When Vets Kill

This post originally appeared in Cicero Magazine on 9 May 2014.

Are American vets saints or sinners? When incidents such as the 2009 and 2014 Fort Hood shootings, the 2012 Wisconsin Sikh Temple attack and the 2013 Washington Naval Yard shootings—all involving former military personnel—are combined in the media with reports of the epidemic of veteran suicide, veteran homelessness, military sexual trauma, and domestic violence among soldiers, it paints a grim picture. Yet the portrayal sends a mixed message when paired with the ‘celebrity Generals’ and corporate and political hero worship of serving troops and veterans. Such media depictions only serve to erect the metaphorical wall even higher between those who serve and those who do not, yet creating a kind of collective guilt among the latter that recoils in horror after such shootings, even as they cannot pass someone in uniform without reaffirming their patriotism with a token nod of support. More perplexing is when such shootings get hijacked by media discussions over PTSD, which distracts everyone from the real issue at stake: the presence of handguns on military bases, which are supposed to be citadels of security.So which is it: saints or sinners?

The answer is complicated, and one that is informed by this country’s collective urge to celebrate all things that support the troops, who Boston University’s Andrew Bacevich describes as the real “One Percent”, but without asking Americans to make a shred of sacrifice. God forbid that taxes were raised to pay for two wars or that anybody in Congress mention talk of a draft. In truth, a cynic might say that the troops are unfurled before the public whenever they help move product — whether to sell newspapers, to sell beer, to sell candidates, and so forth. The military and veterans are together one of the few institutions in America that continues to enjoy near-Universal, non-partisan respect. However this ‘respect’ often translates into little more than a pat on the back, a handshake and a ‘thanks for your service’. The struggles of America’s veterans are real. However, they are neither unblemished heroes nor violent mental psychopaths. What is missing from the veterans’ narrative depicted in the media is the veterans themselves.

Vets are portrayed as national saints or victims and perpetrators. Despite having such obvious symbolic power in America, veterans have little real power. Corporate boardrooms do not welcome them. There are virtually no veteran CEOs who do not work for military-related companies or in a project they did not start themselves. The US Congress has the lowest number of veteran members since the end of WWII. Military pay and benefits—long sacrosanct—are now being targeted as entitlements in fiscal battles in Washington. The VA benefits backlog is still a problem after decades of empty political promises. Many of those vets who do make it into powerful circles are often granted access because of who they come to know, not out of some belief that they merit success for their sacrifices. Most veterans organisations, new and old, have chosen or been forced to pick a partisan political side, despite the fact that neither side can claim to have clean hands when it comes to handling military and veterans affairs.
Madison Avenue has also gotten on the troops-are-heroes gravy train. One can hardly pick up a name-brand product at a grocery store in America without it carrying a notice that some of the corporate proceeds go to helping ‘our heroes’ through a tax-deductible veteran’s charity. The opening or halftime ceremony of every major sporting event features tributes to the troops.

While it is encouraging that veterans and charities are receiving this kind of attention, it is clearly not for altruistic motives. Images of US troops are being used to sell products. Almost every major corporate brand in America has a military page on its website where it professes to make special efforts to hire vets—leaving out mention of the tax incentives it receives to do so. For-profit colleges with questionable reputations for quality mercilessly target veterans for their GI Bill funds. Politicians and political action groups are the worst offenders in abusing service-members for their own personal gain, from sources as diverse as gay pride rallies to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. Despite regulations against it, men and women in uniform are a favorite backdrop for elected officials who hope to gain from the legitimacy and public support the troops enjoy.
One can hardly pick up a name-brand product at a grocery store in America without it carrying a notice that some of the corporate proceeds go to helping ‘our heroes’ through a tax-deductible veteran’s charity.

This year’s Super Bowl featured a Budweiser ad showing a ‘Hero’s Welcome’ for a Lieutenant returning from Afghanistan. Budweiser at one point even claimed to have ‘Army support’ for the ad. Opinion among veterans was split as to whether the commercial stepped over the fine line between recognizing the troops and using them to sell products. It is against military regulations to appear in uniform to sell products or to participate in political activities. The US Army initially considered pursuing a cease-and-desist order to prevent the spot from airing and never adequately explained why it decided to allow Budweiser to go-ahead.

