(In)Visible Scars: Warfare and the Human Condition by robynne.healey

INDEX

Thin Red Line of Heroes A Medical Dilemma: Psychiatric Timeline in Defining and Diagnosing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Since 1914 .............................................................. Page 1 Making The Man: Militarized Masculinity and The Queer Glitches ......................................... Page 12 Peacekeeping: the Impossible Utopian Mission .... Page 22 Tentacles of War ‘What Happens in Vietnam Does Not Stay in Vietnam’: The Truth Behind PTSD in US Combat Veterans and Their Families .................................... Page 29 Still Paying: CIVCAS and Human Development ...... Page 36 Compelled by Poverty: Child Soldiers in Somalia ... Page 44 The Struggle Continues: Syrian Refugees Pre- and Post-Migration .......................................... Page 50 Unexploded Mines, Sabotaged Wells, and Dead Livestock: The Ecological Trauma of War in the Middle East ... Page 56 Past Imperfect: Remembering for the Future Witnessing the Past in a Post-traumatic Age: Cultural Memory and Monuments to Trauma after WWII .............................................. Page 63 Trauma begets Trauma: The Holocaust and the Jewish State ............................................... Page 72 Swords into Plowshares Spoils of War, Debts of the Future: Medical Advancements in War ............................... Page 81 By the Grace of God(s): Healing War-Related Trauma in Veterans through Religion and Spirituality .......................................... Page 90

Editor Robynne Rogers Healey

Designer/ Art Director Tammy Chomiak

Writers Isaac Alstad Britney Birkenstock Olivia F. Corps Jericho Cui Sydney R. Dvorak Olivia Knull

Heather Lam Jeffrey D.H. Lau Melissa Palitti Carter Sawatzky Victoria Spencer Kimberly Vandermeulen

From The Editor References for each article and uncaptioned images are located at the end of the magazine. There you will find endnotes that correspond to each of the section. Find endnotes with this button. Cover image Erik Mclean, massive red bullet on ground with stones, pexels.com.

ENDNOTES

EDITORIAL

Welcome to our digital magazine project! This project is a summative, collaborative undertaking of the students in the Spring 2021 course HIST/POLS 406—War, Peace, and Society. This seminar course examines the changing nature of and approaches to war and its effect on society from the ancient world to the present, including an assessment of various visions of and proposals for peace. As Margaret MacMillan reminds us in War: How Conflict Shaped Us, one of the books we read this semester, “we need to pay attention to war because it is still with us. We need to know about its causes, its impact, how to end it and how to avoid it. And in understanding war we understand something about being human, our ability to organize ourselves, our emotions and our ideas, and our capacity for cruelty as well as for good” (272). In thinking about war and peace, our class selected “trauma” as the magazine’s theme. The articles that make up the magazine’s four sections all reflect on this theme in some way. We organized the sections in a particular way. The first section, Thin Red Line of Heroes, focusses on those who are at the heart of battle, soldiers themselves. Lau’s and Cui’s articles explore PTSD and moral injury in the lives of soldiers who served in twentieth century wars and peacekeeping missions. Sawatzky’s work interrogates the trauma created by the hypermasculinity prevalent in military environments. Section two, Tentacles of War, includes articles that examine the wideranging and enduring remnants of war. Vandermeulen picks up the topic of PTSD and considers its impact on soldiers’ families. Lam takes readers into the world of child soldiers in Somalia, investigating the reasons beyond abduction that children become soldiers. What about the impact of war on civilians? Knull’s analysis of the effect of civilian casualties on development points to the enduring aftermath of war. The impact of ongoing war trauma on civilians is also at the heart of Palitti’s survey of the Syrian refugee experience. Finally, Birkenstock looks at the ecological trauma of war in the Middle East and its long-term negative effects on non-combatants. Sections three and four look beyond war to consider the ways we remember war and heal from trauma. In Past Imperfect: Remembering for the Future, Dvorak explores the role of cultural memory in preserving important aspects of the past that must not be forgotten. Alstad’s work suggests that the trauma experienced by Jews during the Holocaust is now being turned onto Palestinians in Jewish occupied territories. Spencer’s article in Swords into Plowshares offers insights into the paradox of medical advancements that emerged out of the urgency of battlefield medicine. Corps’s concluding article investigates the impact of faith communities on healing war-related trauma. Even though this is the third time I have done this project with students, it still feels very much like an experiment. It would not have been possible without the collective efforts of wonderful students who willingly ventured into an unknown learning experience, even though we have all been exhausted by the added pressures of COVID-19 and an entirely virtual learning environment. Their thoughtful and committed engagement throughout this process has been inspiring. We have all learned a great deal. A special note of gratitude must go to our Art Director Tammy Chomiak. Her talents, organizational skills, and efficiency have created a beautiful final product. GLOSSARY • An armed conflict is a contest that concerns government and/or territory where armed force is used between two parties (of which at least one is the government of a state) and results in at least twenty-five battle-related deaths in one calendar year (undp.org). • Combatant is a person or nation engaged in fighting during a war. A non-combatant is an individual who is not engaged in fighting during a war, especially a civilian, chaplain, or medical practitioner. • DSM-III, IV, V—editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. DSM-III was originally published in 1980, DSM-IV was originally published in 1994, and DSM-V was originally published in 2013. • Moral injury is the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when one “perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress one’s own moral beliefs, values, or ethical codes of conduct” (moralinjuryproject.syr.edu). • PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, is a mental health condition that is triggered by either experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event (mayoclinic.org). • War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces.

