The war within: A veterans moral injury

I served in the army from 2002 through 2006 as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist, including six months in Iraq. Recently, a soldier from my old unit, who had been deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan, was in Texas, where I am studying at a seminary. Eager to see him after nine years, I drove down to San Antonio and met him at a shopping mall food court. We chatted about our new lives, our routines, our hobbies. At one point he said: “I haven’t slept much since the wars started.”

I also didn’t sleep much when I returned from Iraq. I could not sleep because I was disturbed—disturbed by the war and by my attempt to reenter a consumer-driven civilian life. I was bothered by a feeling I could not quite identify that I suspect keeps many from sleeping. “Moral injury” is a name for it.

For me, moral injury describes my disillusionment, the erosion of my sense of place in the world. The spiritual and emotional foundations of the world disappeared and made it impossible for me to sleep the sleep of the just. Even though I was part of a war that was much bigger than me, I still feel personally responsible for its consequences. I have a feeling of intense betrayal, and the betrayer and betrayed are the same person: my very self.