Warrior Rage: The Many Dimensions of Anger in Our Military and Veterans
Kate Dahlstedt and Edward Tick
“Anger be now your song, immortal one.…” So begins Homer’s Iliad, the classic story of the Trojan War (trans. 1974). The epic’s very first word is minin, which in ancient Greek does not mean ordinary anger, but rage or wrath so severe and destructive that it seems beyond the mortal and to come from gods, demons, or spirits. Warriors in combat are “possessed” by it. Today they call it “the Beast” or “the mad moment.” Almost three millennia ago Homer told us what such anger portends; it was “doomed and ruinous, that caused loss on bitter loss/ and crowded brave souls into the undergloom/ leaving so many dead men—carrion …” (trans. 1974, lines 1–5). Jonathan Shay (1994), who demonstrated the extreme degree of similarity between Homer’s ancient warriors and our veterans of today, wrote that the proper name for the epic is Rage.
Women and men who have served in the military, who have experienced or been victimized by it, know this rage all too well.* Far beyond the scope of everyday stress and irritation, it has many sources. It surfaces in the combat zone, especially in combat toward foes and over intolerable losses. It sometimes propels troops to fight for revenge and can be one source of atrocities toward others or violence toward oneself. And those who have felt it lose their anger gradient. In the combat zone, they learn to “go from zero to sixty” in a nanosecond or they may not survive. They learn to feel wrath rather than irritation, irksomeness, miffed, annoyed, disturbed, or all the other gentler gradations of the emotion of anger. Rage becomes their song and they carry it home from the war zone into everyday dealings with family and society. Without intervention and healing, rage may remain their primary song through life.
As rage-evoking as combat is, it is only one source of our troops’ anger and, as survivors testify, not necessarily the most disturbing. The anger that our troops and veterans feel may go in various directions—why, how, where, against whom they fought; how they were trained; how they were treated upon homecoming; at the politicians who sent them; toward former foes with whom they are still not reconciled; at themselves for actions taken or not taken; toward our country, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) system, unknowing or uncaring citizens, and many other sources, up to the ultimate—anger at God and life itself.
Anger can poison. Anger unexpressed or unacknowledged can go underground and cause much psychological, interpersonal, physical, or social distress. Deep anger may be involved in the epidemic of suicides, currently over 22 a day, that our veterans are experiencing. And outbursts and explosions of anger are among the most difficult trauma symptoms to live with. Anger management is often a recommendation, but it is a limited response that may not be adequate to the enormity of emotion it is meant to control.
Anger Entering Service
Both men and women who serve in our military often carry much anger from pre-service experiences. Some earlier anger may be directly related to their reasons for serving. Bob enlisted in the Marines and volunteered for Viet Nam1, not for any elevated political reasons, but over anger that his next-door neighbor had been killed there. Michael was an 18-year-old man in Connecticut when the World Trade Center was attacked. Angry at this attack on his homeland and believing that a wide-scale terrorist attack was coming, he became the first person in his state to enlist.
Sometimes people like Bob enter the service solely motivated by anger and the hunger for vengeance. Often, people like Michael enter the service with goals of obtaining a position and performing duties that they can feel proud of, which earn them honor. However, once they enlist, the military can use them however they need to. Michael enlisted for the most patriotic reasons but after a deployment in Afghanistan came home physically and psychologically wounded, declaring that “war is sick and makes everyone who participates sick as well.” Many troops and veterans are disappointed and angry because they are often assigned positions they did not want or were asked to give other service than they were interested or believed in. Thus, Rene volunteered to serve as a radio and telephone operator, believing and promised he would receive job training that would prepare him for a civilian career. But he was made a combat infantryman in the most dangerous and hostile conditions. His service caused lifelong disability and he remained baffled, frustrated, and angry his entire life that he did not become the technician he had intended to be and the military had lied to him and used him for its own ends.
Many recruits enter military service after earlier life experiences that had already drenched them in much anger. Without interventions or healing, they are likely to carry this anger into their service, and the military does not offer pre-service rehabilitation. A high percentage of the women joining the military today do so to escape dangerous or abusive households and relationships. Many people join to escape violent inner cities or depressed rural neighborhoods. For example, on one of our largest U.S. military bases, we overheard a conversation between two African American recruits straining to achieve their physical fitness requirements in the gym:
“Another fucking day of pain, sweat, boredom, and orders.”
“True, brother, but remember where we come from. This beats the hell out of picking crops.”