Robynne Rogers Healey, Phd (she/her) Professor of History robynne.healey@twu.ca

A Medical Dilemma: Psychiatric Timeline in Defining and Diagnosing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Since 1914

Photo of Man Holding Signal Smoke, pexels.com.

In defining and diagnosing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the roots of contemporary psychiatry have drawn heavily from lessons learned from four major conflicts in the twentieth century: the First World War (WWI), the Second World War (WWII), the Vietnam War, and the ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. In conjunction with the eternal politicization of war, the advent of mass-produced munitions and explosives in modern warfare resulted in injuries that have created Two U.S. military police officers mourning the death of an Iraqi girl in Balad, a mental health epidemic Iraq in June 2003. Iraq War Collection, Associated Press Archives. in militaries. Physicians and psychologists alike have continually battled to observe, diagnose, and treat the conditions associated with modern warfare. From WWI to Iraq and Afghanistan, the formalization of PTSD into a mental diagnosis evolved from political and societal pressure towards addressing the mental and physical trauma experienced by soldiers. In the First World War, the combination of revolutionized military technology and outdated military tactics proved disastrous as the estimated twenty million military casualties created a psychiatric nightmare. At the end of 1914, British military psychiatrists and psychologists began observing an abnormal mish mash of mental and physical symptoms never diagnosed in conjunction before—perceptual abnormalities such as loss of sight and hearing, tremors, fatigue, confusion, nightmares, and headaches. The initial cause of these symptoms was widely speculated to be attributed to cowardice, malingering, a lack of masculinity, moral strength, in their personal character, or as an externalized reaction towards physical injuries.1 In Britain, the term “shell shock” appeared extensively throughout 1915 and well into the 1930s thanks to the widespread publicity and attention it received due to the overwhelming casualties of war. Numerous British psychiatrists believed shell shock was a physical head injury “initially conceived as a neurological lesion, a form of commotio cerebri, [or] the result of powerful compressive forces” due to relentless artillery barrages, mortar attacks, devastating mine explosions, and red-hot shrapnel.2 These theories, however, puzzled psychiatrists as the 1916 Battle of the Somme had produced a significant spike in “numbers of soldiers who had been close to a detonation without receiving a head wound” whose symptoms could not be linked to physical injury.3 On the other hand, consulting psychologists such as Charles Myers in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) observed “many shell-shocked soldiers [who] had been nowhere near an explosion had identical symptoms to those who had been in close proximity to an explosion.”4 This led psychologists to theorize that shell-shock was primarily a psychological condition.5

Wounded British and German soldiers move to a British dressing station during the Somme Offensive. Photo taken on 19 July 1916. Ernst Brooks. Battle of the Somme, July-November 1916. Collection of the First World War, IWM Q 800, Imperial War Museum, London, UK. Fair use.

With America joining the Entente powers in 1917, American physician Thomas W. Salmon modified Charles Myers’s widely utilized five-principle treatment plan for soldiers suffering from mental and emotional anguish: immediacy, proximity, expectancy, simplicity, and centrality.6 The purpose of Salmon’s modified treatment was to treat soldiers as soon and as close as possible to the frontline with persuasive expectations for recovery through “rest and recuperation” in a systematic manner.7 British and French military physicians noticed that soldiers within this treatment method were “benefiting from the emotional support of their comrades [and] had a high likelihood of return to their unit [in comparison to] those who were evacuated who often showed a poor prognosis with chronic symptoms that ultimately led to a discharge from the military.”8 2

