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a healing context, and listen without judgment. His poem appears in our
book “Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace,” (www.vowvop.org) edited by
our writing teacher, award-winning author, and former University of
California Berkeley professor Maxine Hong Kingston.
Would the best description of what Parmeley has be a “disorder?” Or
might other words be more accurate?
“Moral injury” is a relatively new term to refer to what veterans and
others experience, especially those who saw combat or violence. Other
words that have been used include hidden war wounds, shell shock, battle
fatigue, and soldier’s heart.
“Moral injury” places the cause on war itself. A disorder implies that
something is permanently wrong, whereas the word “injury” suggests that
healing is possible. It also indicates that the problem was created by an
outside force, rather than a mental illness or weakness from within.
“Every generation gives war trauma a different name,” explained
Korean vet Jiwon Chung at our last vets’ meeting. “Moral injury, the latest
term, de-pathologizes the condition. If you go to war, come back, and are
not the same, troubled, or suffering, it is not because you are psychically
weak, but because you are morally strong. What you witnessed or did
went against your deepest moral convictions, violating our humanity to the
core.”
Chung later added, “That we vets suffer moral injury, despite the
tremendous suffering and anguish it brings, is actually a validation of our
humanity. War is the reason for moral injury, not any individual
shortcoming. Peace, justice, and reparation are the cures for moral injury.”
The ruthless, recent murder of elementary students and teachers in
Connecticut re-stimulates my grief about the deaths of children in wars. I
have cried for hours about the loss of life in Newtown and what it says
about us as Americans. The weapons used by the Connecticut killer were
military weapons. His killing is connected to the ongoing murders by
Americans in Afghanistan.
Parmeley concludes his poem as follows; “A Mother and child,/ alone
in a bunker,/ a war passing over,/ right now as I speak.” Those words,