“Right. Weren’t no other future at home.”
“Yeah. We got food, clothes, work, and salary. So let’s count our fucking blessings.”
Finally, many young people enlist because there are few civilian jobs and because college is not otherwise affordable. All these groups carry anger from challenging and dangerous social conditions into military service. This anger can make it more difficult to train them, more difficult for them to conform to military demands and discipline, and more likely that they may act out old anger against their fellows, the rules, or in stressful situations, especially combat.
It is common for young men to want to prove themselves. Throughout millennia, military service has given them such a proving ground. In fact, it has been a primary male rite of passage throughout the ages. Today, when they enlist, young men might convince themselves that it is for noble purposes, as it may have been in past wars. However, once they are in the military, they discover that their high ideals cannot be achieved. Thus, Nick wanted his entire life to be in one of the great wars saving civilization, but after serving in our modern wars he came home in despair, saying, “All they gave me was that dirty, shitty little war of lies—Iraq.”
Disadvantaged social groups entering our military already carry anger, frustration, confusion, and feelings of hopelessness and betrayal from previous life experiences. They may have histories of abuse and abandonment, trouble with authorities, and previous traumas. The military has a more difficult time effectively training them. Command officers report that much of military training has become basic socialization, education in civics, and remedial education for basic learning and life skills, all skills that should have been learned in childhood. The military finds it hard to inculcate a positive warrior identity into this challenged population. They are more primitive, do not receive adequate remedial upbringing, and are much more likely to act out anger and other dangerous emotions on foes or their comrades.
Sometimes family members are in disagreement about their loved one’s enlistment. It might be difficult for them to be fully supportive when they think enlistment or the cause is a mistake or are anxious about deployment. Leave-taking for deployment is often complicated for family members. Sometimes it is easier for couples to separate if they are angry at each other. This can lead to a lot of remorse and regret afterward, and/or continued anger that may be harbored throughout the deployment, endangering the troop and festering in the family.
Anger in the Service
There are a great many triggers that might awaken old or new anger during service. Basic training is difficult, demanding, painful, and exhausting. Unfair and sometimes brutal drill instructors often use intense anger and other demeaning practices to train recruits. Their goal is to enrage their recruits but teach them to contain that rage and release it later against a foe. Thus, instructors purposely create angry warriors who are immature and frustrated at their inability to release pent-up rage and frustration. And let us not make the mistake of thinking that this rage is necessary for training good warriors. Greg, who served 23 years as a Green Beret and was in many battle zones of the modern world, states, “I’m satisfied that fighting and even killing from a sense of duty or protection carries much less baggage than using hatred of the enemy as a motivator. Military trainers lacking wisdom tried to instill hatred in our training.” In contrast, other world cultural traditions that were rooted in spirituality and religion and also nurtured a warrior class taught compassion and humanity toward foes. “Pray for your enemies that all may be well with them,” said Confucius. Jesus taught, “Do good to them that hate you.” Both Asian and Christian cultures developed warrior traditions over the millennia with these values embedded in them. Think, for example, of St. Francis, who was a traumatized warrior before he became the spiritual master we honor. Or think of the Jesuit Order, founded by another wounded warrior, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and a handful of his fellow soldiers. And when we lead healing and reconciliation journeys to Viet Nam, as we have annually for the past 15 years, we find that there is no post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) there (see Tick, 2014, pp. 132–139). Further, Vietnamese veterans retain and express deep compassion and respect for their American counterparts and do not retain the anger over decades that characterize so many Americans. These post-war accomplishments can be attributed in large part to the spiritual values permeating the culture. We see that many warrior traditions create deadly effective warriors without teaching them to hate or awakening this primitive rage and frustration. We also see that much spiritual wisdom bequeathed to humanity can emerge in the aftermath of war’s suffering.
We cannot overstate the degree to which our troops are demoralized by poor command. They are willing to give their lives for a worthy and honorable mission. However, all too often they find themselves placed in situations where they are required to do things that they know are morally questionable, if not reprehensible. These can range from participating in black market activities to knowingly taking the lives of innocent people. Anger at these conditions often leads to illegitimate violence, such as the fragging of officers or atrocities against the foe or civilians. Greg remarks, “I remember being mad at the way the Vietnam War was mismanaged and under-resourced by politicians, leading to so many needless deaths.” And Forrest, who served for over 30 years in the Air Force said, “Even if the war is wrong, you can’t tie the hands of troops but must let them fight. Otherwise, not only are you sure to lose but sure to contribute to killing our own people. Many of us who served harbor anger that we were given both wrong wars and wrong management of them.”