The diagnosis of shell shock was a controversial phenomenon and alternative treatment methodologies were equally controversial as “doctors tried many therapies [such as] hypnosis, drugs, psychotherapy, electroshock, and discipline,” all of which were unsuccessful.9 On the extreme end, unsympathetic military psychiatrists “treated shellshocked soldiers as cowardly malingerers [who] deserved to be shot for treason”10 and by mid-1917, “electroshock and disciplinary therapies that emphasized fast, brutal, and shaming techniques” were widely utilized to keep soldiers in combat.11 British soldiers who failed to undergo successful treatment and reintegration into active service would be labelled as “undesirable soldiers”; they could be excluded from post-war pension plans and compensation despite their mental and physical injuries sustained.12 By 1917, the inhumane treatment of British and American soldiers discharged due to physical or mental injuries (or both) had become synonymous with the horrors of the war. Moreover, the military and public perception of soldiers diagnosed with shell shock was based on the belief that they were no longer “soldiers” regardless of whether they suffered physical injuries in addition to their psychological injuries. In 1919, it was estimated that over “10 percent of British battle casualties were categorized as some form of shell shock or neurasthenia [or] one seventh of all discharges from the British army”13 while “psychological cases constituted about 40 percent of all hospitalized veterans in the American army.”14 The reality of aerial combat, poison gas, and suicidal attacks had soldiers leaving the front shattered with mental injuries varying from facial tics to an inability to speak. In sum, PTSD was still an unformalized diagnosis at the end of WWI and although shell shock was understood “as a psychological reaction to war, as a type of concussion, or as a physiological response to prolonged fear,”15 doctors found it “difficult to distinguish between the effects of a mild head injury and an exceptionally stressful experience” until the end of the Second World War.16

Patients in a neuro-psychological ward at Camp Sherman, Ohio in 1918. Failed “rest and recuperation” cases were sent back to the U.S. for treatment. First World War Collection, National Archives, Washington, DC. Fair use.

American psychiatric casualties being treated under Thomas W. Salmon’s modified version of Myers’s five-principle “rest and recuperation” treatment plan. Salmon’s modified treatment would continue to be used by Allied militaries throughout WWII. American Soldiers at a Field Hospital in France, 1918-1919. First World War Collection, National Archives, Washington, DC. Fair use.

When the world entered another global conflict in WWII, psychiatry built on lessons learned from WWI. T psychologists within the British, American, and Canadian militaries consistently found that soldiers “expo apparent physical injury [with] reported symptoms for which no organic basis could be found.”17 Immens in diagnosis and perceptions of mental and emotional anguish in soldiers in WWII. Gone were militaristic were implemented. As Britain faced invasion in 1940, former consulting psychologist Charles Myers of th in WWI; however, the British military and Parliament criticized his findings as unpatriotic and defeatist. Ne gradually been adopted during WWII by both the British and American armies as the prompt treatment utilizing manpower.18 Britain’s strained wartime economy forced British psychiatrists to halt studies on so that hypotheses of the causes of PTSD emphasizing hereditary dispositions, neurotic personalities, cowa treatments involving drugs, hypnosis, and persuasion with drug-facilitated remembering, and directive p soldiers.20 These concerns inevitably forced Allied neuropsychiatrists to adopt pragmatic approaches in t therapy and vocational training based on aptitude test” as a way to return service personnel to purposef (ECT), magnetic seizure therapy (MST), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) showed limited effec symptoms of PTSD outlined in the DSM-III in 1980 and the subsequent development of treatment metho

Educational psychology studies focusing on PTSD symptoms from WWII veterans have suggested that so severity in PTSD symptoms following a traumatic experience.23 In 1970, further studies on American WW suggesting that soldiers’ access to education prior to military service could develop IQ and thus build re awareness of personal trauma and memories for coping.24 Moreover, post-WWII longitudinal studies on r suggested that “quality relationships with fellow soldiers may play a protective role against postwar PTSD WWII and the complications of manpower shortages and logistical resources, soldiers suffering from men their traumatic experiences at a later date. The theories and practices of psychiatry and psychology towa PTSD as a recognized mental diagnosis in the DSM-III following the conclusion of the Vietnam War.

The nature of the war had become increasingly unrestrained geographically, and psychiatrists and osed to high-explosive blasts identified significant psychological effects [despite] survival without se public backlash and politicization of veterans-related topics in the post-WWI era resulted in a shift c sentiments of execution from mental misdiagnoses and instead, slightly more humanistic approaches he BEF publicly detailed his psychological and humanistic theories for shell shock and its treatment evertheless, the straightforward principles of rest and recuperation introduced by Myers in 1915 had of soldiers as close to the fighting as safely possible became a defining feature of stretching and oldiers suffering from symptoms relating to PTSD. Despite these setbacks, military psychiatrists agreed ardice, or being inhibited physically or mentally, were not supported by sufficient evidence.19 Moreover, psychotherapy were gradually phased out due to moral and ethical concerns in the treatment of treatment methods by “retaining soldiers with shell shock in the armed forces and offering occupational ful activities to avoid public scrutiny.21 In addition, somatic treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy ctiveness for soldiers recovering from symptoms of PTSD. However, these trials contributed to defining ods within cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).22

oldiers with a higher intelligence quotient (IQ) are less likely to develop PTSD or at least have reduced WII veterans attributed genetic pre-dispositions for higher IQ as a major protective factor while also esiliency in developing symptoms for PTSD or at least gain sophisticated verbal skills and greater relational qualities with fellow soldiers and the onset of PTSD symptoms due to combat exposure have D symptoms, particularly at higher levels of combat exposure.”25 Through the globalized nature of ntal anguish on any frontline simply had to continue fighting and allow themselves to repress or re-live ards symptoms under PTSD remained in place until the end of the war and would lay the foundation for

U.S. Marines await evacuation of the wounded outside Da Nang, Vietnam on February 9, 1968. Vietnam War Collection, Associated Press Archives. Fair use.

