I killed people in Afghanistan. Was I right or wrong?
Many veterans are unable to reconcile such actions in war with the biblical commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” When they come home from an environment where killing is not only accepted but is a metric of success, the transition to one where killing is wrong can be incomprehensible.
This incongruity can have devastating effects. After more than 10 years of war, the military lost more active-duty members last year to suicide than to enemy fire. More worrisome, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that one in five Americans who commit suicide is a veteran, despite the fact that veterans make up just 13 percent of the population.
While I don’t know why individual veterans resort to suicide, I can say that the ethical damage of war may be worse than the physical injuries we sustain. To properly wage war, you have to recalibrate your moral compass. Once you return from the battlefield, it is difficult or impossible to repair it.
VA has started calling this problem “moral injury,” but that’s as deceptive a euphemism as “collateral damage.” This isn’t the kind of injury you recover from with rest, physical therapy and pain medication. War makes us killers. We must confront this horror directly if we’re to be honest about the true costs of war.
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Right.
brewcrew67 on January 26, 2013 at 12:40 PM
“Thou shalt not kill” is a mistranslation.
Wars may make killers out of good men, but that does not make them bad men. You do your jobs honorably, and without you there would be a sickening increase in death and tyranny in the world.
Godspeed, and God bless.
Atlas on January 26, 2013 at 12:41 PM
1. The 10 Commandments actually forbade murder.
2. And here is enough for me to believe our actions are moral
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/10/taliban-shoot-14-year-old-schoolgirl-peace-activist-in-the-head/
CW on January 26, 2013 at 12:43 PM
Whether you can live with yourself after wartime is a matter between yourself and whatever God you choose to worship, if any. If you don’t have the stomach for killing people and breaking things, you are under no obligation to enlist in our all-volunteer military. And I would kindly thank the weak-willed among us to remember that we did all kinds of things during WWII, “the good war,” that we find absolutely unspeakable today.
gryphon202 on January 26, 2013 at 12:46 PM
Exactly, and it doesn’t help that the Marxist liberals push a social propaganda message that all military personal are indiscriminate murders just waiting for an excuse to explode.
SWalker on January 26, 2013 at 12:48 PM
By publishing this in the Washington Post, the writer may be asking for answers and/or absolution, understanding, or empathy in the wrong place.
Drained Brain on January 26, 2013 at 12:50 PM
Yeah, and I think it’s totally healthy and normal for soldiers to think about the big questions and what they did during war after the fact. It’s also normal for them not to want to talk about it all, which I think we should respect.
But yeah, realizing we’re putting our soldiers through this kind of moral issue is definitely something we should keep in mind before we go to war, and should be one of many reasons that we only go to war when absolutely necessary.
But when war is necessary, we want to do whatever it takes to lose as few Americans as possible while doing the most overwhelming damage to the enemy, to the point where they lose the will to fight (which is why I think WW2, especially in the pacific, was the way we should fight every war.)
Timin203 on January 26, 2013 at 12:54 PM
Timin203 on January 26, 2013 at 12:55 PM
Didn’t someone note that 85% of the suicides are by those who were never deployed? Also, if they had moral hesitations in killing anyone, why enlist?
Blake on January 26, 2013 at 12:55 PM
Meaningless statistic without knowing more about the individual.
Blake on January 26, 2013 at 12:59 PM
Hand-wringing girly-men like Timothy Kudo, who bring to mind PETA members, are not the kind ultimately responsible for the construction and defense of Western civilization!
Anti-Control on January 26, 2013 at 12:59 PM
http://www.theworld.org/2012/12/military-suicide-among-soldiers-who-havent-deployed/
OxyCon on January 26, 2013 at 1:05 PM
Right
Blaise on January 26, 2013 at 1:05 PM
“Thou shalt not kill” is a mistranslation.
Wars may make killers out of good men, but that does not make them bad men. You do your jobs honorably, and without you there would be a sickening increase in death and tyranny in the world.
Godspeed, and God bless.
[Atlas on January 26, 2013 at 12:41 PM]
Even you comment is part of the problem. How do you reconcile saying “Thou shalt not kill” is a mistranslation and then in the very next sentence imply they may be killers without a single qualification of what you intend by using the word in likely different contexts?
Putting aside the statistic he asserts, I won’t accept his assertion that this supposed dichotomy is the reason for the suicides without some reasonably satisfactory evidence it is. There are many other possible reasons for the suicides than just the personal conflict in having to deal with what he states.
Dusty on January 26, 2013 at 1:05 PM
I was thinking the same thing. Turns out it was around 59%.
Interesting, while looking for that link I found many, many articles on military suicides and, almost without fail, the writer would write something like “…suicides from combat stress, PTSD and personal problems…” They would always tag on “personal problems” at the end of the list of reasons, like it was a minor factor when in reality it’s the #1 cause. I suppose that keep the narrative that “Bush’s war is killing our troops” alive.
Also, the % of suicide deaths in the military is still far less than the % of suicide deaths in the general population. The articles failed to mention that as well.
But, according to the article that I linked to above, the rate of suicide in America has risen over the past few years (after falling for quite a while). But NO news organization is talking about that, they’re only mentioning the rise in military suicides (which seems on pace with the rise in the general population). I wonder why….