Former Army Ranger and combat survivor Glen Miller explains it this way: “I have been aggressive and angry when I feel that anyone—myself or others—are being exploited by those in authority. This anger is an appropriate reaction to authority from my point of view. I was not impressed with my officers’ courage or judgment when I served and it was worse in corporate America.”
Many women troops do not end up in combat zones. However, as women they often face discrimination so severe that it sometimes puts their lives in danger. Military sexual assault is a different kind of battlefield. Over 50% of military women report some kind of sexual assault or harassment, oftentimes repeatedly. This makes it difficult for them to do their jobs and often erodes their confidence in their will.2 Male troops are also often sexual abuse victims as well, with as many as one third of men serving reporting some form of abuse. Several members of his squad sodomized one young Marine we worked with because they accused him of being too effeminate. He felt anger at the Corps and the individual Marines who, he rightly declared, were supposed to treat him as brothers.
Troops can feel angry at other forms of oppression and persecution in the military as well. Murray Tick was a military policeman at the end of World War II. Seventy years after service he recalls two sources of deep wounding that are still with him. First, though the military is supposed to be a melting pot, he recalls with pain the anti-Semitic abuse he received from some fellow soldiers.3 Second, stationed stateside just after the war, his unit was mobilized against the Kentucky coal miners in their 1940s strikes against the “bosses” and abuses of the mining corporations. He laments so many decades later, “How could our own government order us to turn our bayonets against our own working people only struggling for a living wage and decent treatment for their families?” These are but a few examples of hurt and anger our troops feel when victimized by the military; they rightly declare that the military is supposed to be the vessel serving the American melting pot and bringing diverse peoples together in cooperation. When that fails from comrades, command, or mission, anger results.
Veterans often declare that they were enraged by their lack of control. Whether it was orders they disagreed with or death and injury to their peers, as combat medic Al says, “To me the foundation of my anger is my mistrust of my adequacy and control of the life-threatening situation.” With other people’s lives in their hands and combat raging around them, troops feel extremely vulnerable, yet must act responsibly, all the while knowing that there is no controlling combat. Thus, they may rage at themselves, their foes, their commanders, their mission, their country, the ones they are fighting, and life itself.
Finally, many troops express their anger and frustration with the dull military routine that it is most often tedious and boring. Although training is necessary, people’s primitive emotions have been stirred and they are anxious to use them in real world demanding situations. Much wild behavior—drinking, high-speed driving, wild sex, drug abuse—can be understood as frustrated attempts to burn off this angry energy that has been aroused and has accumulated without release.
Anger in the Combat Zone
It is easy to imagine the anger one would feel upon seeing his or her fellow troops injured or killed. We can understand the human reaction to want to lash out in anger at the enemy. This anger at our own losses causes a hunger for retaliation and revenge. We have heard stories from veterans about such instances that they either participated in or witnessed. The urge to retaliate, to get revenge, can be overwhelming, especially in the heated moments of battle. Hanh, a Vietcong veteran explained to us, “Both my parents were just peasants farming our fields when they were killed by American bombers, so during the war hatred was my best weapon.” Failure to cash in on this hunger for revenge can itself be a source of anger. Steve was a navy Seabee in Viet Nam. “I volunteered for ‘Nam after my cousin was killed there,” he said. “I did not care about politics or anything else but getting revenge by killing as many of them as I could.” But Seabees are non-combatants. “I failed on my mission of revenge. For my entire life since I’ve been trying to kill my rage with alcohol.”
In the American and many other militaries, troops are trained and encouraged to dehumanize the enemy. They are taught during training and in combat to turn the foe into something sub-human so that they can be more comfortable harming and killing them. It is easier to direct lethal anger at a thing than at a person.
There is another kind of anger released in the combat zone. We often refer to combatants as having a “killing rage.” We often refer to them going berserk. The popular belief is that this is rage in its purest form. However, it may have another source.
Willy was a reconnaissance sergeant in fierce combat in the jungles of Viet Nam. Describing what veterans often call the “mad moment,” he explained, “It isn’t killing rage really. It’s a rage to save your own life. The rage we direct at others is really our fierce rage to protect our own existence.”4 It is a rage against death and anything that would impose it upon us. We remember that Spinoza (Ethics, 1996/1677) taught that every being seeks to persist in its own existence. Our sheer existence is protected by this existential rage.
