A Leader's Guide to Trauma in the Unit - US Army War College

Army War College Spouses’ Project
Why We Wrote This Book
“Tell me how much you know of the sufferings of your fellow men and I will tell you how
much you have loved them.” -- Helmut Thieliecke
A sudden death…a serious injury or illness…a soldier missing in action — when this
happens to anyone in our units, our hearts stop. Trauma — hard to talk about, hard to
think about and hard to write about. Why, then, did this group of Army, Marine and Air
Force spouses want to do this particular project?
Each of us working on this project has been touched personally by trauma in some way.
This compilation represents the combined and varied personal experiences we have had.
We have emphasized those experiences we had while our spouses were in command. The
“Death of a Soldier” and “Special Circumstances” chapters draw from our experiences
during the military conflicts/interventions in Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, Operation
Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and during training accidents. Trauma can
happen at any time — during training, in war, at home or on the way to work. As
company and battalion commander spouses, we dealt with deaths and injuries of soldiers
in combat and training, terminal illnesses of both active-duty personnel and spouses, and
the death of a child. In most cases we learned through the “school of hard knocks.”
We all know that, with the current level of deployments, the chances of trauma in the unit
are greater than ever. Though no two traumas are alike, we found in our experiences that
the better prepared and knowledgeable we were, the better we were able to assist those
directly involved.
This project provides a guide for you to access in case of a trauma in your unit. In our
research, we found numerous references to the topic, but we noted a lack of a single
comprehensive resource that looked at the issue in depth. Hopefully this book will serve
that purpose for you. We address topics that have been important and helpful to us —
preparation, the military role, and practical ways to help. It has been our experience that
the more familiar we have been with the active-duty role, the easier it has been for us to
focus on the “heart” side of helping in times of trauma and crisis.
We encourage you to read this book cover to cover so that you will be familiar with its
contents, layout and design before an incident occurs. However, we have designed each
chapter to stand on its own so that if you experience a trauma in your unit you can access
just the information relevant to your situation. We have also provided an Appendix
section and a list of resources that should give you even more information. This
publication is by no means an exhaustive resource; we hope that you will add to it and
tailor it to your specific needs.
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A Leader’s Guide to Trauma in the Unit April 2004