Under the umbrella of the Cold War, the psychiatric findings in defining PTSD through the Vietnam War were significant due to the significant emotional and mental distress of American servicemembers. In addition, later developments from the formation of the DSM-III to the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns in early 2000s also contributed significantly in understanding and developing effective treatment methodologies for PTSD. The nature of combat within the Vietnam War—nonexistent battle lines, guerrilla attacks and tactics, and an often-indistinguishable enemy—was a newfound reality for American servicemembers. Although the Vietnam War is the second longest war in American history, American military psychiatrists estimated that psychological casualties were “ten times less than [those] in World War II” despite the brutality of the war.26 Although the number of psychological casualties was deemed minimal, many psychiatrists argued that the system of being in combat on Monday and being back in the US by Saturday, inevitably complicated the PTSD diagnoses due to the drastic shifts in environment.27 The socio-political fallout from the Vietnam War forced the American Psychiatric Association to formally define PTSD as a specific disorder that was more than a product of environmental stressors but also as a disorder that could emerge or persist many years following a traumatic experience.28 The conceptualization of a new disorder known as PTSD within the DSM-III29 formally recognized that, although soldiers experienced trauma externally, symptoms of PTSD could work “through present day memories of the past trauma that intruded into the present.”30

DSM-III criterion emphasized PTSD as a disorder that could emerge or persist many years following a traumatic experience beyond the confines of environmental stressors. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-III. 3rd ed., (Washington, DC, 1980), 238.

In the 1986–1988 National Vietnam Veteran Readjustment Study on 3016 American veterans, researchers noted that “direct experience[es] of combat (killing or attempting to kill) was associated with increased risk of PTSD symptoms, even after accounting for the effects of witnessing combat trauma in fellow soldiers.”31 Moreover, this study further revealed that roughly twenty-five percent of Vietnam veterans who had been in theatre between 1964 and 1973 required some psychological help.32 Beyond that, eleven percent suffered with significant PTSD symptoms.33 The reality of the post-DSM-III classification reflected the political landscape and compartmentalization behind the treatment and rehabilitation of Vietnam veterans, particularly in the United States as the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that roughly 30 percent, or 348,164 veterans who served in Vietnam from 1961–1975 had been categorized on disability rolls for PTSD.34

Formalization of PTSD as a mental disorder in the DSM-III in 1980 contributed to thousands of applications for disability roll, particularly from Vietnam and Gulf War veterans. Jamie L. Gradus, “PTSD: National Center for PTSD,” Epidemiology of PTSD, (2007): 1. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/ professional/treat/essentials/epidemiology.asp#three.

Concurrent studies for veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan beginning in 2005 reported that “25 percent of more than 100 000 veterans who returned from these wars received some mental health diagnosis; 13 percent were diagnosed with PTSD.”35 The psychiatric lessons learned from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan have utilized existing knowledge on co-morbid symptoms and diagnoses into the formal recognition of the PTSD diagnosis and the potential behavioural treatment options that have risen to prominence in recent years.

In the years since the Vietnam War and throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, modern psychiatry and psychology have continually drawn on relatively new behavioural-based therapeutic interventions for treating PTSD. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) has been recognized as a phase-based approach in treating trauma and symptoms by dissociating while reconnecting the client in a safe and measured method to the images, emotions, self-thoughts, and body sensations associated with the trauma by which their cognitive perceptions of their trauma can be altered.36 Considerable research has been conducted on PTSD groups in civilian populations where “significant alterations in brain function with corresponding changes on symptom measures” have been achieved.37 Due to its humanistic and behavioural approach, EMDR has long been considered as having greater potential than traditional talk therapies.38 Prolonged exposure therapy (PE) is a Re-categorization of diagnostic criteria, symptoms and co-morbidity related to PTSD. cognitive behavioural treatment American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: intervention aimed at re-shaping DSM-5, 5th ed., (Arlington, VA, 2013), 271-272. learned behaviours in response to situations, thoughts, or memories that are perceived as frightening or anxiety-provoking.39 Due to its phased and confrontational approach, PE has achieved significant treatment efficacy for those suffering primarily from PTSD’s second and third categories of intrusion and avoidance.40 The largest limitation of this approach is its dropout rate; PE can be confrontational and incredibly intense for some patients, especially considering the stigmatization of PTSD and therapeutic interventions for active and retired servicemembers. In addition, significant research is necessary for combat-related PTSD cases where comorbidity exists which may lead to lengthy and complicated treatment plans. Other modern treatment methods such as pharmacotherapy, have utilized selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) as a primary treatment for PTSD. Unfortunately these have only shown short-term efficacy in suppressing symptoms of PTSD.41 Other medications such as painkillers and anti-depressants are also considered to be short-term solutions that should only be utilized in conjunction with other behavioural interventions as to minimize side-effects and complications for those with co-morbidity.42 The mental and emotional damage from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan helped formulate the modern diagnosis of PTSD and the relatively recent therapeutic interventions.

