COMMENTARY
levels as those of teenagers, especially as they work through the interpersonal morass of issues with authority figures. Which authority figures can they trust? Can they come to grips with their own authority issues and have a better understanding of their own emotional immaturity and somehow work through it? Recalling my opening reference to Freud, the interpersonal nature of the loss of brothers and sisters in arms must be addressed in treatment as an issue of paramount importance. I have heard many combat veterans refer to losing their youth and innocence during their time of war,
is frozen in time of the death of another 17-year-old, and I would submit that part of the veteran who survives to tell the tale dies on that day as well, and grieving becomes a lifelong process of survivor guilt, and obsessional thinking of “What if I had done this, or done that? Would he/she/they still be alive?” When we hear a veteran say to us, “I lost my brother/sister that day,” while such a remark may not be literally true, in a psychical sense it is absolutely and resoundingly true, as they depend on each other 24/7, 365, for their very lives, which are often saved many times over. And as
cluding the thousand-yard stare on the face of the veteran who has seen more than he/ she can bear and has lost brothers and sisters with whom to share the burden. This journey begins as the new recruit is trained to essentially have no emotions, because they are an impediment to mission completion. This suppression becomes ostensibly set in stone by combat trauma and loss, and by the numbing effect that it has on the veteran who then takes it home. Paradoxically, many warriors believe they have finally become “good” at their job when they no longer experience emotions when terrible things happen. This is summed up in the
and never being able to experience relationships the same way again afterward. I suggest that along with losing one’s youth and innocence, that the moment they lose a brother or sister on the battlefield, that part of them arrests developmentally as well. They are robbed of the opportunity to survive the war together, to maintain an unparalleled friendship afterward, and, finally, to grow old together. So when a deep emotional bond is violently disrupted by death, the image in the 17-year-old’s mind
we hear about their interactions with each other prior to the loss, counter-transferential images come to us of boys playing together, working together, scrapping occasionally with each other, and fighting the enemy together. Life afterward requires more will and drive to succeed and somehow bear this cross, post trauma and loss. Christmas is no longer merry, birthdays are no longer happy, and Memorial/Veterans Day festivities invoke all kinds of feelings, up to and in-
common expression among them that it “wasn’t nuthin.” But those who have never been baptized by battle need to be careful not to take this denial of feeling at face value. Family members often experience this posttraumatic emotional deep-freeze and distance most harshly and are at a loss to know how to deal with “a different person” than the one they once knew. Oftentimes, I have heard vets say they either cannot feel anything, or that they are afraid of feelings, and being overwhelmed
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DIVISION | R E V I E W
FALL 2018
10/10/18 2:13 PM