By way of contrast, immediately following the recent shootings at Fort Hood, Texas by Army Specialist Ivan Lopez, media reports were quick to point out that it happened on a military post, the shooter was a soldier, a veteran of the Iraq War, and apparently had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Parallels were immediately drawn between this incident, the 2009 Fort Hood shootings by Major Nadal Hassan and the 2013 Washington Naval Yard shootings by Navy Reservist Aaron Alexis. Even the killing of three people at a Jewish community center in Kansas by a Klansman was linked to the gunman’s status as a Vietnam vet. With 24-hour television news and most major newspapers providing extensive coverage in the days and weeks following the Lopez shootings, one would be excused for believing there must be an epidemic of violence among American troops and veterans. Inside each of us, the media appears to insinuate, is a Timothy McVeigh itching to be heard.

But the depiction is false. A law enforcement analysis of 29 active shooter incidents between 1999 and 2012 found that most were workplace-related incidents committed by lone young men, the majority of which used semiautomatic pistols and died in the incident, either by their own hand or through the response of law enforcement personnel. Almost all of them had long-term issues with work or family. The most interesting fact is that of these 29 incidents, only 4 were current or former military personnel. One of them, Major Nadal Hassan, cited Islamic terror as his motive. Another, the Wisconsin Sikh Temple shootings, was motivated by racial hatred. The other two exhibited histories and grievances consistent with the other 25 non-veteran shooters. Based on this data, arguably there is no link between military service, PTSD and shooting rampages.

Specialist Ivan Lopez has the same profile as non-veteran active shooters. He was a young, lone male with a semiautomatic pistol who eventually turned his weapon on himself when confronted by law enforcement. The picture that has emerged of Lopez is of someone struggling to adjust to a new home, a new career and difficulties with his superiors—a situation that is not military-specific whatsoever. He just happened to be a soldier. Contrary to common views, Lopez did not just snap; he was likely harboring a long-simmering resentment toward his workplace and what he saw as unfairness in his life. The fact he already had his weapon in his car on the day of the shooting incident suggests a degree of premeditation or that he was already considering the possibility of taking action.

But the media immediately latched onto the fact he was a soldier, had deployed to Iraq and was being evaluated for PTSD. Much has since been made of the fact that he deployed to Iraq for only four months as proof he could not have PTSD. In fairness, one incident on one day is enough to be traumatized if severe enough. Different people are affected in different ways and, contrary to the media narrative, development and severity of PTSD does not depend upon the number of months or tours served in combat. One of the issues of treating PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury is that they are mental wounds which can only be diagnosed by their symptoms as reported by or observed in the patient.

Perhaps Lopez did have PTSD, perhaps not. There is no way to know now. It actually matters very little. Despite the connection the media immediately draws in such circumstances, there is only a very weak connection between PTSD and violence. However it is clear that Specialist Lopez was struggling to deal with his life in a way that many non-military, non-veteran Americans do every day, a struggle which can lead to violence. However this has not kept the media from playing up the military-PTSD aspect.
When it comes to US troops and veterans, the American media has developed a clearly detectable ‘Madonna/Whore Complex’, in which those who serve are invariably portrayed as either perfections of virtue beyond reproach (see the fawning coverage of David Petraeus prior to 2012) or as victims of the government or society or as perpetrators with festering mental health issues which may lead to suicide, violence or even murder.

Consider the following headline: “Veterans with PTSD Linked to Everything That Could Kill Your Children.” Fortunately, it is from the military satire site The Duffel Blog. Adding to this state of affairs is the (ab)use of service-members and veterans in media campaigns by politicians, political action committees and corporations for their own gain. Troops have become the new talking babies or cute kittens playing with yarn – mere props to move product and check Americans’ box to pay tribute for their service, and maybe even profit off their presence. Whenever events like the Fort Hood shooting presents us with a more nuanced and untidy picture of our veterans’ well-beings, we tend to veer into the other extreme, painting them with a broad brush as PTSD-addled killers. That is not to simply grasp the cliché that the truth is somewhere in between, but rather that most of our veterans are not unlike any other segment of the American population.

