THE GRUNTS
able to craft an answer to a jaunty
“Thanks for your service!” or “So
how was Afghanistan?”
Or the worst: “Did you kill
anyone?”
“I can’t go to a bar and start
talking about combat experience
with somebody — people look
at you like you’re crazy,” said
a Navy combat corpsman who
served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and asked not to be identified by name. He returned burdened with guilt over the lives
he couldn’t save. “People say,
‘Thanks for your service.’ Do you
know what I did over there? It
just seems like you’re being patronized. Don’t do that to me.”
Afraid or unwilling to be judged
by civilians, many new veterans
isolate themselves, never speaking of their wartime experiences.
Unable to explain, even to a wife
or girlfriend, the joy and horror of
combat. That yes, I killed a child,
or yes, soldiers I was responsible
for got killed and it was my fault.
Or yes, I saw a person I loved get
blown apart. From there it can be
an easy slide into self-medication
with drugs or alcohol, or overwork.
Thoughts of suicide can beckon.
“Definitely a majority” of returning veterans bear some kind
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of moral injury, said William P.
Nash, a retired Navy psychiatrist
and a pioneer in stress control
and moral injury. He deployed as a
battlefield therapist with Marines
during the battle of Fallujah in
2004. “People avoid talking about
or thinking about it and every
“Things happen in war that are
irreconcilable with the idea of
goodness and benevolence,
creating real cognitive dissonance —
‘I’m a good person and yet I’ve
done bad things.’”
time they do, it’s a flashback or
nightmare that just damages them
even more. It’s going to take a long
time to sort that out.”
That’s certainly true for Nick
Rudolph. Back home at Camp
Lejeune, N.C., in January 2012,
after three deployments — a total of 16 months in combat — he
was sinking in a downward spiral. Drinking so heavily that he
picked up a DUI and got busted
a rank, losing his prized position
as a squad leader. Seeking help,
he snuck off-post to see a civilian therapist. There, he was pre-