The Only Truth of War Is No One Is Left Untouched

Heroes and Monsters: War’s moral injury 
Foreign Police
By Sebastian J. Bae
Marine co-chair, Best Defense Council of the Enlisted
February 27, 2015

Moral injury, the pain resulting from violating one’s moral foundation, has become the hallmark of today’s veterans. Unlike Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, moral injury does not stem from fear, but from struggling to reconcile a state of mind occurring in war, where moral clarity is impossible, and the morality society expects of us. To survive, we become someone we no longer recognize, accepting the inconceivable as the price of survival. So, guilt suffocates our voices, hiding stories we cannot share – society does not, or will not, understand.

The Ramadi sun was relentless above the din of the bustling city streets. Our convoy struggled through the city’s congested streets. My eyes darted from one face to another, scared and nervous, scanning a city of strangers from my M240 machine gun turret. The afternoon’s patrol was quiet.

Then suddenly, my eye caught an Iraqi child, maybe eleven or twelve, arching his arm to throw, an object in his hand. He reminded me of the Bible study students I use to teach. He throws; I hesitate – my finger trembling on the trigger, the barrel aimed at his chest…

A rock smacks against the Humvee. In seconds, the child is gone, our convoy rolling past without a shot fired.

I have relived this moment a thousand times, in my dreams and in every quiet moment. There are days I regret not pulling the trigger, then there are days I am forever grateful I never did.

Yet everyday, I struggle to reconcile the man I was, a Bible study teacher, with the man I had become, a man who almost ventilated a child with a machine gun.

A few weeks before, insurgents attacked another convoy with grenades, setting their vehicle aflame.

The rock could have easily been a grenade. I could have killed my Marines. I undoubtedly endangered their lives. Yet, I was also spared the gruesome weight of a child’s death.

Nevertheless, I find there is no comfort, no right answer.
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