Take Specialist Ivan Lopez. On another day, in different circumstances, a former police officer, Iraq War vet and Army reservist who decided to switch to driving trucks on active duty to feed his family would have been a hero. He would have been in a Budweiser commercial or spoke at the local VFW. Instead, the media pictures him as a frustrated loser with PTSD who was ten years older than other troops his rank who could not handle his troubles anymore. The veteran is a war hero one day, an armed killer the next. Within hours of the shootings and his suicide, the story was already creating media churn and being put to political use by politicians and advocacy organisations. It has become the latest chapter in the debate about guns in America. One side argues that active shootings like those in Aurora, Sandy Hook, and Fort Hood could have been prevented if the public, school officials, and off-duty soldiers were allowed to be armed in public. The message has to focus on Lopez’s undiagnosed PTSD and mental health issues. It was not easy access to firearms that caused this shooting; it was Lopez’s mental health issues. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.

Contrary to popular belief, living on a military post means less access and exposure to privately-owned firearms than living off post. The weapons used by Major Nadal Hassan and Specialist Ivan Lopez were obtained off post at private establishments and kept against military regulations. Though every company-sized military element on a base counts hundreds of firearms among its equipment, access to this weaponry is very tightly controlled by commanders and armorers. Troops cannot simply draw out their assigned rifle at will. It can only be for a purpose authorized by the unit commander. Though military posts such as Fort Hood may contain tens of thousands of small arms weapons, they are kept secure in padlocked racks or cages behind bank vault doors armed with alarms that notify military police directly any time an arms room is accessed. Most military facilities with arms rooms are also manned by soldiers 24 hours a day. Any time a weapon leaves a vault, a paper trail is created as to who signed for it, when, and what armorer allowed it out. Access to weaponry is taken seriously by the US military.

Contrast this with the various disjointed, inconsistent and ill-enforced laws regulating the purchase, use, transport, carrying and storage of civilian firearms outside of bases across the United States. No matter your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, even transporting a firearm from one town or county to another can lead to an unknowing violation of the law. Each city, county and state seems to have its own rules and regulations and the federal government seems to change its application or interpretation of firearms regulations depending upon who is in Congress or the White House. America’s gun laws, no matter your view of them, are a tragi-comical absolute mess.

Many troops own personal firearms as well. Military policy requires these weapons be registered with their unit and must be stored in the same arms room as military weaponry and are subject to the same controls. As with military-issue weaponry, access to personal weapons is only by arrangement with the armorer with the permission of the unit commander.
Yet some on the right would like to see more guns on military posts. More guns would not stop or deter an active shooter like Ivan Lopez. These are people who have determined they will commit a violent act and will continue to shoot people until they are shot by police or shoot themselves. The Hasan and Lopez shootings took place during the duty day and military police were on the scene within fifteen minutes. Both incidents were over quickly. Introducing an off duty soldier who happened by chance to be in the area and carrying his personal weapon into the situation could serve only to cause confusion among law enforcement as to who the perpetrator is. This would be made worse if word spreads across a post and draws armed soldiers who want to help, creating a tangle of armed troopers without command and control. Soldiers do not behave that way in combat and it makes equally less sense to do so on post. Law Enforcement, with special training, radios and coordination should handle such incidents.

It is rather ironic that the media focused on the military and PTSD aspect of the Lopez shooting rather than use it as an opportunity to discuss responsible gun laws. Instead, they’re portraying soldiers as victim-perpetrators to sell newspapers. In the case of Ivan Lopez, it was not PTSD or a soldier’s fondness for guns or access to military weaponry that allowed this latest Fort Hood shooting to occur. Lopez’s grievances with the world were not military-specific. They were the same issues many civilians have. Military weapons were not involved.

It was the easy access to weaponry off post that allowed Ivan Lopez to obtain a firearm in Killeen, Texas (ironically, from the same gun shop where Major Nadal Hasan bought one of his guns) and bring it onto post to kill his fellow soldiers. This incident had nothing to do with Lopez being a soldier or if he had PTSD or any failure in military policy as the media and some politicians and advocacy groups have claimed. It was the America outside of Fort Hood that allowed this incident to occur. If America outside the walls of military posts had as sensible gun control laws and took weapons as seriously as the America inside them, active shootings like this could be stopped.

