ED PALM | Difficult thoughts before saying thanks
By
Ed Palm
Saturday, January 18, 2014
When it comes to making sense of the experience of war, military
history and conventional journalism share a common liability. Both deal
principally in abstraction. The individual human experience of the war
is generally subsumed within body counts. World War I, military
historians and journalists tell us, claimed 10 million lives, World War
II, 60 million. Some 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam, along with an
estimated 2 million Vietnamese. More recently, we lost over 4,000
soldiers in Iraq and over 3,400 Americans have died in Afghanistan. And,
as of this writing, another 51,795 Americans have been wounded in both
wars. But how many of those wounded were left permanently disabled?
Numbers alone don’t evoke images.
Even more problematic, we’ve been told that 20 to 30 percent of the 2 million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. But just what does that mean? For the most part, only PTSD sufferers, and their immediate families, have any inkling.
Enter David Finkel, a writer and editor for “The Washington Post,” who has covered both wars and whose latest book, “Thank You for Your Service,” acquaints us with some of the individual stories behind the statistics.
At the center of “Thank You for Your Service” is Adam Schumann, an Army sergeant who had exhibited exceptional grace under fire and selfless leadership throughout two combat deployments to Iraq. His men clearly looked up to and admired him. Early in his third deployment, however, Schumann found himself suffering from panic attacks and depression. His breaking point came when a motorized patrol he was not on was hit by an improvised explosive device and another sergeant was killed. “None of this (expletive deleted) would have happened,” a soldier who had been on the patrol told Schumann, “if you were there.”
The soldier who said this meant it as a compliment, as a testament to Schumann’s reputation for having the “sharpest eyes.” But the remark only compounds Schuman’s survivor’s guilt and continues to haunt him throughout his attempts to adjust to life back in the States.
Finkel shows us just how difficult that adjustment can be, not only for Schumann and his family but also for a number of fellow veterans whose lives his had touched. Forget that old classical bromide about “war being the business of men.” Finkel gives equal attention to the frustrations of the women whose husbands brought the war home to them. They have to endure the periods of crippling anxiety and depression; the substance abuse; the episodes of unaccountable rage; the inability to keep a job and the ensuing feelings of isolation and worthlessness; and, above all, the ongoing threat of suicide.
It’s no secret, of course, that throughout the period in which the book is set the Army was losing more soldiers to suicide than to combat. In 2011, the Army lost 165 soldiers to suicide and another 182 in 2012. Finkel devotes a chapter to the officer charged with trying to counter this alarming trend, Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli, who himself had commanded the troops in Iraq. Chiarelli and his staff held regular monthly meetings at which they would review each case.
What they found validates one of my long-standing criticisms of our all-volunteer force — its overreliance on older soldiers. Those who enlist in their late twenties were found to be three times more likely to kill themselves than those who enlist in their early twenties or teens. Wars, in my experience, are best fought largely by single young men and women — those without family responsibilities and who have yet to lose that adolescent sense of immortality.
“Thank you for your service,” as West Point Professor Elizabeth Samet maintains, has become our “mantra of atonement” for not supporting the troops during Vietnam. Given that mindset, the most provocative part of Finkel’s book concerns the thoughtlessness and insensitivity of some who thought they were helping. A counselor made light of one woman’s problems with the reminder that she was “an Army wife” after all. But the most glaring example was an Army wife whose husband was killed in Iraq. She very much regretted attending a Ceremony of Remembrance for the Fallen held at Fort Riley, where she was expected to stand in a receiving line for 40 minutes while Toby Keith’s vainglorious “American Soldier” played over the PA system. One clueless person actually said “congratulations.”
Make no mistake: “Thank You for Your Service” is not a pleasant read. It challenges the reader to appreciate how bitterly ironic that glib expression of gratitude must sound to those struggling to put their lives back together amid our general indifference to the dubious war that damaged them. Remember that the next time you’re inclined to thank a stranger for his or her service.
Even more problematic, we’ve been told that 20 to 30 percent of the 2 million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. But just what does that mean? For the most part, only PTSD sufferers, and their immediate families, have any inkling.
Enter David Finkel, a writer and editor for “The Washington Post,” who has covered both wars and whose latest book, “Thank You for Your Service,” acquaints us with some of the individual stories behind the statistics.
At the center of “Thank You for Your Service” is Adam Schumann, an Army sergeant who had exhibited exceptional grace under fire and selfless leadership throughout two combat deployments to Iraq. His men clearly looked up to and admired him. Early in his third deployment, however, Schumann found himself suffering from panic attacks and depression. His breaking point came when a motorized patrol he was not on was hit by an improvised explosive device and another sergeant was killed. “None of this (expletive deleted) would have happened,” a soldier who had been on the patrol told Schumann, “if you were there.”
The soldier who said this meant it as a compliment, as a testament to Schumann’s reputation for having the “sharpest eyes.” But the remark only compounds Schuman’s survivor’s guilt and continues to haunt him throughout his attempts to adjust to life back in the States.
Finkel shows us just how difficult that adjustment can be, not only for Schumann and his family but also for a number of fellow veterans whose lives his had touched. Forget that old classical bromide about “war being the business of men.” Finkel gives equal attention to the frustrations of the women whose husbands brought the war home to them. They have to endure the periods of crippling anxiety and depression; the substance abuse; the episodes of unaccountable rage; the inability to keep a job and the ensuing feelings of isolation and worthlessness; and, above all, the ongoing threat of suicide.
It’s no secret, of course, that throughout the period in which the book is set the Army was losing more soldiers to suicide than to combat. In 2011, the Army lost 165 soldiers to suicide and another 182 in 2012. Finkel devotes a chapter to the officer charged with trying to counter this alarming trend, Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli, who himself had commanded the troops in Iraq. Chiarelli and his staff held regular monthly meetings at which they would review each case.
What they found validates one of my long-standing criticisms of our all-volunteer force — its overreliance on older soldiers. Those who enlist in their late twenties were found to be three times more likely to kill themselves than those who enlist in their early twenties or teens. Wars, in my experience, are best fought largely by single young men and women — those without family responsibilities and who have yet to lose that adolescent sense of immortality.
“Thank you for your service,” as West Point Professor Elizabeth Samet maintains, has become our “mantra of atonement” for not supporting the troops during Vietnam. Given that mindset, the most provocative part of Finkel’s book concerns the thoughtlessness and insensitivity of some who thought they were helping. A counselor made light of one woman’s problems with the reminder that she was “an Army wife” after all. But the most glaring example was an Army wife whose husband was killed in Iraq. She very much regretted attending a Ceremony of Remembrance for the Fallen held at Fort Riley, where she was expected to stand in a receiving line for 40 minutes while Toby Keith’s vainglorious “American Soldier” played over the PA system. One clueless person actually said “congratulations.”
Make no mistake: “Thank You for Your Service” is not a pleasant read. It challenges the reader to appreciate how bitterly ironic that glib expression of gratitude must sound to those struggling to put their lives back together amid our general indifference to the dubious war that damaged them. Remember that the next time you’re inclined to thank a stranger for his or her service.
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