David Furst. U.S. Soldier in Conversation with Local Iraqi. 2008. Iraq War Collection, Associated Press Archives. Fair use.

As war continues to make demands on soldiers, the distinctions between physical and psychological injury will continue. The unfortunate reality is that military service members of all branches will continue to fight battles far beyond the confines of conventional warfare. The complexities of diagnosing, treating, and living with PTSD for military servicemembers and societies, will forever be a controversial and confronting reality. Jeffrey D.H. Lau Psychology major; History minor

Making The Man: Militarized Masculinity & The Queer Glitches The Promise Military masculinities can produce complex trauma in male soldiers––even for those who are seemingly welladjusted. Men are expected to represent the utopian nation-state as they join and participate in their ranks… and they are expected to remain in the same idealist (abled, heterosexual) state once they are no longer military personnel.1 The military promises that men can become the “realest” and most authentic version of themselves through their resources.2 It claims to provide the unique resources to build an ultimate masculine identity defined by “emotional control, overt heterosexual desire, physical fitness, self-discipline, selfreliance, the willingness to use aggression and physical violence, and risk-taking.”3 This military promise, however, essentially collapses in on itself as war in fact cultivates disability and queerness (of a general sense) by opening up Herbert Andrew Paus. The United States Army builds men. Apply nearest bodies to debilitation recruiting office / Herbert Paus. United States, 1919. Library of Congress. and interdependence.4 With the inevitable failure in upholding the mandatory personal and social standards of ideal military masculinity (not “manning up”) often comes the experience the psychological distress and of being associated with the not-masculine which is often categorized as feminine, disabled, and queer. As dictated by military masculinities, men must continually reject from themselves and others all that is considered not-masculine––if not, they risk becoming what is viewed as abject in their community.

Herbert An recruiting

Military

Ideal ma military a harmle hegemo

The mili excludin to comp quickly f its mem for the m

Men Are Made Men are not born; they are made. They do not follow a predetermined biological trajectory encoded in their DNA: “they do not inevitably grow from infants through boyhood to manhood,”5 instead, they are socialized, co-constructed, and “masculinized” by performing as men through consistent, obedient participation in the cultural signifiers of what manhood is seen to be (for their particular cultural and contextualized moment). Masculinity is often constructed in relation to the hegemonic masculinity which is a dominant socially constructed form of masculinity that is culturally exalted above other expressions of masculinity as well as femininity: it is presented as primarily “heterosexual, aggressive, authoritative, and courageous.”6

According to social-constructionist theory, men are not born soldiers; they become soldiers under the “military gaze.”7 Like other masculinist institutions,8 the military encourages the pursuit and maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity is not a function of a male-dominated military simply because of its male majority, but is a function of the ongoing narrative formation whereby military personnel are each encouraged (either explicitly or implicitly) to actively situate themselves as sitting atop these loosely structured hierarchies.9 Anyone who participates in these kinds of institutions is absorbed into the constant, daily struggle of hegemonic masculine identity (even if one is a women, queer, person of colour, etc.). Their own characteristics become appropriated and weaponized for the military’s own ends including the preservation of its “paternal protector” public reputation, the tightknit group unity, and for the assurance of wartime ndrew Paus. The United States Army builds men. Apply nearest success10: it becomes necessary to participate in office / Herbert Paus. United States, 1919. Library of Congress. hegemonic masculinity so one’s position and social status can be successfully acquired and maintained.11 women are also tasked with upholding dominant military masculinities.12

asculinity must remain a “desirable attainment”13 in order for its symbolic power to function in favour of the institution. While many enlisted soldiers may choose to overlook the traumatic effects of this system as if it is ess incentive for productivity, strength-building, and community bonding for the group––the weaponization of onic masculinity by the military is not a forgiving structural system by any means.

itary is not interested in coddling those who give up in this struggle to be atop the pyramid: it is ruthless in ng those who fail to comply and those who do not “mesh” well with the community. While its members seek ply with the ideal masculinity, there is no reward awaiting them except the expectation to keep up or get forgotten and punished at the bottom of the hierarchy. As the purpose of the institution is to fight and defend, mbers “can afford no deviation,”14 therefore the brutal ordeal of hierarchical masculinities is ultimately necessary military’s mission.