Which returns us to the general public’s schizophrenic relationship with its armed forces. So long as there is this metaphorical wall between us and them, there will be this mixed message after tragedies whereby we praise our heroes with our right hand, while condemning their PTSD with our other hand, even as we refuse to do anything to fix our own gun-obsessed culture. Carry on America “supporting the troops,” with tributes, fundraisers, and shout-outs during seventh innings.
Keep patting backs, wearing t-shirts and slapping on bumper stickers. But if you really want to pay tribute to their sacrifice, fix this country. Make it into one that is worth fighting for and that the troops are welcome and safe to return to.

The U.S. Army Can't Stop Soldiers From Killing Themselves

This article originally appeared in The Atlantic on 12 October 2012.

Any former soldier will tell you that the U.S. Army sometimes goes to rather ridiculous extremes to keep the troops safe. In Kuwait, soldiers are required to wear yellow reflective belts at all times and junior soldiers are not allowed to go anywhere alone. In Iraq, some units require wearing ballistic protective eyewear at all times, even on camp on the way to the latrine. In Germany, the Army forbade soldiers to ride motorcycles because three soldiers died in accidents there. Every Friday, soldiers receive "safety briefs," and on long weekends they must have their personal vehicles checked for safety hazards by their leadership.

But while the Army takes great care not to lose soldiers to injury or accidental death, it has been unable to protect the troops against what is currently the leading cause of their death: suicide. The Army needs to make a cultural change to combat this problem.

This summer, the Army reported that active-duty suicides had reached a record high: 26 in the month of July alone. Last year at exactly the same time, I wrote that July 2011 recorded the most Army-wide suicides ever with 32 (22 of whom were active duty). In June 2010, 31 soldiers committed suicide (21 of them active duty). These numbers are the equivalent of an entire platoon. In most months, more soldiers are lost to suicide than are killed in combat. Additionally, an average of 18 veterans per day commits suicide. That is 540 per month; a battalion of veterans lost to suicide each month.

Compare the attention given when only 10 soldiers die in a single combat action. Imagine the attention and national sorrow if the Army lost an entire battalion, something that hasn't happened since Vietnam. In reality, it is happening every month.

The big question is what should be done to combat this epidemic. The Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs recognize its severity, and recognition is the first step toward addressing it. The next step must be a change in the Army culture. This is not a problem that can be solved with a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation in the post chapel, accompanied by a brochure with a hotline number. Tackling this problem will require leaders at all levels to get out from behind their rank and military instruction manuals and talk about something that is hard for tough guys to talk about: how to support each other emotionally. Any leader who cannot or won't do this shouldn't be in a leadership role.

America today is in the enviable position of being able to fight complex conflicts on several fronts thousands of miles away without causing many bumps in the road back home. There has been no rationing of goods and no draft to support our last decade spent at war. Only 0.5 percent of the U.S. population has served in the active military during this time, and we have had an all-volunteer military for decades. Unless Americans have a friend or family member serving, most see the war only in the media and can easily blot it out of their lives if they like.

Despite genuine support and respect for the troops, there are still many who feel they already get too much "handed to them." One still comes across comments, even among some veterans, that the military is "just a job" that soldiers are paid well to do, and that there are other equally valuable vocations out there that are equally dangerous. These opinions are often held or echoed by people who never served a day in uniform themselves.

What does this have to do with the suicide problem? No one else understands what soldiers go through except other soldiers. There is no way they can. If military leaders, soldiers, and veterans do not or will not support each other, no one else will. To put it bluntly, only good Army leadership and fellow soldiers can solve this problem because no one else can identify with their experience.

Leaders have to build a relationship with their soldiers like big brothers or father figures, not just bosses.

It's true that many of our soldiers come from homes with low income or a poor family structure, but there are just as many who come from tight-knit middle-class backgrounds. Many have their own families at home, but there are just as many single soldiers whose family circle is the guys in the barracks. In the Army, you work hard and play hard. Bi-annual year-long deployments alternate with month-long field training exercises. The military also has a problem with alcoholism and domestic abuse, which can result when the pressure gets to be too much. Regardless of soldiers' backgrounds, the terrible things they see in combat are stuck in their heads forever.

If you listen to veterans of an earlier generation, some will berate troops that left after serving four or eight years and accuse them of not "hacking it." Many of them believe that all this talk of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury is garbage; they just called it "shell shock" back in their day and moved on. This bitter talk is not helpful, and it re-enforces the avoidance of the suicide problem. As evidenced by the number of suicides among old as well as young veterans, this is a problem for the whole community.

