I think you are right to note that the system is doing what is was designed to do in peacetime. Yet I cannot help but think of my mentor, an old lieutenant colonel, who frequently admonished me: "No decision is a decision too."

Ultimately, this question depends on how you define broken; it is an exercise in semantics. But I think that a system that is so rigid that it does not adjust and re-align with the current need state of service members is indeed broken. Because I am addressing the holistic body of programs and not a particular agency or initiative.

Still, your point about whether it is realistic to expect incremental changes to the existing system to bring out improved outcomes is the one that resonates the most with me. I believe we need to stop scope creep and make sure Warrior Transition Units deal with genuinely sick - whether in body or mind - service members and that they do not also accept a unit's problem children: http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/17/here_s_how_screwed_up_the_army_s_warrior_transition_units_are_genuinely_sick_soldie

Blake

Lumping those two populations together dishonors the soldier who discharged his duties faithfully.

Hunter, I was hoping yours would be one of the responses to Blake’s comment and I wasn’t disappointed, your analysis is outstanding. Let me pose a question: What can be done in pre-deployment training to mitigate the impact of PTSD? I realize the psychological makeup of every human being is different but I really do wonder if there is some ‘preventive medicine’ out there in that would go some way in reducing the effect of the issues Blake talks about?

I've alluded to this before. I'm busy writing a journal article targetting this subject...which is why I come armed with the facts. I'm at 27 pages and still just getting started....which is bad news because I probably only get 16 to do what I need to do.

Pre-deployment training...well honestly by then you have missed half the boat. I mentioned alot of what needs to happen. This stuff needs to happen from BCT on. The Army is real big right now on Comprehensive Soldier Health - or some such shit. They are also preaching Resiliency training (which supposedly begins in BCT) which starts to get to some of the mental stuff I mentioned. But they are way behind the power curve.

West Point, that nefarious soul-sucking and dollar ineffective hole on the Hudson (sarcasm), started doing the mental training required here back in 1990 or so. 20 years later the stuff they built is just now making it to the Big Army. Not because their stuff wasn't good, but because Big Army couldn't see the benefit. Some of that USMA stuff became the spine on which Resiliency training rests, but while I did the stuff at USMA, I haven't done the MRT stuff yet so I don't know where the gaps/deltas are.

Physiology and response can easily be taught in a classroom. Example: Soldiers need to know if they piss themselves or shit themselves that 1) its normal 2) doesn't mean they are cowards 3) means they join a long line of other soldiers who have done the same. (one good reason I always shit everything out ahead of time before hitting the road - we called it a "Battle Crap"). That education stuff is easy - you can tell them about heartrate, auditory exclusion, tunnel vision, so they expect it....but what you really need is training. Hard, realistic, SCARY fucking training. Live fire Exercises with killing munitions, and Force on Force exercises with Non-Lethal-Training-Ammunition - places where you get shot and it hurts alot. Not bullshit MILES stuff.

This is when they experience the fear and through stress inoculation learn to deal with it. (Want a great movie scene for this...witness COL Robert Gould Shaw in Glory shooting a pistol behind a soldier on the range). This is hard stuff, time intensive and costly training. But better to do it before combat than experience it first in combat.

Soldiers in my old SQDN came home in late 08, in mid 09 they did Squad Live Fire Exercise. This year, under my successor, they are doing PLT CALFEX (with mortars and fast movers hooah). Guess what, next year they do it for real somewhere in Afghanistan. 10-1 odds says the CALFEX this year will be the single best training they get before they put boots on the ground. Time flies when you are having fun. If your asshole isn't tight doing a live fire exercise then either the exercise is too damn canned or you just aren't doing something right.

Morality training is also fairly simple, but it needs to be done right and done by the right people. People need to understand that in combat they are being asked to do something eminently unnatural - kill another human being. They need to understand that it is unnatural, and that human-human conflict is something we don't easily grasp. People can easily accept that their house was destroyed by a tornado or hurricane, but levels of trauma and horror increase geometrically if another person were to do the same damage to their home. (see Grossman again).

