Huffington Magazine Issue 92-93 | Page 49

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 HUFFINGTON 03.16-23.14 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-