Veterans Oral History Project Reveals Cost of Combat to Soldiers

Veterans Oral History Project Reveals Cost of Combat to Soldiers

University of Arkansas, Fayettevile


News Wise

Aug 04, 2008

July 31, 2008 - Research at the University of Arkansas suggests that the very training that prepares soldiers to react quickly in combat leaves the individual vulnerable to a variety of emotional and psychological problems upon return to civilian life. Conditions in Iraq have produced particularly traumatic effects among troops.

"What we learned talking to soldiers and mental health professionals affirms the findings of the Department of Defense Health Board Task Force on Mental Health, particularly regarding the stigma attached to psychological problems and the shortcomings in available treatment," sociologist Lori Holyfield said.

Holyfield led a team of researchers in the Veterans Oral History Project. They collected oral histories of returning veterans of the war in Iraq as well as mental health professionals, both those who were active in the field and those who work in Veterans Administration facilities.

She then analyzed the oral histories along with other accounts by soldiers and mental health professionals from military blogs, documentary films and news coverage. Holyfield and graduate student Crosby Hipes will present the results in a paper titled "Emotions and Edgework in the Military: Construction of a Post-Combat Self" on Saturday, Aug. 2, at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction in Boston.

Holyfield used what sociologists have learned about emotions and "edgework" as a framework for analyzing data about the soldiers' experiences. Edgework is what sociologists call voluntary risk-taking behavior involving a negotiation between danger and safety in life-and-death situations. Certain fields, such as search-and-rescue units, engage in occupational edgework. However, the researchers wrote, "The inability to retreat in combat places combat on the far end of the continuum of edgework."
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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/10818