All of this is in the realm of the possible. Police forces do it all everyday - indeed Police forces are the ultimate COIN warriors. They fight the COIN fight all the time. Almost everything I made mention of: physiology training, mental training, trauma debriefs, use of live fire exercises, use of NLTA in force on force, POLICE forces have been perfecting for decades....while we in the military rest on our laurels and wonder why all our joes are sucking on their pistols.

BTW, lest you wonder, the Marines are no better in this regard..."[Army] suicides overall increased by 26 percent from 2008 to 2009, while suicides among Marines have more than doubled since 2005 (Seidman, 2010)."

Here's one more tidbit to chew on - from Finkel's Good Soldiers...I mention it in my draft article:

"It was an insane night," [the company commander Captain] Taylor said.
The final tally: one soldier slightly injured and thirty-five Iraqis dead, including [Sergeant] Gietz's at least seven.
"The men were fired up. They were fired up," Taylor said. "It was an infantryman's dream: close and destroy the enemy."
And maybe so. Maybe it was an infantryman's dream.
But as Gietz said in his troubled voice as he of thought of [his previously injured comrades], and the fact that he and his soldiers had gone to Fedaliyah to capture two Iraqis and had ended up killing thirty-five: "It's a thin line between what we're calling acceptable and not acceptable. It's a thin line. As a leader you are supposed to know when not to cross it. But how do you know? Does the army teach us how to control our emotions? Does the army teach us how to deal with a friend bleeding out in front of you?"
Maybe.
Probably.
"No." (Finkel, 2009, p. 72)

You can never teach everything, but we can teach alot more than we currently do. I hope I can raise some awareness with my article - if I ever finish it. Indeed I hope I piss some people off.

Your reference to Police officers being the ultimate COIN operators is excellent. In fact, I am surprised that the military has not picked upon this theme and exploited the similarities or have they? The difference is that the best cops at domestic COIN have been doing it day in and day out for years to the point that it becomes intuitive. A young soldier/Marine is forced to do it in a different culture whose language and customs he doesn’t know and is rotated out as soon as he develops some aptitude. When you finish this article you must let me read it.

Police Officers by and large go home every night to their spouses and kids. While I agree that we can take some lessons in how they deal with shootings, I don't know if it is an acurate comparison. While each traffic stop can be the last, they are not doing 12 months of patrols away from family and the stresses that accompany that.
E.G: While deployed, if a Soldier's girlfriend/wife cheats on him, he has the rest of the tour to be angry and stew on it...someone back at home can go to a club with his buddies that night.
Again, I do not mean to diminish what law enforcement does, I understand each traffic stop can be the last.

What you have said about police is true. They get to go home pretty much every night. But that knife cuts both ways. They may have to deal with a life-threat or combat during the day and still go home at night and act composed and family-man.

I'm sure any soldier would jump at that chance right?

Turns out not so much. One article documenting what happens at Nellis AF base found that many UAV pilots are struggling with the concept of killing badguys during their shift and then hitting the pool or the kids soccer game on the way home.

Regardless of circumstance, we seem to accept this falsehood that our soldiers will know how to deal with combat...when in fact they haven't been given even the most rudimentary skills in how to do so. Like sheep to the slaughter.

I preached to my soldiers that I didn't want them to do something they later regretted (this was really in the COIN context) - because I didn't want to bring someone home physically well but mentally broken. And yet this is what we routinely do because we haven't taken the time or interest to do the things we must to mentally arm our troopers.

Has to stop now...don't care if the police analogy is imperfect. We ignore their VAST experience to our own detriment.

BTW SoldiersDiary, here's the excerpt from my draft article that addresses exactly those concerns:

Some may object to the comparison between police officers and military personnel - the circumstances are different. Even Artwohl and Christensen make the same argument. Interestingly enough their comparisons, fitting as written in 1997, seem much less applicable today:

...one simply can't compare the life of a combat soldier with the life of a police officer. In a combat zone, the soldier has only one role to fill: that of a soldier. Police officers, on the other hand are not in a combat zone all the time, and they are expected to move fluidly from one role to another, sometimes on a daily basis. In a single day, the police officer may have to wrestle a mentally ill individual, help a homeless person find shelter for a night...issue a traffic ticket to an elderly woman, and survive a gunbattle in a supermarket. The he has to go home and live normally with his spouse. The combat soldier doesn't have to go home to his children and be open to intimacy and communication with his spouse. He doesn't have to try to maintain friendships with civilians who have little understanding of what they are asking him to do for them. He is not expected to be unfailingly polite, effectively helpful, and compassionate to a wide variety of people and their complex social problems during his combat patrols.
The police officer has to maintain effective social and emotional connections with himself and an array of people and situations to function well. But the symptoms of PTSD will prevent him from doing that. The inability to establish and maintain these emotional connections is less of an immediate issue to the combat soldier, who is primarily focused on staying alive and killing the enemy. It will, however, become an issue for the soldier when he leaves the combat zone and tries to have a happy and fulfilling life back in the world.

