Search results for: moral injury

From the Winter, 2016 Print Edition

Myths are powerful things. Tales of female warriors exist in cultures around the world, often serving as unifying national symbols. Until the present day, however, women warriors have remained isolated figures. We are now in the midst of an unprecedented change in the role of women in our armed forces, a change some view as long overdue.

“War subjects some of its participants to more than any person can bear, and it destroys them. War makes others stronger. For most of us, it leaves a complex legacy.”

From the Print Edition

Since my commissioning in 1988 as a United States Army Chaplain Candidate, the fundamental purpose of war has changed relatively little: war generally remains a contest of wills to achieve political ends between nation-states employing military force. However, war inherently seems different today, does it not? How so?

A Nation of men who have abdicated their responsibility to stand between women and the beasts is a nation that has already gone beastly

It is not “the military” nor “the government” that will be primarily responsible for the production of knights – of just warriors. Rather, it is, above all, the family, and, secondarily, our places of worship, our schools, our civic institutions – all those relational associations that fill the space between the individual and the state and make up civil society. Impeding this, and lurking in the background of this project, is the civil-military relations of our land.

The following is based on remarks delivered at the Providence launch party, Friday, November 6th. The recorded event is available on our Facebook page. For those who prefer to read, in the days ahead, we will post additional transcriptions. Watch for them!

For soldiers, the burden of having to do that which they believe to be morally evil is devastating. And according to the classic Just War tradition, it needn’t be.

It is as scandalous as it is shocking. It is much more than dereliction of duty. We ought to be soul-crushingly ashamed.