For Army culture to begin to really address the problem of suicide, it needs to give the matter serious attention at all levels of leadership education, both for commissioned and noncommissioned officers. The Army already has a manual on what is required of leaders: FM 6-22. The manual contains sections on empathy, interpersonal tact, and communication, along with building teamwork and esprit de corps. It is already a requirement of good Army leadership to be able interface with soldiers in a way that supports and builds them up from a mental and emotional perspective. Any soldier unable or unwilling to do this should not be a leader.

The Army also already has in place a counseling system whereby every individual soldier has a leader directly responsible for him or her. This leader is required to conduct and document the session individually. Unfortunately, this requirement has become so regimented and regulated by senior leaders that there is almost no element of individual choice or personal relationship left in it. The fast operational tempo of the job means that leaders lack the time to sit down with their soldiers and talk to them outside the constraints of "Task, Condition, Standards."

Every Thursday morning Army-wide used to be set aside as "Sergeant's time," where first-line leaders trained their troops on soldiering tasks. But this concept also suffered from micromanagement by senior leadership, who were concerned that the time wasn't being used properly. The Army has to give to leaders at all levels sufficient and consistent time to speak with their subordinates on a small-group or individual basis. It is a necessity for combatting this problem and is in keeping with what is already required of good Army leadership.

The concept that needs to be gotten across is that the Army is a family and all members need mutual support for it to work well. There is no equipment or manual that can build this sense of togetherness. There is no outside help that is going to cultivate it. Leaders have to build a relationship with their soldiers like big brothers or father figures, not just bosses. They have to talk about the tough times their soldiers will face before, during, and after combat tours. They have to talk about the fact that everyone is going to have difficulty dealing with what they experience, no matter what they might say. A soldier troubled by his experience in combat is normal. A soldier who isn't the slightest bit troubled by the things he has seen is not.

Leaders also have to take the time to look at their own leadership style and adapt it to the present situation. Strict discipline may be the right approach at some times, but taking a gentler tone may be more suitable at others. Making these distinctions is a crucial part of leadership.

Senior officers should also give junior leaders room to exercise their own judgment. Junior noncommissioned officers are on the frontlines and are more in touch with individual soldiers. Yet they are overworked and are often not given the space or time to develop the type of individual, mutually open relationships needed to combat the suicide problem. Once they are thrown into combat with soldiers, they have to quickly develop that relationship or they'll fail. When junior leaders are unable to figure out how to best motivate their soldiers, they take the wrong approach, especially in grinding, high-stress combat. That can lead to the feelings of sorrow and hopelessness that may eventually result in suicide.

Senior noncommissioned officers also have a role. They have to look out for their own junior NCOs in the same manner. Experienced senior NCOs also often have a broader overview of the situation, and from that vantage point, they may be able to pick up on signs that junior leaders can miss in the fray. They also have the advantage of often being a little older than junior soldiers and can more easily fill a "fatherly" role. Their rank also allows them more latitude in taking steps to address individual issues.

Sergeant majors and first sergeants can be the first focal points for this change in Army culture. As the most senior of NCOs, their mission is to provide for the welfare of the troops under them while officers focus on planning and leading military missions and requirements. These senior NCOs are the most respected in the Army. Getting these leaders -- who are often seen as the toughest guys around -- to talk about emotional support, look for the signs and symptoms of suicide, and end the stigma against seeking help can have a tremendous impact on addressing suicide.

Officers are more removed from dealings with individual soldiers, but mission success depends upon unit cohesion. Officers can make it clear that suicide is a serious problem. The impact of a soldier's suicide on his unit as a whole is devastating. Shifting the blame to the victim stands in the way of addressing the problem. Officers also must check on one another and their subordinates and constantly evaluate their own leadership style to ensure it fits properly with the current situation.

There are bad leaders in the Army. Every soldier has had at least one. They come in all different ranks and types. But soldiers and veterans are being lost every day to suicide--far too many to not take this problem seriously. Army leaders who are dismissive about the issue are failing as leaders. In the words of General Colin Powell, "The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership."

The Silent Killer Among Our Troops

This post originally appeared on the Intrepid Life Brewing blog on 24 September 2012.