All this relates back to the different environments police officers and combat soldiers live and operate in. The soldier will not have to worry about facing an internal affairs investigation because he got cranky with a civilian or discharged his weapon. If he shoots someone in the line of duty, he is unlikely to face a criminal investigation, an inquest, or a grand jury, where people who weren't there will make judgments about whether he was justified in using deadly force....Indeed, when the soldier does his job well - kills the enemy quickly and efficiently - he will likely be praised and might even receive a medal or a promotion, sometimes both.... (Artwohl & Christensen).

Artwohl & Christensen's assessment was entirely appropriate when it was written. The U.S. military back then was not expected to do anything other than conduct set-piece battles with tanks and bullets screaming across the desert as occurred in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Looking back from the perspective of the long counter-insurgency (COIN) based battles being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, this testimony looks mostly outdated.
Soldiers today are indeed asked to do more than fight and kill on the battlefield. Indeed, soldiers on the COIN battlefield today are expected "to be unfailingly polite, effectively helpful, and compassionate to a wide variety of people and their complex social problems" - furthermore they are often being unfailingly polite to exactly the same people who will be trying to kill them the next day or night! U.S. ground forces do face internal investigations into almost every discharge of their weapons and certainly any killings. Some of those encounters even go to trial as evidenced by episodes like the Haditha courtmartial proceedings.
It is true that most soldiers don't have the luxury, or burden, of returning home each night to contend with their families after a hard day on the battlefield. But even in that regard there exist some interesting exceptions. One article highlights the problems experienced by airmen at Nellis Air Force base outside Las Vegas (Donnelly, 2005). The airmen and pilots are responsible for piloting many of the various unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) used for aerial reconnaissance. It is a particularly novel aspect of the war, where pilots in Nevada fly aircraft launched and stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, some of the aircraft are also armed with missiles. It is now possible for a pilot to fly a 12 hour shift at Nellis, with scarcely a moment for a bathroom break. Those same pilots may attack and destroy a Taliban enclave before shift change and be off to pick up their children at school before the day is done. One Air Force officer described the challenge:“[Major] Rogers and the sensor operator with whom he works were given the command to shoot the truck. Both developed a case of what Rogers calls the “trembles” – the nervousness of wanting to kill the enemy but injure no one else, combined with the enormity of taking human lives.” Later that day Rogers was at home in the pool with his kids. (Donnelly, 2005).

I think you may have misunderstood the post. The author does not support Patton's view on PTSD- he just uses it to illustrate the prevailing attitude. He also agrees with you saying that it was a tragedy that his soldier was removed from his unit and put in an admin position. I don't see where the author got anything wrong based on your recommendations.

I'm prejudiced here but I can't help thinking Marines comprise a smaller percentage simply because we leave Parris Island with PTSD. The three months of stress at PI COULD have a positive effect.

Healing doesn't have to take a lifetime. The EMDR that your 'guy' hates accelerates the process and takes you through the muck to the other side in record time...for the right individual. If this is something they are not wanting to do, there must be an alternative treatment that the VA can provide. I am, in fact, surprised to find that they are able to provide this treatment. It has taken ages to convince parts of the military and VA that this treatment would be a good investment.

Having gone through it, I admit that EMDR is intense and you often feel like you are coming apart before you start putting yourself back together again. I would like to hear the rest of the story (backchannel or here).

Anon, like you I would prefer to have “an army of creative, trained and motivated soldiers” (in the case of the Army I think that might be more of a goal than current reality) but how does that relate to the historical meaning of ‘warriors’? The bottom line essence for instance of a SEAL platoon’s training is ‘teamwork’ not warriorship. The historical meaning of warriors is centered on ‘self’ and not the team. Warriors could be highly skilled at arms but basically fought as individuals within a group of other warriors fighting as individuals.

