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In 2006, I received a summons from an attorney to appear before a
judge in Chile investigating Frank’s case. I went and testified. I also
visited some of the torture centers. Though now transformed into peace
parks, I could still feel the cries of those tortured. Is that really a disorder?
Or does it indicate that humans have a natural kinship to other sentient
beings and can sense their pain?
My Post-Traumatic Stress was triggered in Chile. But the term
disorder does not seem accurate. I felt a kinship with the suffering of those
tortured. I received what would be better described as a “moral injury,”
dating back to being raised in a military family, having served in the
military, and then experiencing the loss of a buddy in my mid-twenties.
Such injuries leave a scar and do not disappear easily. The nervous
system is re-wired and the physiology of the brain is altered, as a way to
cope with them. They can lie dormant and then be re-stimulated by
present-time wounds, such as one that I recently received. I was rejected to
teach a section of a Leadership course at Sonoma State University, which I
had successfully taught for three years. A person replacing me had never
taught before or even been educated to teach.
So I am trying to tell my story and write my way out of having these
sleepless nights and nightmares again.
Having “moral injury” can sensitize one, making a person hypervigilant.
Yet others become de-sensitized to moral injury, the way they
become de-sensitized to violence.
What I feel in my body at this moment in America history is that the
killing of so many young innocent children and their teachers at Sandy
Hook School, and the continuing American War in Afghanistan, are
dangerous signs for our future. The worst may be yet to come. It’s time to
wake up and focus our attention more on the mounting problems our
violence bring us here, rather than deploy so many resources abroad.
It is not only vets who return from war with “moral injury.” Since at
least the American War in Vietnam, the U.S. has been on a steady moral
decline. Each time it invades another country, most recently Iraq and
Afghanistan, it deepens our national “moral injury.” What might be next?
Iran? Pakistan? More children here?