Glen Miller, a Ranger leading long-distance reconnaissance missions, says, “I believe that rage is a survival instinct. The adrenaline fires up the spirit and shit happens. It is not controlled. It is pure violence, hell bent on staying alive and preserving one’s little tribe.” Sebastian Junger (2016) confirms Miller’s observations about all warriors: They seek and practice utmost loyalty to their “tribe” and choose loyalty to that small band over all others, satisfying a basic human need to belong that in our modern world is, ironically, most satisfied in life-threatening conditions. Miller describes a fellow team leader on a particularly difficult mission:
Part of Joe’s team was wounded. Enraged, Joe stood, jumped onto the trail, and emptied his clip into the fighting NVA [North Vietnamese Army]. All the while he was yelling and firing. His rage was apparent and his wrath bestowed death on at least three of the five enemy soldiers. Joe’s eyes were intense and his blood vessels bulged as he screamed and delivered death. There was no slowing or stopping his fury. And then it was quiet except for a moan from our wounded.
Anger in the combat zone is also often misdirected. As Glen witnesses, the wrath is often so intense that it is impossible to control. Civilians, animals, houses, schools, and any other innocent target may be attacked with accumulated anger due to fear, loss, frustration, or other such conditions. The innocent are often victimized by anger at the immoral conditions in which our troops must serve. The Abu Ghraib prison abuse in Iraq, the My Lai massacre in Viet Nam, the No Gun Ri massacre of the Korean War, and so many other atrocities are not solely actions of disturbed individuals. Rather, they are explosions of anger after much accumulated pain under immoral conditions. Vice President Al Gore observed that the Abu Ghraib prison atrocity occurred only because of the larger immoral context of the Iraq war, a context created by national leadership that inevitably trickled down throughout the military and to front line troops (Gore, 2004). M. Scott Peck (1998) observed the same about the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War. Dr. Peck was a military psychiatrist, achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel, and served in Viet Nam. He resigned from the army because he was so angry himself over the immorality of the war. As Gore, Peck, and others observe, wartime atrocities are not usually individual pathological reactions but expressions of the immorality in the whole as set in motion by leadership. This conforms to our definition and understanding of moral injury. Our troops are angry because they are morally wounded in having to take actions they find are against their individual and our collective value systems.
Peter, another Vietnam War combat veteran states in a letter written to us:
Lt. Calley is my brother. And once again I told my story of being berserk and blowing away farmers and water buffalo and fishermen and sampans and how I only saw gook-foe.… I’m angry with vets and others who see atrocity as aberration when in my experience it was routine and routinely accepted. There’s only a difference of degree in intensity and proximity.
The frustrations mount. Modern technology has made it possible for troops to have 24-hour access to loved ones at home. Although this can be wonderful for sharing special events and encouraging one another, it can also be a detriment in that couples often discuss problems going on at home. They may end up arguing with one another about how to handle things. Or deployed troops may feel angry about having to carry the burdens of home life, which usually seem trivial compared to the missions and dangers they face. Trying to figure out how to manage money or what to do about a child’s failing grades back home can be both distressing and trivial when one has to then go on a mission where their own and their comrades’ lives are at stake.
Beyond the Zone
Many veterans leave for the combat zone believing in their service, the patriotic reasons behind it, and its present-day political and historical necessity. But many, likewise, return home disillusioned. As one therapy patient of Ed’s once said, “At age 18 I went to Iraq as an American patriot. When I came home at age 19, I realized I was nothing but a mercenary for the corporations.” In morally ambivalent, economically, and politically motivated wars, veterans return feeling anger and disgust at the particular service to which they were assigned and the actions they had to perform—ultimate actions rendered shameful, rage-producing, and illegitimate by the morally questionable situation they were in. And they may also feel enraged at the conditions of the society at home that they risked all to protect.
Feeling an important sense of purpose is an essential component of becoming a mature adult. We all look for purpose and are willing to sacrifice a great deal, even life itself, for it. However, often our troops come home feeling as though they not only did not gain their own personal or collective sense of purpose, but rather the opposite. Their ability to create a meaningful sense of self and purpose has been shattered.
