Category: Pondering Peace
Moral Injury and U.S. War Culture – Part I
In her book And Then Your Soul Is Gone, Kelly Denton-Borhaug tells the stories of veterans who struggle with moral injury. One of those is “Andy,” whose family has a long history of military service. He entered the military with a strong desire “to be a protector of the innocent” (151). In the army, he worked as an intelligence operative. During one mission, after having identified a “target,” he joined the ground unit that was going to kill or capture that person. In response to shots being fired at them from inside the target’s home, they called for an airstrike.
When Andy entered the building after the missiles had been fired, he found thirty-six bodies of men, women, and children slumped together in a pile. The image of those bodies, including nine lifeless children, seared into his brain. Andy felt at that moment, “a part of himself – his soul – left his body” (152). Despite years of therapy, he could not get past the shame of what he had done. At times, he relived it alone with a gun, thinking death was the only way to be released from the prison of his memories and shame.
Moral injury results from one’s moral center having been assaulted. It occurs when someone has perpetrated, failed to prevent, or been witness to actions that deeply transgress one’s deeply held moral beliefs and values. In reality, the guilt and shame of moral injury is not pathological, but rather a normal response of someone who still has an active conscience. Military moral injury is quite common because service members in combat are placed in situations of extreme stress and have to choose between risking terrible physical suffering and death or risking severe moral compromise and the loss of moral integrity.
In her well-researched book, Denton-Borhaug situates moral injury within the context of U.S. American war culture and provides an analysis of the structural and cultural factors that contribute to its development. While it may not be immediately apparent to us, there are many structural indications of this culture of war. One is the growing interdependence between the U.S. government, the Pentagon, and war-related corporations, such that there is maintained a permanent war economy. Around half of the total national discretionary budget goes to defense. In comparison, this is more than the next six largest national military budgets in the world combined, which includes those of China and Russia. This greatly reduces spending for other public services, such as health care, education, childcare, and poverty relief.
Such expenditures support the U.S. empire of 1500 military bases, of which 800 are international and located in around 84% of the world’s nations. In comparison, Russia, the UK, and France each have 10-25 international bases, and China has only one or two. The U.S. deems this as necessary in order to fulfill its military doctrine of “full spectrum dominance.” With so many resources devoted to the development of military capability, the U.S. engages too quickly in military actions and war.
In addition, militarism impacts and penetrates into civilian life in multiple ways, from national celebrations, sports, movies, and videogames, to the very sense of identity of U.S. citizens. Yet, as Denton-Borhaug states, “People in the U.S., living in the most extensive war-culture the world has ever known, have so little consciousness of it” (66).
In U.S. culture, the highest expression of citizenship is seen as serving one’s country in the military. ROTC and military recruiters are in high schools, pointing out the benefits of enlistment. At the age of 17 or 18, many young people who want to be heroes and protect their country and loved ones sign up. I can remember at our son’s eagle scout ceremony sitting near a mother whose son had just enlisted. She cried silently throughout the evening, apparently more realistic about what war could bring than her son was.
Since it was discovered after World War II that only 25% of soldiers fired their guns during combat, the military has developed what they deem to be more effective ways to develop the skill and will to kill. In talking to veterans, Denton-Borhaug found that in military training they were required to shout “kill, kill, kill” countless hundreds of times during their drills. Other cadences include one that says “we’re going to rape, kill, pillage, burn…” and another brutally speaks of shooting children. They were also required to repeatedly practice reflexive conditioning simulation training, such as shooting the figure of an approaching man or virtually running over a child in the road. These were practiced until they became automatic reactions that would bypass conscience and moral decision-making. Often it isn’t until after such a deed is completed in real life that they actually experience the impact of what they have just done. This sets the stage for the development of moral injury.
Although the military touts values such as duty, respect, and honor, these are often not the values actually experienced in military training. Instead there is an acculturation process for developing a military masculinity of dominance that avoids shame and fear by covering it over with violence. There also occurs an intentional process of dehumanization toward others beyond their group, making it possible for them to engage in violence towards them.
Of deep concern to us is the role of religion in legitimizing and justifying war. Quite often the death of a soldier is compared to the death of Jesus, each being lifted up as an “ultimate sacrifice” that “saves” us. A widely shared patriotic saying is: “Remember that only two forces ever agree to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American soldier. One died for your sins; the other for your freedom’’ (119). This elevates military death to the level of the sacred, silencing criticisms and questions about war itself.
At military funerals, John 15:13 is sometimes quoted, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” While this may offer comfort to the searing grief of those who have lost loved ones, the comparison of a soldier’s death to that of Jesus is misleading. A soldier’s death often occurs in the course of killing enemies, while Jesus told us to love our enemies. When faced with death, Jesus refused to allow violence to be used on his behalf. Denton-Borhaug asks, “How did a nonviolent messiah become the archetype for the nation’s understanding of soldiers waging war?” (130)
Denton-Borhaug asks another question, “what would happen if we considered moral injury as a flashpoint, a lens through which to see and morally assess war and war-culture?” (17) Her stories of those who have experienced war and her analysis of U.S. war culture raises many questions for us as people of faith. How do we respond to central features of Christianity being used to support and sacralize war? What is our responsibility towards our young people, who are being actively recruited to serve in our nation’s military? And how are we to care for those who bear war’s moral injuries?
Rev. Ruth Rosell, Ph.D.
Director of the Buttry Center for Peace and Nonviolence
Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology Emerita
Central Seminary, Overland Park, KS
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.