You are correct. We want to return the soldier (I also hate the word warrior but for different reasons than JPWREL) to combat. A bomb to be a bomb must explode (see hopkins in Speed)....a soldier must soldier.

But every soldier eventually leaves the service, so the system must exist that is ready to provide for that soldier. Seek your brothers-in-arms is the best medicine....but I work in the realm of the Reserve Component and we don't live and breathe with our brothers everyday. We go home to communities that don't understand the plight that Blake Hall is trying to convey. We even have wives that try to work together at great distance and often suffer in silence.

So there must be systems, or at least stop gap measures to save ourselves from the nastiness that we have seen or done in name of God, country or comrade. If we aren't ready to bear that cost or burden then we best get our of the war business.

I'm glad that your CAO helped you...it is interesting how many stories like yours I have heard. I'm glad that he could help you with your burden...and yet I wonder how many CAOs or CNOs carry too much burden as well. But that is a different story for a different post.

As much of a nutcase as Patton was there is a strong element of truth to what he was trying to say. Patton's rival Monty, less eloquently once observed to his chief of staff De Guingand that “ . . . our men are not natural killers somehow we must make them so".

Well said, sir.
Thank you,
Tom

Well said, sir.
Thank you,
Tom

Thank you for this - what a powerful testament to the impact of leadership and friendship at the crucial moment. We need more men like your colonel. He cared about you and that was enough. And you are right, the validation you sought and needed, could only come from a figure who had credibility that stemmed from his own experiences in combat. To quote you, "we are... all lepers."

Veterans are able to open up to each other because understand the context of combat in a way that no one else can. When I explain combat to friends, I compare it to childbirth. A woman could explain childbirth to me in excruciating detail and I get it. But I don't get it. It's the same way with combat. Unless you've experienced it, you will never grasp the reality of the trauma.

I've found that I'm also able to open to women much more easily about my experiences in combat. Upon reflection, I think it's because a woman doesn't judge my manhood or my masculinity if I admit the pain and trauma I carry with me. Even the slang that soldiers use when we are hurt and can't contribute to the unit, "broke dick", connotes that if you are hurt, if you are broke, then you are not a man. Every soldier will know that phrase.

Yet, I've found that, for whatever reason, I am comfortable confiding in the women who are closest to me and the veterans I fought with. Because I know that I won't be judged for admitting my pain.

Blake Hall

You will never know how much it has meant for me to read this column by Blake Hall and the response from Jim Gourley. If these two men had been in leadership positions at WWBN-East, Camp Lejeune, at the time when my son was going through his battle with PTSD and TBI, I am positive that the experience would have been completely different.

My son had a similar experience to the one experienced by Jonathan. That chapter of his story was difficult, challenging, and devastating, but it was a “walk in the park” compared to what happened after my son was transferred out of MarSOC and over to WWBN-E. We all thought this would be a positive move and we believed what we were being told....within 90 days he would be back on his team and heading out for his fourth deployment.

I think that all of you would be appalled to know of what is going on at WWBN-E. For the past 18 months, those in leadership have been instrumental in destroying the lives of many Marines, my son being one of them. From what I’ve been able to gather, much of the problem comes from NCO’s and officers at the company level, but when the command is informed and does nothing but look the other way, it becomes a completely different and additional problem that must be solved. I finally had to get involved when my son’s life was at stake. I carefully documented everything before I went forward with my concerns. I honestly thought it was one bad leader who just needed to be set straight. After a year and a half of fighting the system, and bringing this to the attention of every level in the chain of command, I finally have realized that it is the entire system that needs to be fixed...not just one lousy leader in one battalion.

I read this blog all the time. It is the comments that interest me most. It’s apparent that many who participate here are officers and I have found it extremely educational to gain your perspective and to get a tiny glimpse into how officers approach and solve situations. It has helped me to understand more of the WHY when it comes to leadership issues at Camp Lejeune.

As long as the units for our wounded troops are being run by those who are in the business of building war machines, this problem is just going to get bigger and bigger. Please spare me the “accountability” response that is always the premise for any leadership decisions being explained to me. Frankly, I’m really tired of hearing that excuse.