We have found it useful to call this an identity crisis. When troops come home from the war zone, they are no longer the person they were, changed forever by their experience. For many, the struggle to redefine themselves is daunting. They are confused and disoriented when they return home. Still in battle mode, they are on high alert. Their perceptions of and reactions to everyday things can be far from ordinary. They have lost interest in things that used to matter to them, things that once defined them, but have not found others things to replace them.
Questioning purpose and mission, and feeling anger at their disillusionment, veterans can question everything they previously experienced, including their beliefs. They look back not only at why they were sent and where, but also how they were trained, what they were told, what promises were kept or broken, how they were sent overseas, how they lived while overseas, and what they had to do. They look at what was going on in American popular and political life at home, the shape the country was taking at home, how they were returned from the war zone, and what happened to their comrades. They consider how they were mustered out of the military, whether they had any support that was reliable and accurate upon homecoming, and everything that happened to their family and friends and country while they were gone. Every one of these conditions can evoke frustration, anger, grief, and confusion that can coalesce into an overpowering and undifferentiated wrath against self, others, society, or life itself.
Further, our veterans are often left to struggle with their memories and feelings about their war or other military experiences without any understanding, compassion, patience, or interest on the part of the nation that they believed they were serving. Many not only isolate from those who did not serve, but also from one another, depending on what their service was and how they feel about it. Peter’s letter expresses it like this:
Ironically, I have anger toward other veterans who seem to remain tied to the military apparatus and embrace all the hoorah bullshit, attending reunions, recounting or retrieving some measure of glory and valor. My combat experience was not valorous and I feel no glory. Having experienced my berserker, I am separate from vets who did not go berserk. So I often feel outside the veteran community.
These issues proceed beyond self and nation back overseas to the people against whom they fought. Many veterans remain un-reconciled with their former foes. They may still feel anger at the old pain and losses incurred in combat. They may still judge the former adversary in inhumane, inhuman, or demonizing ways. Upon looking at photos of Iraqi citizens doing ordinary daily activities, one veteran of the Iraq War we worked with shook his head and simply said, “Scum, all of them, scum!”
As part of our war healing work, our organization Soldier’s Heart leads annual reconciliation journeys back to Viet Nam. Some veterans will not consider going because they are still enraged at the Vietnamese. Others will not go because they are afraid of their own rage that might be unleashed if they saw Viet Nam again. Many veterans also fear, wrongly, that the Vietnamese are just as enraged at them and will attack, arrest, punish, or even execute them upon return. This is never our experience in Viet Nam; rather, this is a projection of the veterans’ own unconscious self-judgments and beliefs that they did deserve punishment and that they harbor unconscious rage toward themselves and our country. However, those Vietnam War veterans who do go and meet the Vietnamese in openhearted and compassionate ways find that the Vietnamese in fact harbor no rage but consider American and Vietnamese veterans, as Vietcong veteran Tam Tien said, “brothers and sisters who survived the same hell.” After such reconciliation encounters, American veterans’ rage completely dissipates. It is now only forgiveness and acceptance. They perceive no threat and so no longer retain the need for protective or vengeful rage. Our veterans often say to us with huge smiles, “This is the first time I can walk through a jungle—without a rifle and with no fear!”
Shrapnel
From our work with veterans and their families, we have learned many of the determinants of warrior rage and bitter anger from before, during, and after service and all of its hidden causes and conditions. This anger stealthily accumulates, like a time bomb waiting to explode. The public often hears the worst stories of explosions from around the country, and this further alienates them from veterans. We must understand that many of our veterans feel such seething anger and that it often explodes from them, scattering through their families, communities, and throughout society like shrapnel flying everywhere and causing more pain to all.
Veterans’ emotional and psychic shrapnel of rage can fly at any source, any target, at a moment’s notice, and is often turned against the self. Veterans feel anger at who they have become, their post-service condition, what they did, why they served, and a host of other conditions. Anger itself results in self-destructive behavior that can range from substance abuse and domestic and public violence, to homelessness and all the way to suicide. Epidemic veteran suicide can be understood as rage against oneself, one’s homeland, and one’s destiny.
Anger can also be directed outward, of course. We hear about extreme veteran anger against the VA system. Much of their anger is justified, as veterans encounter difficulty getting appointments, mistreatment, misdiagnosis, lack of resources, overdependence on medications, lack of know-how, and all the other ills of that system. And veterans are angry at the VA system because it is the representative of the government that should care for them but fails in its promise and responsibility.
