We are deeply grateful for the generosity of the veterans whose stories are told in this book. Their willingness to share their struggles with moral injury and their honesty, courage, and generosity have made this work possible. It is our hope that their experiences will be of value to other veterans who live with moral injury and to all who love them.
We learned about moral injury through our work on the Truth Commission on Conscience in War (TCCW), and we thank everyone who made it happen, especially Ian Slattery, who did much of the organizing work and outreach to veterans and prepared witnesses to testify. In addition to those veterans mentioned in this book, we appreciate the testimony at the public hearing of veterans Jake Diliberto and Logan Mehl-Laituri and of Gold Star Mother Celeste Zappala. Other testifiers included Douglas Krantz, Nurah-Rosalie Amat’ullah, J. E. McNeil, Jonathan Shay, and Chris Hedges. We are indebted to Kaia Stern for chairing the entire four-hour hearing and to the multireligious group of chaplains who supported everyone at the hearing. We owe special thanks to the Riverside Church in New York City and its staff, especially Carol Nixon, for hosting the public hearing; to the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary in New York and Charon Hribar for research and office and volunteer support; to Erin Reece and Betty-Jeanne Rueters-Ward for organizing work in New York; to Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg of Luna Productions for financial and on-the-ground support; and to Jo Ann Brock, who provided graphic artwork. Extraordinary institutional help was offered by Luna Productions and the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California, and by Faith Voices for the Common Good in Oakland. Rebecca Parker and Joseph F. Terino assisted in New York, and Justin Waters created our first website. Jennifer Butler and the media staff at Faith in Public Life provided invaluable outreach to the press, not only for the New York hearing but also for a November 2010 press conference in Washington, D.C., where the TCCW report was released.
In the spring of 2010, a dozen college and graduate students from Hawaii to Connecticut, including several veterans, participated in a course we taught to prepare for the TCCW and produced excellent briefing materials for the seventy-five commissioners, as well as serving as commissioners in New York. Of that group, Miriam Marton also provided pro bono legal research and Jennifer Whitten expertly edited the final Commission Report. In addition, Pat Clark of the Greensboro Truth Commission and Peter Storey of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided invaluable advice to our class about truth commissions as we prepared for the hearing.
The TCCW report was released in November 2010 in Washington, D.C., at a press conference and at an Interfaith Service at National City Christian Church, which also hosted a conference on selective conscientious objection. We thank everyone who participated and made those events possible, many of whom were also at the events in New York, in particular, Betsy Eggert, Marinetta Cannito Hjort, James A. Forbes Jr., Ray McGovern, J. E. McNeil, and David B. Miller. Additional thanks go to Evelyn Hanneman, Mpho Tutu, Jordan Blevins, Bob Cooke, Mike Neuroth, Daisy Machado, and the extraordinary St. Camillus Multicultural Choir.
The first conference we held on moral injury in March 2011 in Berkeley was hosted by the Graduate Theological Union and First Congregational Church of Berkeley, and ably administrated by Irene Boczek. VA clinicians Shira Maguen and Kent Drescher, experts on moral injury, spoke, and Herman Keizer, Camilo Mejía, Abdullah bin Hamid Ali, Steve Jacobs, Lissette Larson-Miller, and Tyler Boudreau testified. In addition to the veterans mentioned here, we also have had the privilege of working with many others, too numerous to list individually, but particular thanks for special help go to Josh Stieber, India Drew, and Daniel Lakemacher.
Our work on moral injury will continue via the new Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas, begun through a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. The creation of this center is the culmination of two years of work, supported by Rebecca Parker, Kathleen Hurty, Bob Hill, Herman Keizer, Amir Soltani, JoAnne Kagiwada, Jim Eller, Craig Dykstra, Newell Williams, Tamara Rodenburg, Nancy Ramsay, Beverly Cotton, and the Brite faculty. Throughout this work, including at each of the events we planned, we have been sustained by the volunteer catering services of Stuart Fabregas, as well as his moral support, good company, and nourishing meals through the writing process. He was ably assisted by Stella, yellow lab extraordinaire, who protected us, kept us company, and entertained us.
We are especially grateful to our wonderful, astute editor at Beacon Press, Amy Caldwell, who has believed in this book and assisted enormously in its completion. Finally, we thank our families for telling us about their experiences of war and about the legacy of moral injury that has affected us all and for giving permission to tell those stories in this book.