The Ideal Male Soldier Body The soldier’s body is “war matter.”15 Values of self-discipline are often conflated with physical fitness and, the military has become known as a place “where bodies are transformed”16 into a “proper” shape, fit for warfare. The image of the Rambo warrior17 and other muscularly oriented imagery are still dominant visions of the male body in military service.18 The male-soldier-body has long functioned as abstractions for the nation-state. Nations rely upon their militaries to defend themselves so a strong connection is constructed between the military, soldiers, and the nation. Belkin makes an argument on how this occurs: When the normativity of the soldier, military, state, and empire are lined up such that the cleansing of the troops purifies the other entities simultaneously… Accordingly, constructions of the soldier’s toughness, masculinity, dominance, heterosexuality, and stoicism can conjure images of military strength, state, legitimacy, and imperial righteousness, while depictions of the soldier’s flaws can implicate notions of military weakness and state and imperial illegitimacy.19 Military personnel are designated with the resolute duty to protect the women, children, and their home country. Once whipped into shape, the esteemed militarized male body is endowed with glory and set for service “to his fatherland, and perhaps most importantly, ready to serve an in-need-of-protection, feminized motherland.”20 Over the last two centuries, the ideal male military body has embodied everything to do with “hyperpatriotism, military values, rehabilitation protocols, or conventional heterosexual masculinity.”21 This fixation with able-bodied, heterosexual, virile standards is anything but a static process: those engaged in obeying the military gaze must adapt to the “constantly shifting category of embodied experience.”22 Everything that challenges or stands in the way of this ideal is disavowed, excluded, and rigorously excised. Starting in the eighteenth century, the military began to use eugenics, sexological tools, and various pseudosciences to filter out those viewed as “threats to the heteronormative able-bodiedness of its ranks.”23 The inspection and recruitment process depended on “fantasies and fears about race and nation… to maintain its own integrity as an institution.”24 Queerness and body non-normativity25 was rooted out of the military culture by turning away recruits if their physical or psychological makeup contradicted the mythic ideal. These pseudosciences drew strong comparisons between the beautiful male body and a selfdisciplined character: the recruitment process ensured that only those who passed the “erotics of inspection”26 could enlist. These classifications of physical differences were critical strategies utilized by the military to “rationalize assumptions about queerness and disability” that forbid the so-called unfit from military ranks.27

McClelland Barclay. Man the guns-Join the Navy. United States, 1941-1945. Records of the Office of Government Reports, Record Group 44. National Archives and Records Administration.

The public image of military male bodies is portrayed primarily as heterosexual.28 In this British pro-war propaganda postcard from 1916, a conscientious objector is being bullied by a buff German soldier.29 The feminine man is characterized in the cartoon with visibly identifiable disabilities––his lack of bodily strength and physical non-normativity––that are meant to be traced to his femininity and queerness. For instance, his queerly limp-wristed hand is ineffective in combat, but it is also a deformity that corresponds to his misshapen fingers, twisted limbs, and feeble frame.30 Under His Eye: Acquiring And Maintaining An Ideal Self-Presentation The military is an “exclusive culture” that mandates31 that each soldier embody a self presentation that represents (to a certain standard) their nation’s idealist image. The military is deeply invested in various forms of normativity and this manifests itself in men’s selfpresentation.32 This robust process starts before one is recruited or drafted to participate in war. War propaganda often insists on a narrow, unattainable, vision of masculinity that most men fail to embody. To be part of the military community, men are put through a rigorous process of training and communal bonding to acquire a glimpse of the ideal masculine identity required of them. To prove one’s greater self-discipline, military personnel must become set apart from civilians,33 women, queers,34 and even against other military personnel.35 These differences must be internalized to authentically perform one’s masculine identity which is necessary for their mission.

The Conscientious Objector at the Front. Austria, Germany, 1914-1918. Collection of German postcards relating to the First World War, 1914-1918. Library of Congress.