Even veterans who do not act out can feel like Peter:
Yeah, anger is right up there with sadness and regret and grief. My anger for having acquiesced to being drafted then finding myself trapped in the inescapable situation of snipers, incoming mortars, rockets, and artillery; poncho-covered bodies and stuffed body bags. For me, anger is fear’s companion. I respond to fear with anger. In ‘Nam my fear-anger birthed the berserker and I hit back with exhilaration. Over these decades since my ‘Nam, I’ve been quietly angry and envious of men who’ve had the wonderful good fortune of NOT having had combat happen to them, were able to avoid it. Reading James Hillman’s A Terrible Love of War recently I drew some smug satisfaction from his understanding that we veterans are “initiates among innocents.”
It is a familiar refrain from veterans that the rest of us “just don’t get it.” The truth is that most of us do not want to know and understand what they have been through. Most civilians make no effort to really understand where vets have been and how hard it is to come home. Consequently, veterans feel alone with their pain. They feel ignored at best and betrayed at worst, betrayed by the citizenry they wanted to serve.
Unable to feel “at home” again, feeling ignored by their society, and afraid of their own rage, they often isolate themselves from family and friends. Those with families often find it difficult to contain their anger, acting out at inappropriate times and emotionally injuring those around them. Wives and other family members are dismayed, frustrated, and grievous about how their loved ones have been changed by their military experience. The veteran’s distance, moodiness, and outbursts of anger all contribute to family disharmony. Veterans may turn to drugs and alcohol to help them sleep at night or to numb their feelings, especially anger, during the day. Veterans have been trained to respond instantaneously to sights and sounds that could be the enemy, a necessity in a war zone. However, in civilian life such training, which involves muscle memory, can result in serious domestic violence.
It has been extensively documented, and a 2013 Rand report indicates, that the divorce rate for veterans is greater than for the general population and that the risk goes up with every month of deployment (Rand Resources, 2013). Not only does this lead to broken homes and children without parents, but it also often leads to homelessness and suicide.
More troops are surviving mortal wounds than ever before due to improved medical advances. Although saving more lives in and from the war zone is a marvelous accomplishment, it also means that a greater percentage of veterans are coming home to live with lifelong disabilities, some of which are massive. Our service people commonly come home with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), which makes daily functioning difficult and frustrating for veterans and their loved ones. Many have also lost limbs, and have vision, hearing, spinal cord and other life long injuries. Some have suffered such severe burn wounds that they have literally had parts or all of their faces burned off. Still in facilities, being cared for because of the severity of their wounds, these victims have thus far been out of public view.
Anyone who enlists in the military is aware of the risk to life and limb. Although that threat may be with them in some way throughout deployment, most troops do not believe they will be casualties. Although they have agreed to give their lives if necessary, most cannot fathom the realities of living with the kinds of injuries some come home with. Lifelong disabilities, especially ones that require being dependent on physical care from others, are difficult enough for any of us. But for those who have devoted themselves to being in top physical condition and have prided themselves as tough and capable of great physical feats, such injuries can be totally devastating. They may blame themselves, the enemy, or fellow troops on the ground. Or, they may blame poor command or Pentagon officials.
Finally, any account of the impact of military service on our troops would be lacking if it did not include the spiritual dimensions, especially of the combat experience. The battle zone is the ultimate spiritual arena. Life and death, right and wrong, good and evil are ever present. Troops are given the power of God, right in their own hands, over the lives of other human beings. Whether or not they are conscious of this reality, they live it and must deal with its implications.5
For many, the horrors of war, the death and slaughter on both sides of the battle are such that any belief in God they may have had is completely destroyed. Troops return home alienated from their spiritual connections that might have otherwise provided solace. When religious belief is offered to them to ease their pain, they often reject it. They are angry with a God that would allow such destruction, especially when there is no clear and imperative justification.
It is common, and has been throughout history, for nations and militaries around the world to believe that “God is on our side.” Indeed, such righteous beliefs often serve as motivation for the mission. However, when units sustain high casualties, the horrors of combat are upon them, or innocents are maimed and killed, such sentiments are much harder to believe in. “How could a just God allow this?” is a common question troops ask. Many express anger at God for the horrendous experiences during and outcomes of war. They experience a betrayal by the God they thought of as loving and righteous.
