By my favorite war journalist/writer, Dexter Filkins Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who has advised the military on psychological trauma, told me that some of the most severely affected soldiers suffer “moral injury.” “It occurs when you’ve done something in the moment that you were told by your superiors that you had to do, and believed, truthfully and honorably, that you had to do, but which nonetheless violated your own ethical commitments,’’ he said. “It’s bad moral luck. Unfortunately, war is filled with that.” Typical soldiers, Shay told me, do not regard themselves as murderers. “There is a bright line between murder and legitimate killing that means everything to them,’’ he said. “Any civilian who says that in war there are no rules—that’s bullshit.’’ The rules of engagement are central to soldiers’ well-being. “They hate it when they have killed somebody they didn’t need to kill,” he said. “It’s a scar on their soul.”
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 05:53:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015