Opaque Lucidity

The Talking Cure

For nearly five years, we have read about combat veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have trouble adjusting to life at home once they have been exposed to the violence and uncertainty of the modern battlefield. While no hard numbers are available, any veteran experiencing these problems needs help, even if the number of cases is very small.

Before the Vietnam War, we had not defined conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Men certainly did have problems as a result of sustained combat operations, but veterans of the Second World War and Korea were expected to come home and pick up their lives where they left off. Some coped with silence, some with alcohol, some with abusive relationships. Only in the 1970's did the concept of a modern war begin to be seen as something unnatural in the human experience. It was only then that the symptoms some people experienced begin to be taken seriously.

Every war is different, but I think our government makes the mistake of assuming that treatments used for PTSD sufferers in the past will continue to work regardless of the war. This is simply not the case. Vietnam was different than Korea; Iraq is different than Vietnam. Our soldiers, sailors and marines in Iraq are facing something very unusual: a populace that contains thousands of people willing to become martyrs for a religious cause. Yes, the Viet Cong died in large numbers in order to "liberate" South Vietnam, but they were not suicide bombers belonging to a death cult. They represented a traditional insurgency full of people who wanted to fight and live to see victory. The terrorists we fight now welcome death as a payback for killing the infidels. It's almost impossible for a standing army to fight people who have zero concern for their personal safety.

I have spent no time in the infantry, but I can imagine that a situation like the one in Iraq can be frustrating in the extreme for troops on the ground. You want everyone in your squad or platoon to come home safe and sound, but your enemy is only too happy to die if it means taking a few Americans with him. 12-15 months later, our soldier returns home to find a nation sacrificing nothing for the war effort, full of people who are, for the most part, disinterested in the war beyond their belief it needs to end. How do you explain what you've seen? How do you go back to a 9-5 job or back to your base and live as if it never happened?

So, in the same way "the talking cure" revolutionized the treatment of shell shock during the First World War, our psychiatrists and psychologists must find new ways to combat the anger, fear and sense of loss some of our veterans feel. Yes, other wars have been more deadly. But for better or worse, we are a very different society than we were thirty-five years ago and so our fighting men and women need treatment that fits the situation, both here and in the Middle East. The cost should not matter.