Combat is so horrendous that it seems a belief in divinity is necessary to even survive it. We have all heard the adage, “There are no atheists in the foxhole.” It is true for many combatants. However, the opposite is also true. When we quoted this adage to a group of World War II veterans, three who were concentration camp liberators protested. One said, “There are horrors worse than combat. When you see the evil human beings can do it is impossible to believe anymore.” Another shouted in anger, “No atheists? Bullshit! The foxhole creates atheists.” And we hear from a later war Chaplain William Mahedy (1986) reporting that Viet Nam troops screamed in anguish, “Where was God in Viet Nam? AWOL!” Such anger often results in veterans alienating themselves from their religious origins, beliefs, values, and communities that might otherwise have been supportive. It leaves them floating without grounding in an existential universe in which there are no bounds to the human capacity for evil and no higher guiding principle to help them through. This is the condition the Existentialists labeled despair. We suggest that many veterans are in existential and spiritual despair but that in mental health treatment it is often reduced to and misdiagnosed as depression and then treated with medications and a protocol that does not address or heal such pain.
From Wrath to Righteousness
What is our veterans’ fate after its inevitable and multi-determined arousing? Can the Beast be soothed again? As a brigadier general said to us, “Whether its roots are buried in memories lost and actions deliberately forgotten or the crippling effect of a moral injury—an injury to my soul that says I should not have done what I did—the anger is there. Whether it exists to save me, or exists to damn me, the anger is there.”
We hear that warrior rage is far beyond the scope of ordinary civilian anger. We hear that it has many sources, comes from many experiences, both legitimate and illegitimate, moral and immoral, is experienced with superhuman intensity, and accumulates over time so that without interventions, explosions may be inevitable. We also hear that ordinary medications and traditional coping mechanisms such as anger management are inadequate to address this warrior rage. Further, we know that many otherwise well-meaning clinicians will call security or refuse to see vets in counseling if they need to express such rage. Clinicians do not commonly feel safe or prepared for dealing with it. But clearly, healing will not occur through medications, censoring, avoidance, or punishment. What then might be some positive and hope-filled responses to such anger?
First of all, warrior rage must be understood as normal and inevitable given all the conditions that created it and all it is trying to express. It must not be pathologized. Rather, we must let the symptom speak. Care providers and the general public must be able to develop the courage and listening skills necessary to receive warrior rage without threat. The expressive arts and other expressive forms of therapy can be helpful tools and, in fact, there is presently an artistic renaissance among younger veterans. People become dangers to themselves or others not when they need to express anger, but when others are unable or refuse to hear them such that their frustration accumulates and finally erupts.
We have been taking veterans of the Vietnam War, and younger vets as well, to Viet Nam for reconciliation and healing since 2000. It has been our experience that when former enemies embrace one another and see each other’s humanity, all projections of the “evil other” disappear along with the rage that once consumed them. This demonstrates the necessary principle of re-humanization of self and other. Rage comes from the beast, the primitive parts of us. When we see the “others” as human, we realize that we all experienced hell together and we honor our own and our former enemies’ histories and the forces that brought us all together. Then anger dissipates and there are no more enemies. As the African proverb states, “An enemy is someone whose story I have not yet heard.” Understanding and forgiveness unify us in our common humanity.
Another step necessary for healing warrior rage is for veterans to tell their stories, reclaim and express the feelings connected with those stories, and have them witnessed and affirmed by the people they served. This means that reconciliation not only between former foes but also between veterans and the civilians they served is necessary to heal warrior anger. Traditional cultures practiced such reconciliation in community ritual. At our Soldier’s Heart retreats, we replicate such rituals. Those who have not served in the military tell our warriors, “I sent you. I paid for your bullets. Everything you did was in my name. I take responsibility.” When warriors hear this, the tonnage of anger, grief, and responsibility they have been carrying suddenly lifts, they are no longer alienated from civilians or angry with them, and the two groups are reconciled and carry the burdens together. Again, there is no one left to be angry at. When veterans and non-veterans unify, bridges are crossed and true healing can happen.
Another critical step is for veterans to reconcile with their pasts. This is true for any of us, but especially important for veterans. As long as they are stuck in the anguish of thinking it should not have happened, or should have happened a different way, they cannot move forward. We focus on what we call acceptance of destiny, not in any preordained sense, but rather in what actually unfolded out of all other possibilities. As some Native American elders asked their new warriors during initiation ceremonies, “Did you not wish to be a warrior in your people’s service? Can you accept the many hardships of the journey?” Only when veterans can affirm their life’s unfolding and their determination to thrive can they begin to accept responsibility for their future selves.