Jim said, “Blake Hall hits on all the things we do wrong - ridicule, ostracize, and ignore those with the disease. Treat the guy like a leper.”

That is exactly what is happening, and yet, when it is brought to everyone’s attention there might be one person that will actually admit that it’s true. EVERYONE is scared. They are scared NOT to run the ship like it’s always been done. Fear guides every action and every decision being made at WWBN-East. Fear guides the leadership and their actions instill fear in the patients. If you knew all that I know, you wouldn’t be surprised by the fact that the Army lost 32 soldiers to suicide in June. What surprises me is that 32 Marines at Camp Lejeune’s WWBN didn’t do the same.

I’m doing everything I can in my community to make this a better place for returning veterans. My organization is developing a program for vets with invisible wounds. I would be very interested in using portions of Jim’s statement in the materials I’m creating to present to our seasoned veterans. We are setting up a mentoring program with older vets reaching out to help younger vets. The Lt Colonel that Jim referred to is the type of man I’d like to see involved in our program. It won’t surprise you to know that many of the younger vets are thrilled to have an option other than the VA to talk about their problems and get the support they need. We are also trying to set up something for families because there are a lot of us out here who are casualties of secondary stress.

I am nobody important, but I’ve made it my number one commitment to do everything I can to make a difference in the lives of those struggling with PTSD and TBI. I haven’t been to combat. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a counselor. I’m a Marine mom who has been deeply hurt by the wounds my son received from his own. I’m a mom who believed in the Corps as much as my son did. We fully expected to see the motto, Semper Fidelis, being lived out, especially by those at the battalion for the wounded. Once-shy, I am now outspoken and ready to take on anyone who is going to continue to shove these issues under the rug. I can promise you that my son’s life, as well as the lives of those I’ve met at WWBN are worth every minute of this fight.

If you agree with Jim Gourley’s post, “Of Lepers and Caves”, I ask that you take a few minutes and read my blog entries. (http://www.fellednot.com/apps/blog/ ) It may take awhile to read them but it should open your eyes to the devastation experienced by countless families across the country.

As Blake said, “When you go to sleep tonight, eighteen more veterans will be gone by their own hand. Many more will lay their heads down without shelter, because they have lost their way. The thought that one day David and Jonathan could join their ranks is more than I can bear.”

I’m not sure how much longer I can bear it either. I’ve been to numerous military funerals, but there are three Marine funerals that will always provoke the most painful memories. Two of these funerals were within a week’s time, just this month. The cause of death....PTSD’s reaction to poor health care (aka...suicide). If this issue hasn’t personally knocked on your door, it won’t be long.

Probably the best summary of PTSD ever. The only people who understand what soldiers go through are other soldiers who have been there. My dad had horrific memories from the Korean war. He was a machine gunner in his outfit which was rushed over from Japan right after the North invaded, fell back into the Pusan perimeter, and was there for the breakout. But in those days there were organizations like the VFW. Say what you will about sitting around the bar at the local VFW post telling war stories, I'm convinced it was beneficial for soldiers to be around other soldiers who had been there, done that, even if the worst war stories were never verbalized. It was a shared experience, and knowing it was shared helped with coping.

What is it about their make up that sheltered them? Great question. You could write an encyclopedia with the answers. There are many. Here are the ones I found.

There are little windows that allow us glimpses all over the place. I found several in books. "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why", by Laurence Gonzales. The book opens with an explanation of why some Navy pilots put the bird on the deck and others slam into the back of the ship. It only gets better from there. I'm sure everyone's familiar with Pressfield's "Gates of Fire." It may be fiction, but when Pressfield's Dienekes talks about "Phobos", you can't find truer words. Grossman is always good.

