with moral injury, he said, “selftreat or don’t treat it at all.”
A moral injury, researchers and
psychologists are finding, can be
as simple and profound as losing a
loved comrade. Returning combat
medics sometimes bear the guilt
of failing to save someone badly
wounded; veterans tell of the
sense of betrayal when a buddy
is hurt because of a poor decision
made by those in charge.
The scenarios are endless: surviving a roadside blast that strikes
your squad, but losing lives
A medical
evacuation
helicopter is
seen in the
background,
in this photo
taken during
Stephen
Canty’s
time in
Afghanistan.