There is a silent epidemic killing U.S. servicemembers and veterans in America. It takes out a platoon of soldiers each month. Around a battalion of veterans falls victim to it monthly. When you speak to people about the statistics their first reaction is disbelief. Unfortunately, the numbers are correct. This killer is suicide. Eighteen veterans attempt suicide each day. In most months, fifteen to thirty active duty soldiers, sailors, Marines, or airmen commit suicide. In some months, such as July 2012, more troops are lost to suicide than to combat.

Multiple combat deployments, PTSD/TBI, depression, and family or financial troubles cause great hardship. It is indisputable that the military can be a hard life. Men and women who come home and hang up their uniform to enter the civilian world find themselves on new and unfamiliar terrain. America’s current economic troubles don’t help any and young veterans have struggled in particular to find work, more so than their non-veteran counterparts. All of these contribute to the suicide problem.

Recognizing the problem, President Obama has issued an executive order increasing the number of mental health professionals at the VA, increasing cooperation with local community mental health care providers, and increasing funding for research into the problem. Some in Congress have also taken up the issue in hearings and legislation. However, the VA already has thousands of vacant positions for mental health professionals and creating more may not be enough help. Additionally, fights over cuts in federal spending may mean cuts to VA funding in coming years. Whatever the barrier is that is keeping these mental health jobs open must be removed and these positions filled. Cutting funding for vets programs just when a new generation of veterans needs it most is irresponsible.

Funding for veterans programs must not fall victim to cuts. This is a problem that is not going away and ignoring it will likely make it worse. There are things worth paying for. Using taxpayer dollars to ensure someone is there for those who were there when the country needed them is one of these things. This silent epidemic must be stopped. If we continue to treat those who fight for the country so poorly there may be no one there to answer the call of duty.

September 11 2001: The Day Everything Changed for the US Military

This article originally appeared on PolicyMic on September 11 2012.

For many who spent time in uniform on 9/11/01, life is very much a story of before and after. I listened to the broadcast of the attacks on BBC radio while on an Army field exercise in Graefenwoehr, Germany. Much was different for soldiers before that day and much has changed since then.

Before, we trained with deployments to places like Bosnia or Kosovo in mind, not Afghanistan or Iraq. We wore Cold War-era equipment and woodland camouflage uniforms and slept in tents in the woods or in soft-sided military vehicles. Being stationed in Germany, we were all more practiced at fighting a Warsaw Pact enemy in the snow, mud, and rain of Europe than the urban or desert terrain of the Middle East. The Army life was generally as routine as military life can be. You get a new assignment and pack your bags for someplace new about every two years.

As we listened to the towers fall, still hoping it was some kind of an accident, we didn’t know how much things were about to change. Our exercise was cut short and we loaded into our vehicles and headed back to our post the next morning. An image I will always remember from that convoy is of Germans driving past waving small American flags out of the windows of their cars and shouting slogans of support. If any country knows what good the U.S. military has done in the world, it is Germany. Fifty six years before, America and its allies had rolled over the Nazis and then spent the next several decades rebuilding our former enemy under the Marshall Plan. U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany have been supporting the economy and our NATO ally since 1945. It may have been a rocky relationship since 2003, but I’ll always remember the faces of those German men and women waving the flag in support of America, in support of a country not their own and to people they would never meet.

Less than two years later our convoy was greeted again with waves from smiling citizens, but this time we were rolling into Baghdad. The results of ‘shock and awe’ were still very apparent. The people there were glad to see us at first. They all said thanks and then asked when we were leaving. Over the coming months we would all come to learn much about Iraq, Islam, Baathists, IEDs, snipers, and ambushes on city streets. The learning curve was steep. As we rolled back down to Kuwait on the way home 15 months of combat later, we did so with 10 of our brothers dead and four times as many, including myself, wounded in action.

One image that is forever burned into my memory is of two kids in an alley way near the bank of the Tigris. As I pulled security at the end of the alley, they snuck up on a mangy stray dog asleep in the sunshine, one of them holding a cup of gasoline and the other a lit piece of newspaper. They threw it on the dog and laughed as it cried and burned and died. Kids play with dogs; they don’t kill them. The things you want to remember, you forget; the things you’d like to forget, you always remember. Some people would call American soldiers savages, but there are worse things in this world.