Despite the psychological content of Grossman and Gonzales, I stand by what I said about the spiritual aspect of the condition. Here's how it worked for me. My last panic attack was in 2008 during the Presidential debate. Long story, but Barack Obama caused me to have a panic attack. I'm not joking. Nor am I joking when I say that it was the best panic attack of my life, which is why it was my last. By then I'd re-read a lot of Grossman's stuff, read Gonzales, and discussed a great deal of it with a friend of mine who's a shrink. So, there I am, hyperventilating, breaking out in a cold sweat, doubling over and frothing at the mouth, and despite all appearances I'm doing okay. Because inside the contorted physical exterior, my mind is saying "okay, we know what this is. We are initiating a reflexive physical response to a perceived threat that doesn't actually exist. The lower brain has run away with our body and is spazzing out. However, this time we have been able to maintain higher thought processes and rationally process what is going on instead of streaming live video feed of all the horrible things we saw in Iraq through our head. This is a good thing."

I'm not sure if all the understanding of what's happening in my brain was really necessary. What was ABSOLUTELY important is that I established a relationship with the event such that I maintained control. I gained an understanding of the thing such that I no longer felt a reason to fear it. Because I no longer feared it, I could deal with it. I could have established that knowledge by any number of methods. Some guys only need to read the field manual once. Some guys have to do rock drills. Other guys need to see it done. They still learn the same battle drill. "I'm having a panic attack. Be cool. Ride it out."

I think another major aspect is having an outlet. I turned into a smoker like no other for about the first four months. When I quit, I took up triathlon. Not the smoothest transition ever devised. I worked up to Ironman distance and I'm still hooked. I found something really strange along the way-- there are lots of others like me. I haven't been able to find enough folks who'll give me interviews to accumulate compelling evidence, but I'm convinced there's something to it. There are plenty of people out there who think you've got to be crazy to swim, bike, and run 140.6 miles. I think that may actually be true. Ironman was invented by a bunch of military guys, after all. What in the world compels people to do it? Why go that distance? It's not all about the finish line. When you subject your body to that level of punishment, you go somewhere else deep inside of you. You can't finish unless you do. I think that's the ultimate reason people do it. They're not there for the finish-- they're there for that moment when you just want to quit, where you have to fight against your own body and conquer your urge to give up in order to reach your objective. Why do so many amputees, burn victims, and other combat injured and disabled ride bicycles across the US, or run marathons, or tackle other endurance events? Because it's about endurance. They're enduring something. For them, it's part trial of their ability to overcome their challenges, part celebration of their recovery, and part journey inward to learn something about the new person they've become.

Maybe for some people it's boxing or MMA. For others it might be team sports. But I think it's important for people to get into something where they can put themselves back in the fight. Go do something that's going to knock you down, just to prove you can get back up.

With regard to who makes up the majority of PTSD cases, I've seen conflicting reports. One said that Intel personnel make up the majority, with the causal factor being all the photos they have to look at of bodies. I had a friend that watched videos of a reporter being beheaded over and over for about two days straight while he was trying to figure out the location. That and a concussion messed him up. Another report said that logistics personnel have it the worst because of all the ambushes they meet driving on the roads and the concussions sustained from IEDs. However, your combat arms crowd is going to be the demographic most at risk to avoid reporting due to the ridicule factor. So the statistics are probably skewed any which way you cut it.

Support groups are paramount. ODAs and SEAL teams are tight-knit. Even when you PCS you're going to meet someone you know. The big Army isn't as personable all the time.

This one's probably going to be contentious, but I'll say it. A sense of confidence that you're doing the right thing is important. Look at the legions of Rome and Alexander. After those guys got done hacking Persians and Huns to pieces with bronze swords and pulling their heads off with their bare hands, they came home to massive parades where the citizens showered them with rose petals. They were revered. They held special priveleges as honored members of society. When they came back from Vietnam? The rose petals turned into rotten tomatoes. As for the warrior's place in modern society? Joining the Army is something you do if you can't get into college. As for popular support, well, we know how that is. It's kind of hard to reconcile your conscience over drilling some guy you never met in the face with an automatic weapon when your country can't even reconcile within its electorate the justification for sending you into said guy's house in the first place.

I've never seen a sore winner. It's a lot easier to deal with your actions when they aren't painted by defeat. I'm not saying that we lost in Iraq, or that we'll lose in Afghanistan. But I don't think that, no matter what happens in either country, Americans will ever FEEL on a national level that they won. It kind of sucks when you start a 12-month deployment knowing that nothing you do is going to change people's perspective for the positive. "I'm wasting a year of my life" is a crappy outlook to start the day with if it's going to end with you killing another human being. If it's a waste when you get out of bed, what is it by the time you're back in the rack?

