Military asking too much of soldiers

This was originally printed in the News & Record on June 14, 2006

There are a variety of reasons why many members of my family and circle of friends served in various branches of the US Military: the draft, free education, wanting a direction in life, wanting structure, wanting to get out of a hometown, wanting to feel they made a difference. And while I imagine that each of them knew that there was a theoretical possibility they would be called upon to kill in war, none of them -– like most in the military - joined in some sadistic hope that they would.

One vet in particular has been on my mind as I've read about the alleged slaughter in Haditha. He enlisted during Vietnam with the belief that enlistment meant the ability to choose a post far from action. When his plan backfired, it backfired cruelly, sending him behind enemy lines to locales where the Viet Cong was sure to be waiting.

He and his wife were my friends through my teens and early twenties. Several times over the years, they offered me their guest room as safe haven while I was at lose ends. On occasion, coming home after a late night with friends, I would find him sitting in the dark having been woken by flashback dreams; it was in those witching hours that he would tell me about his life as a soldier, the nightmares that were his realities. Even now, years after our friendship ended, I will not betray his trust by recounting those dreams. But I will never forget the insight they gave me into the realities of war.

Though none of those late night talks involved actions as heinous as was allegedly perpetrated in Haditha, I can imagine those American vets sitting in the dark in the middle of the night 30 years from now, recalling that day in Haditha as if it had just happened.

There was nothing just or good about the murder of innocents, IED or no. There is something deeply, shamefully appalling about the survivors' accounts of soldiers looking pleased as they tallied the body count. But I have a hard time believing that the Americans who perpetrated that crime joined the military in the hopes of becoming savage murderers.

I imagine that these American soldiers joined the military for many of the same reasons as the vets among my family and friends. Maybe they even believed they were doing something noble like protecting our country or liberating an oppressed people. Like the vet with whom I used to share dark, early morning confessions, they then found themselves trained to kill but not trained to deal with the emotional strain of doing so, of being in constant danger, of having to assume that anyone could be an insurgent in disguise. And, as though a tour or two of such pressure and strain is not hard enough, we keep these soldiers in for tour after tour, abusing their willingness to serve because of the shortage of new recruits.

I'm not saying the soldiers from Haditha should be excused from their actions; I'’m saying the system is flawed. We learned enough from Vietnam that these vets, unlike my friend, don'’t have to worry about protestors chanting "“baby killer"” when they arrive back in the States. But we still have so much more to learn about the psychological toll of war. The trauma never stays in the war zone.

I hope the closest I ever get to war were during those late night trips to Vietnam.