For example, one’s posture, gaze, and movement are vital pieces in differentiating oneself from civilians and those of other military training.36 Military environments encourage the “policing of gender presentation… rewarding hypermasculinity” among both women and men.37 Hypermasculine performance, however, is not the foolproof key to the top of this discursively constructed hegemony. Another tactic to maintain one’s position in the hierarchical pyramid involves the ridicule of men from other branches who engage in over-the-top aggression.38 This example of inter-branch rivalry problematizes masculine self-presentation and complicates the journey to “[come] out on top.”39 By discursively measuring themselves against others by their actions, perceived virtues, motivations, and behaviours, they wage “ideological warfare”40 on civilians and other military personnel.”41 In wielding symbolic power, military personnel invariably get cut by the same sword. Mere participation in these masculinist institutions (which require playing into hierarchical masculinities) produces unique trauma because of its nearly unattainable and ever-morphing definition of peak personhood. Those who engage with the tools and resources of hegemonic masculinity will inevitably and ironically be subordinated or marginalized.42 Whoever is the most emotionally controlled, motivated by honour, or more intelligent one day may not be the next. The internalization of differences (from civilians, queers, women, etc.) is encouraged even beyond one’s time of service (in terms of self-presentation and the ideal male body). Men are to remain pristine and shining examples of normalcy and heterosexual able-bodiedness. For instance, there is a long history of concern for soldier’s sexual lives, and that men might fulfill heteronormative roles of husband and fatherhood.43 Once released from service, men are told to “man up” and take controlof their (apparently) lower parts of emotion and unruly body by shaking off the negative impacts of warfare as if nothing ever happened.44 After one’s service is complete, men are still expected to maintain self-discipline. Soldiers are men of war so long as they “sacrifice their lives by going to war” and “[return] as if they never left.”45 I propose that most men of military personnel are traumatized to some degree by these expectations whether on a conscious level or not.

Central Recruiting Committee, Funder/Sponsor. Your Chums Are Fighting -- Why Aren’t You?. Canada, 1917. Library of Congress.

Shell-Shocked Masculinity The crisis of shell-shock in the First World War is a distinctive event where men’s trauma was distrusted, feminized, and dismissed. Medical officers doubted the acute distress these men suffered and interpreted their symptoms through the lens of failed masculinity. Men who claimed to be shellshocked were seen by doctors at the time to be “avoiding their duty as men,”46 “malingering to avoid economic hardship,”47 and/or due to inherited or pre-existing defects.48 Only a minority of shell-shock cases were deemed to be legitimate because of this medical gatekeeping. Medical authorities constructed trauma as “an individual failure to meet masculine ideals in order to parry a larger challenge to idealized masculinity.”49 These messages regarding War Is Trauma” by Jesse Purcell (2011) is part of the “Operation Exposure” portfolio produced by Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative in collaboration with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). Jesse how men should deal Purcell. War Is Trauma. 2011. “Operation Exposure: War Is Trauma”, Justseeds. with trauma prevail in conversations around war-related PTSD. Trauma: For Men™ Men’s wartime trauma is a unique phenomenon as it tests and questions the nation-state’s control over the male body.50 Mental and/or physical disabilities due to combat trauma fail to comply with the ableist, heteronormative institution for the military, one’s self-conception, and one’s expectations for relationship with the world.51 A man experiencing trauma is seen to be displaying feminine characteristics—as not being himself.52 Returning soldiers who struggle with a “manly homecoming”53 are deemed as pitiful examples of undisciplined masculinity.

The pursuit of a “manly” recovery to wartime trauma–– whether major or minor trauma––contributes to the worsening of one’s trauma. Because the message of “pulling up one’s bootstraps” quickly becomes ingrained in military personnel while in community with each other, anything other than strict emotional control is viewed as deviant. Reckoning with one’s various experiences of warfare interferes with the constant upkeep for hegemonic masculinities, so healing is a fraught, delayed, and repressed work. The male body is “feminized when seen as sick, weak, or wounded”54 so dealing with trauma means confronting the idea of personal emasculation: as the male gaze is turned inwards on ‘the man,’ men become “figures of crisis”55 who are no longer images of composure or self-control. A soldier No Such Thing as a Toy Soldier” by Marshall Weber (2011) is part of the “Operation Recovery” portfolio experiencing trauma produced by Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative in collaboration with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). becomes subject to a Marshall Weber. No Such Thing as a Toy Soldier. 2011. “Operation Recovery,” Justseeds. “conversation of which he should not be the object nor a participant—a conversation about feminine behaviour… he becomes an object of—and experiences—shame.”56 The former soldier cannot successfully fulfill the mountain of requirements for manhood in his traumatized state. From here, he cannot reasonably convince himself to seek charity from others as this requires further emasculation.57 Any step in the direction of healing from trauma calls forth the searing eye of the “military gaze”58 which still operates on him, even while he is out of service. He continues to draw from his internalized skills that helped him succeed in topping Carter Sawatzky (they/them) the pyramid of hegemonic masculinities––although English Honours; Gender it no longer serves him to do so. Studies minor

Peacekeeping: the Impossible Utopian Mission

Canadians have often portrayed Canada as a “peaceable kingdom.”1 Since the Second World War, Cana been involved as a global peacekeeper on the global stage. Canada’s decision to renounce its nuclear ar and its role as nuclear power2 is an indication of Canada’s belief that it should act as an advocate of regio global peace and security. Since the Suez Crisis, Canada has participated in United Nations’ regional and peacekeeping. Prime Minister Pearson declared the Canadian government’s stand on stabilizing the regi peace and security between the British-led French-Israeli coalition and Egypt by calling for the creation o United Nations Emergency Force [UNEF].3 The Canadian involvement in the Suez Crisis triggered the bir UNEF and UN Peacekeeping Missions.4 Since then, Canadian troops have been deployed to politically o unstable nations to secure peace and security, protect civilians from conflicts and wars, and promote Can values and its global image as a peacekeeper. Canada has been effectively involved in many challenging cold war peacekeeping missions in areas like Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and Somalia, but Canadian peacekeep exposed to potential risk of PTSD, and charters of peacekeeping missions add even more stress on peac shoulder.