As Clausewitz said, "the moral elements are most important in war."

That reminds me. I forgot another important quote in my previous post. My favorite general, Sherman, once said:

"Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by Grant when he was drunk. Now we stand together."

Jim,
If you like Ironman may I commend to you Born to Run by Chris McDougall. I just finished it and it is a really great non-fiction book. I read an enormous amount but I can't get this book out of my head. It speaks to that overcoming and enduring spirit.

I have a suspicion that PTSD, shell shock, combat fatigue; whatever name you want to apply to it is largely a feature of war beginning in the 19th century. Obviously, I don’t know that as an absolute fact but it seems to me the civilizing features of our era have done much to alter our psychological or as JIM GOURLEY says our spiritual relationship to the consequences of lethal violence. I wonder if Caesar’s Legionnaires ankle deep in gore butchering Vercingetorix’s Gallic tribes at Alesia or the British Guards mowing down with musketry Napoleon’s Imperial Guards at Waterloo were confronted with a challenge to their mental equilibrium? In August 1758 the 42nd Foot the Royal Highland Regt. ‘The Black Watch’ stormed the breastworks of Fort Carillion (Ticonderoga) received a horrific slaughtering yet went onto further superb service in a particularly vicious and brutal war and the many first hand accounts of that regiment’s service do not mention lingering mental distress.

JPWREL,

I think some things about modern combat do indeed change the psychological relationship. Alexander's legions had to march for weeks or months all the way back from Afghanistan to get to Macedonia, or they married a girl there and became permanent residents. Our guys get on a plane and are sitting in front of the TV with their wife and kids in less than 96 hours.

Guys at Antietam and Cold Harbor sat down by campfires after sunset and shared the warmth of their comaraderie and a flask of Tennessee whiskey before the next day's fighting. Our guys turn on the TV or head to the MWR shack and write e-mail. GO #1 keeps hooch out of theater.

Battles prior to WWI were usually single, set-piece engagements that decided things in at least a theater if not the whole conflict. Today the combat resembles the getaway scene in 'Heat'-- a continuous running gun fight that doesn't seem to have a clear outcome.

I think there was greater moral clarity back then, as well. I'm not saying anyone was more righteous according to the principles of Walzer, it's just that they knew what they were about and were comfortable with it. The Samurai, the Legionaire, the Jannisary, they were all fighting for *the* right cause and no one could judge them. Today, the situation is very confused, and everyone judges the Soldier-- via satellite no less. The Rolling Stone article on McChrystal demonstrates that. There's the commander, our version of Alexander in Afghanistan, and he can't convince his own troops that the ROE is right. It's not that they think they have the right answer, rather that they haven't seen anything that looks right. Far from saying "this is wrong", they're telling us that they don't even know which end is up. So right off the bat their combat environment is that dark cave I was talking about, and we've robbed them of their lantern. We've accelerated their progression toward every rock becoming a bear.

The advent of greater standoff due to increased weapons range has something to do with it. If a guy's coming at you with a sword, that's one thing. Yes, it's terrifying and gruesome, but you can morally resolve that. Combat almost becomes a mass action of self-defense. But think of all the stories of snipers who just couldn't pull the trigger at various times for whatever reason. It's hard to make a guy's head explode while he's lighting a cigarette. When our guys have seen enough intel reports to know the guy in their sights burying an IED is more likely a dirt-poor farmer just trying to feed his family than a stone-cold insurgent, it's hard not to feel a degree of sympathy.

I wonder how much entertainment technology has changed things. Grossman has written reams of polemic against the use of combat-themed video games as mass entertainment. If you haven't seen videos of the new "Modern Warfare 2" game, check it out. When you fly a UAV on that game, IT IS REAL. I've never seen anything so sophisticated in its simulation. Now, take a kid who's been playing games like that since he was fifteen, shove him out on his first combat patrol, and get him in a firefight. Is he more or less prepared? Did the game do him a tremendous psychological injustice by falsely convincing him how "easy" it is to fight and kill people?

When I was a PL in 2003, we'd run convoy escorts through Mosul, and then the guys would come back to our base and play "Grand Theft Auto". I couldn't help but think even then that there was very little difference between their work and their play. They never turned their minds off to it. They were "plugged in" 24/7. Road rage around Fort Campbell is infamous.

