Huffington Magazine Issue 92-93 | Page 45

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.