SOURCES; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
HEALING
going in peoples’ homes and people would get hurt.”
In Iraq, where Tremillo
served his first combat tour, it
was common for U.S. troops to
search for weapons caches by
banging on a door and ordering
a family out of the house, holding them prone on the ground at
gunpoint while rifling through
their belongings. It was an oftrepeated scene, one that former
four-star military commander
Stanley McChrystal wrote in his
memoir made him feel “sick.”
“As I watched I could feel in
my own limbs and chest the
shame and fury” of the helpless
civilians, he wrote.
American soldiers had to act
that way, Tremillo recognizes,
“in order to stay safe.” But the
moral compromise, the willful
casting aside of his own values,
broke something inside him,
changing him into someone he
hardly recognizes, or admires.
For many who experience such
moral injury, the shock and pain
fade over time. Supportive and
understanding family and friends,
a good job and often a spiritual
connection can help.
For others, the wound gets
worse. For Tremillo, “there is no
HUFFINGTON
03.16-23.14
WAR TRAUMA SYMPTOMS
The definition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder doesn’t cover all the symptoms of moral
injury, the lasting wounds to the soul caused by participation in morally ambiguous combat
events. Here are the symptoms of each, and those that overlap.
“Startle”
Reflex
Memory
L o ss
Fear
Flashbacks
PTSD
S o r r ow
Anger
Depression
Grief
Anxiety
Insomnia
Re g re t
Nightmares
Shame
Self-medication
with alcohol or
drugs
Alienati
BOTH
on
MORAL INJURY
MULTIPLE DEPLOYMENTS FOR TROOPS IN RECENT WARS
Frequent deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq have become routine for American
soldiers – raising the risk of lasting mental trauma.
Individuals deployed
Number of deployments
AFGHANISTAN
823,136
2001-2013
1,489,394
IRAQ
2003-2013
1,115,872
2,337,197
fairytale ending,” he said.
“People try to make sense of
what happened, but it often gets
reduced to, ‘It was my fault,’ ‘the
world is dangerous,’ or, in severe
cases, ‘I’m a monster,’” explained
Peter Yeomans, a staff psychologist at the VA Medical Center