I don't think technology is bad. I do think that, like our military strategies and operations, we don't give enough consideration to what the second and third order effects will be. We've been in such a rush to "fix" this problem for so long that I think we're probably dealing with 20th-order effects at this point. That will take a lot of thinking. No, we can't go back to flintlocks and phalanxes, but there are some fundamentals we can revive. Kick company commanders off their laptops and let them run their companies. Stop thinking you need daily CPOF-hosted intra-theater broadband powerpoint circle jerk sessions. Get your head out of your computer and go look your troops in the face. The machines were supposed to automate things, that means they should be able to run themselves for a bit. Go out there and lead your people. We should be able to afford to do that. The Taliban has about 1/1,000,000,000 of our technological capacity, and they seem to be doing just fine.

Jim, I hope someone with power and influence is paying attention to your posts. You continue to make more sense than anyone in leadership I've spoken to about this problem.

You have taken the time to UNDERSTAND the problem and view things from more than just your own perspective. Until everyone else in leadership is willing to do that, I don't think this problem can be solved.

"Kick company commanders off their laptops and let them run their companies. Stop thinking you need daily CPOF-hosted intra-theater broadband powerpoint circle jerk sessions. Get your head out of your computer and go look your troops in the face."

Might I add.... commanders would you treat your own child in the way you treat your troops? If the honest answer is NO, then you need to reevaluate immediately.

I feel uncomfortable coming back to a mainstream society that does not feel like it is engaged in or pulling their weight for the war. I think part of this is a leadership issue, the Bush Administration did not even put together a War Bond effort that could have increased national participation and engagement that would have allowed people to express their patriotism by providing resources to troops.

When we returned home from Iraq after we were extended, my recon platoon sergeant had seen his wife and children for 18 out of the last 45 months. Think about that. He was married to his high school sweetheart and they had four kids. Think about all the missed birthdays, the missed Christmases - not to mention that one of his boys nearly died from a staph infection while we were in Mosul. And, when he found out, the docs told him they would know within 24 hours and he couldn't make it home it time even if the military flew him out.

It's not fair. It's not fair to me that the most selfless community I know is asked to deploy over and over and over again while everyone else grabs their skim lattes and goes to work in a nice air conditioned office. And that latter community now includes me.

Just prior to 9/11, my military professor, a light colonel, told my class that during the Cold War, the professional Army was designed to be a "speedbump" to hold the line while America summoned her resources to surge and win the war in a decisive push - sort of a two-phase plan to apply the Powell Doctrine.

Well, men and women better than I have held the line for nine long years. I served for four years on active duty, 15 months of that in combat, and I served two years as a reservist. But my heroes are the men and women who deploy again and again and again.

The dedication to go to war when so many express apathy; the persistence to stay the course when so many are ready to quit; the selflessness to give your life for a faint hope of victory; I stand in awe of the American spirit - the warrior ethos that some disparaged on here. American are winners, but more, our modern warriors display compassion and provide medical aid to our sworn enemies to a degree that no other Army that has walked the earth before has done. The Battle of Zarqa shows how quickly we can change gears. I get chills when I think I am part of a new class of warrior. As MacArthur noted, 'The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being."

It is a testament to the men and women in uniform that, after all of the strategic mistakes in Iraq, after all of our individual loss and suffering, that this war is largely devoid of any war crimes. Abu Ghraib was perpetrated by civilian type support soldiers, not by the warriors. I consider it a great honor to have my name counted among those who compose such a professional Army.

The O'Brien's are out there. But a great work of fiction will probably not develop until it can communicate to a historical narrative that is fairly certain. And right now, the outcomes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are far from certain.

Blake Hall

I think the writers are out there too, although I hope they don't wait for or follow "a historical narrative that is fairly certain." Another thing I just thought of, many writers will be found among Iraqis and Afghans. Who are the Vietnamese, Hmong and Lao writers of the American War?

Combat is just another name for trauma. And humans have never been immune to trauma - we are emotional and social creatures - there is nothing about modern warfare that has changed the human condition.

Thank you for posting this.

Sincerely,
Blake Hall