29Victor on January 26, 2013 at 1:07 PM
Exactly.
tdpwells on January 26, 2013 at 1:09 PM
100 years of socialist indoctrination produces this.
vityas on January 26, 2013 at 1:09 PM
There ya go, that’s the statistic Blake & I remembered. Thanks.
This is media malpractice, plain and simple. Perpetrating Hollywood myth of the crazy combat vet.
29Victor on January 26, 2013 at 1:09 PM
And was the last war we won.
Food for thought.
OldEnglish on January 26, 2013 at 1:16 PM
Exactly, and it doesn’t help that the Marxist liberals push a social propaganda message that all military personal are indiscriminate murders just waiting for an excuse to explode.
[SWalker on January 26, 2013 at 12:48 PM]
Another part of the problem that our troops have to deal with.
It’s not the troops fault that the John Kerrys and Eric Holders of this world use them as hostages to incite hatred of their actions in defending our country in order to impose on society only their personal preferences about who is to wield political power.
According to them, from 2000 to 2008, our troops were evil. Then from 2009 until now, they are good men.
Dusty on January 26, 2013 at 1:18 PM
The simple fact is, men have been killing other men in combat, since there were men.
The first recorded history was of battles. Entire civilizations were founded on fighting skills – ie killing.
The idea that somehow men’s minds cannot handle killing flies in the face of 10,000 years plus of human history, the vast majority of which was enormously more violent than it is today.
Rebar on January 26, 2013 at 1:29 PM
And all without ROEs.
OldEnglish on January 26, 2013 at 1:33 PM
I doubt any of these guys cried themselves to sleep at night.
Rebar on January 26, 2013 at 1:36 PM
If we looked deeper, the cause might be more personal, ie cheating spouses compounded by psychotropic drugs capped by years of being called baby killers.
AH_C on January 26, 2013 at 1:53 PM
Kim Il-Sung or Saddam Hussein beg to differ.
JFKY on January 26, 2013 at 2:12 PM
A more correct translation of the commandment would be “Thall shalt not commit murder.” Murder has a very specific meaning. A soldier killing the enemy on the battlefield is not murder.
Shump on January 26, 2013 at 2:30 PM
This would be less problematic if the enemies motives and true nature were were exposed. Perhaps knowing Islam and Muslims want us all dead or slaves and semi slaves, would balance against regret composting noble Afghan butt savages.
That said, taking life will always exact a toll and all involved will be changed and feel a burden whose weight will vary. This weight should be offset somewhat with an understanding of why you were stopping the enemy. The need to stop and end Islam is not spoken out loud. It is unconsciously sensed but that has only resulted in flailing about uselessly and without effect except to us. We are still in that zone. Unfortunately, it seems only Islam in its growing boldness will take us into a red glare of understanding.
BL@KBIRD on January 26, 2013 at 2:40 PM
Not the same. Both countries still exist – in their original form. All we did was defeat a military machine – not the ideology.
OldEnglish on January 26, 2013 at 2:55 PM
Exactly! In order to conquer the Japanese we had to destroy the godhead of their emperor – the very essence of their being.
OldEnglish on January 26, 2013 at 3:00 PM
Quite frankly, I think if there is something “there”, its the fault of the military.
In their push for social reform, they traded political correctness for a vital element of military training, and that would be that you may be called on to kill. That is what why you’re here. To kill. On order, without hesitation. You will be killing people you have never met and may have no personal feelings for.
Your actions may result in the death of non-hostiles. You actions may may result in the death of women and children. This is the horror of war. It is not your fault. It is the fault of those who caused you to enter the battlefield. As long as you wear the uniform, you are only a tool. A tool designed to kill. Get comfortable with that. Or don’t enlist, or re-enlist.
The military teaches how to kill, with virtually no emphasis on the fact that you just might really have to do it.
I think the USMC does a better job than any of the other services, but even there PC is intruding on the function of the Corps.
BobMbx on January 26, 2013 at 3:00 PM
Sounds like the unfortunate man that wrote the article needs to be acquainted with St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica, where he will find the answers to his questions on war.
He ought to take pride in his soldiering. Too bad he needs to be told that.
TXJenny on January 26, 2013 at 3:07 PM
[TXJenny on January 26, 2013 at 3:07 PM]
As you suggest, the primary problem Kudo has is ignorance.
Dusty on January 26, 2013 at 3:54 PM
To kill is to take a life. To murder is to intentionally take a life without reason or due to malice.
Life involves killing. You kill your food to eat, whether you’re killing lettuce leaves or cows. Even if you’re a Jainist, your body kills pathogens all day, every day.
War involves killing other humans. But every decent human being who is a soldier (which is to say 99.999% of them) kills only under the conditions that 1) in the short term, failure to kill means an imminent threat to their comrades, and 2) in the long-term, failure to kill means a threat to the safety and security of their family and nation. My point was, that although soldiers may be killers in the strictest sense of the word, their actions are in no way immoral, nor shameful, nor anything less than admirable.
Atlas on January 26, 2013 at 3:57 PM