Warrior rage can be directed for positive and constructive purposes. Anger is energy. Warriors are angry for good reasons and at good causes; they are filled to bursting with “righteous indignation.” When their anger about injustice can be directed for positive change and action, much good can be accomplished. Thus, veteran groups are rebuilding schools and water systems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Veteran groups are defusing old mines and bombs in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Our organization Soldier’s Heart does much philanthropic work in Viet Nam and we always have our veterans present the works—schools, houses, Agent Orange facilities, livestock, fishing sampans. They contribute to their acquisition and present the donations where they actually fought.6 Thus, people who destroyed become creators, and life takers become life givers. Again, they see that there is nothing and no one in Viet Nam to be angry at anymore. And even more, a new positive identity is achieved. Acts of atonement heal anger. Buddhism teaches that, “Donation is the best consolation.” As veterans donate, they heal themselves, their own anger, and the people and places they harmed. They thus fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy; “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in” (58:12).
It is not only by doing good that warrior rage can heal. Because their rage is aimed at many of the outrageous social conditions veterans suffer, they often direct it in positive ways into political and social action stateside. Thus many veterans groups—Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), American Legion, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Vietnam Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace, and many others, all do important social action and are involved politically in both the causes they value most highly and those that impact the care of their brother and sister veterans. All this is fueled by righteous indignation. It is the directing of anger in appropriate ways through the political process for the good and for us all.
With some of these methods—expressive arts, expressive therapies, caring and listening audiences, reconciliation with civilians and with former foes, philanthropy, and meaningful social action—warrior rage can indeed heal. It will not completely leave the heart, for a soldier’s heart does carry anger after such experiences. However, it no longer has to dominate the character, personality, or social actions of the veteran. With the anger dissipated, the entire personality transforms for the better.
At one of our recent Soldier’s Heart retreats, many new young veterans of “the sand box” who had not previously done storytelling in front of a receptive audience told some traumatic combat tales for the first time. They expressed much anger and were emotionally supercharged from the overload they were carrying. After some storytelling, these newer veterans asked for stories from those who had already been through this process several times. Both Magoo, a Vietnam War combat veteran, and Dave, a Desert Storm Navy veteran, sat back, smiled, open their arms peaceably, and said, “Thank you, but I don’t need to tell my story now … ‘cause I’m not angry anymore.”
Notes
1. Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, so when referring to the country of Viet Nam, we use the proper Vietnamese spelling in two words rather than the Americanized combination into a single word. We retain the spelling of the Vietnam War as that has become standard American usage. The Vietnamese refer to it as the American War.
2. For a full analysis of military women’s anger issues, see Kate Dahlstedt, “The Anger of Women Warriors” in this volume.
3. Among many other sources, the 1946 play Home of the Brave by Arthur Laurents documents such anti-Semitism in the combat zone and the disastrous psychological impact it could have on targeted troops and unit cohesion and morale.
4. This incident, along with Willy’s full story, is told in Edward Tick’s Sacred Mountain: Encounters with the Vietnam Beast (1989).
5. To fully explore military service and the combat zone as spiritual arenas, see Edward Tick’s War and the Soul: Healing of Nation’s Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (2005) and Warrior’s Return: Restoring the Soul After War (2014).
6. For a full presentation of this practice, its philosophy, and many actual projects, see Edward Tick (2011).
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Junger, S. (2016). Tribe: On homecoming and belonging, New York, NY: Twelve.
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Shay, J. (2002). Odysseus in America: Combat trauma and the trials of homecoming. New York, NY: Scribner.
Spinoza, B. (1996). Ethics. New York, NY: Penguin. (Original work published in 1677).
Tick, E. (1989). Sacred mountain: Encounters with the Vietnam beast. Santa Fe, NM: Moon Bear Press.
Tick, E. (2005). War and the soul: Healing our nation’s veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Wheaton IL: Quest Books.
Tick, E. (2011). Atonement practices after war. In P. Coussineau (Ed.), Beyond forgiveness: Reflections of atonement (Chapter 9). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Tick, E. (2014). Warrior’s return: Restoring the soul after war. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
* In the following pages, we will hear about several of the military troops and veterans whom the authors have come to know through their work running war healing retreats, veteran talking circles, reconciliation journeys to Vietnam, personal counseling and workshops. With permission and to preserve confidentiality only their first names have been used. Any use of full names has been at their request.