BY THE GRACE OF GOD(S): HEALING WAR-RELATED TRAUMA IN VETERANS THROUGH RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY “There’s ways I can manage my pain. Ways I can manage my moods. I am still important to my spiritual family. I still have things to give them. I still have wisdom I can give my community. I am not useless.”1 These are the words of an American veteran discussing how they cope with suicide ideation. There are increasingly more veterans seeking psychological aid and treatment for distress as a result of social attempts at destigmatizing mental illness. These diagnoses may commonly include PTSD, suicide ideation, depression, and anxiety. In recent years, another form of trauma has become recognized amongst psychologists – moral injury. Moral injury develops from the breaching of an individual’s ethical principles. The Moral Injury Project at Syracuse University suggests that moral injury can result from experiences that include killing or harming civilians in combat, failing to help an injured civilian or comrade, failing to report misconducts, following orders that were illegal or against the Rules of Engagement, or a change in belief about the justification for the conflict during or after service.2
These statistics give an insight into the number of young American veterans who have experienced traumatic events. Several can be recognized as having potential to inflict moral injury. Charles W. Hoge, et al. Table 2. Combat Experiences Reported by Members of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps after Deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, July 1, 2004, The New England Journal of Medicine.
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