We went home for a year and came back again. This time we flew in and slept in air-conditioned trailers and had showers and Burger King. But the streets outside were still the same, if not worse. I was assigned to a small team embedded with an Iraqi army unit we were to train and support. As the sectarian war raged, I remember getting a call from the U.S. battalion paired with our unit. They had found six bodies and five heads and needed us to come out. That wasn’t the first time I took a call like that or the last.

Three days before we all flew home, on the last mission he was to go on, we lost a platoon mate. The mixture of sorrow and joy left you feeling almost drunk. We sat around in the gravel, numb under our ponchos in the rain, and smoked and talked about what we were going to do when we got home. At that point, I was supposed to have been out the Army for three months already, but they had ‘stop-lossed’ me. They let me go three months later and I decided to make a clean break of it. I went to college on the GI Bill. I finished my degree in 2010. I’m starting grad school next week.

9/11 changed a lot in my life and in a lot of other lives. Everyone that went to war knows someone that didn’t make it back. A lot of veterans left a piece of themselves there. A lot of young men and women saw more than most others will see in a lifetime. Many soldiers came home to empty houses or drank themselves to sleep at night or worse. Families split up. Kids have grown up without a parent. People politely thank me for my service and I politely thank them back, but talking about the wars makes people back home uncomfortable. Usually I don’t offer up that I’m a veteran, but most know by looking at me.

Everything is different after 9/11. If you told me I could throw a magic switch and take back 9/11 and stop the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I would do it in a heartbeat. No question. But if you said that I could only take back my own part in the fighting, I wouldn’t do it. It was the most terrible time in my life, but it was also the best time of my life. It made me who I am. I know that is hard to understand for most people. I have trouble understanding it myself. But there it is. 9/11 changed everything for our soldiers.

Soldiers and Suicide

This article originally appeared in The Guardian on 17 August 2011.

Thirty-two American soldiers committed suicide this July, the highest number since the Army started releasing monthly figures. That is one soldier per day, and one more than died in the recent helicopter attack that killed 31 American troops, including more than 20 Navy Seals. The annual number of suicides in the Marine Corps, which doesn't release monthly figures, is on pace with the Army. These figures do not include the suicide rate among veterans, which averages 18 per day.

Institutionally, the military recognises this is a problem; culturally, it does not.

My battalion deployed to Iraq in April 2003. We came home after an extended 15 months of combat in July 2004. We returned home for a year and redeployed in November 2005. During these two tours, my unit lost 13 soldiers in combat and handed out twice as many Purple Hearts, including my own. I left for the Army Reserves in 2007. There I was told that my "deployment clock" was at zero and, though I had just returned, could deploy again. Fortunately, it didn't come to that, though I know it did for others. My story is not unique. Ask another vet and you'll hear the same.

I have friends still serving. Some have done as many as four tours in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Everyone who went knows someone who didn't come back. Relationships have also been casualties. Of the first five years of my marriage, I spent more than half that time away. The wars have caused many divorces, and many military children are growing up with one or both parents missing because of death or deployment. The memory of what happened "over there", and the difficulty dealing with that memory, lead many to divorce, to drink or, worse, to commit suicide.

Each time we came home, we were told that if we needed counselling, we would be given time. But as we got back to the daily grind of military life, this proved untrue. The problem was never a lack of services. There were always counsellors available and everyone received mandatory "reintegration" training. But I know leaders who expressed suspicions about soldiers who sought help.

The problem is that military leaders at the lowest levels still see the expression of grief over the difficult experiences of military life and combat as a weakness. In the military, those seen as weak do not thrive. Weakness, real or perceived, stands in the way of advancement, awards and promotions. For our military to really fix this problem, this view must be changed. "Mental maintenance" needs to become part of military culture, so that our men and women in uniform can cope with an environment of continuous, long deployments in combat – and with the invisible mental scars.

It also has to be acknowledged by our leaders that we are asking our men and women in uniform to face situations in which they will be confronted with things no normal person could experience without effect. Only an abnormal normal human being could experience the things I've seen and not be affected. This is the price we ask those who serve to pay. For the last decade, America has been asking its troops to face these situations without the promise of proper support. Mental wounds are not visible, but they should not be trivialised.

When leaders send troops into combat, they are asking them not only to risk their lives, but everything that is dear to them in life: their family relationships, their future and even their mental stability. We owe it to our troops to address this problem at every level in the military, and our leaders owe it to them to make sure they are not asking our troops to take such high risks unnecessarily.