Since 1956, Canadian peacekeepers have been deployed to regions in need of stabilization, regional pe security. They have experienced praise, frustration, and many horrific events, especially during peacekee missions in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and Somalia. They have dedicated their passion and time; some have lo lives serving to preserve the common goal of regional stabilization. While peacekeepers return to Canad end of “heroic” missions, many have struggled with traumas that have created difficulties for them to ret their regular life. Canadian peacekeepers experienced high pressure and a sense of helplessness through peacekeeping missions in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and Somalia. Post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] alongs other traumas have become significant threats to those peacekeepers who participate in peacekeeping m The number of Canadian peacekeepers who suffer from war traumas is considerable, and it seems like th their dedication to peace and security is associated traumas.

UN Peacekeeping Operations are based on three fundamental principles: “consent of the parties,” “imp and “non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate.”5 The uniqueness of UN Peac Missions fortifies the UN’s belief in sustaining peace and security in the global community. According to and Kelloway’s study, there are two main stressors that trigger PTSD among Canadian peacekeepers: com context.6 Because of the three fundamental principles of UN Peacekeeping Operations, the rules of enga are impartial and strict. Marrack Goulding, a former British diplomat, explains the third principle as to ap “force only to the minimum extent necessary and that normally fire should be opened only in self-defenc The uniqueness of UN Peacekeeping Operations exposes Canadian peacekeepers to war traumas due to special restraint in UN operations and the phycological isolation from the normality of life.

Based on research on the hypothetical cause and effect relationship between peacekeeping deployment been deployed for peacekeeping operations have a higher rate of probable PTSD and clinical depressio mission experience PTSD and 30.25% experience clinical depression. The figures for those never deploy peacekeepers deployed more than once have almost 4% greater chance to experience PTSD and 2% in Canadian peacekeepers who experience PTSD have an almost half health-related quality of life [HRQOL] relationship, and the transition back to their normal life. HRQOL of many former peacekeepers is signific

Direct exposure to attack is one of the major problems that triggers PTSD among peacekeepers. Canadi under consent of parties, be impartial, and only use forces when it is to the extent of self-defense. As a r permitted to interfere. Peacekeepers had been open targets for rivals in unstable areas. Based on statist and 69% reported they were subject to artillery, rocket, or mortar attacks.11 In many circumstances, Cana the special aspect of their particular operations. 22

ada has rsenal onal and d global ional of the rth of or socially nadian g postpers are cekeepers’

eace, and eping ost their da at the turn to hout side many missions. he cost of

partiality,” cekeeping Lamerson mbat and agement pply ce.”7 o the Photo courtesy of CTV news.

t times and the possibility of experiencing war traumas, the statistics show that soldiers who have on than soldiers never deployed. 10.92% of soldiers who have been deployed once on a peacekeeping yed are 3.99% for PTSD and 21.74% for clinical depression. Moreover, the research also indicates that clinical depression.8 In another study that the same researchers have done, it is proven that former ]9 that an average Canadian male has.10 Many of them are struggling with psychological illnesses, cantly lower than the average because of the horrific events during deployments abroad.

ian peacekeeping forces have to follow strict rules of engagement which requires them to act only result, many witness the death or injury of those they are trying to protect, knowing they are not tical data, 50% of participants deployed to former Yugoslavia witnessed civilian or military casualties, adian soldiers were restricted from interfering in conflicts or even offering humanitarian assistance due to

Contextual stressors are also a primary cause of PTSD. Lamerson describes this as a contributor “to individual stress reactions above and beyond the contribution exerted by exposure to traumatic events.”12 The role of peacekeepers during deployments often confuses many peacekeepers, as they often experience a clash between “a stated mission” and “the fundamental need to defend a civilian’s life.”13 It is a struggle for many peacekeepers to maintain impartiality during operations. Peacekeepers are obligated to remain neutral in conflicts even if they refuse to provide humanitarian assistance to people in need.14 Forced to observe and unable to assist those in need challenges soldiers’ morality as peacekeepers and can cause them “moral injury.” As Lamerson and Kelloway stated in 1995, peacekeepers “could not forcibly respond to threat of attack; however, in the absence of a direct order, they could also not withdraw from the situation.”15 There have also been cases in which some peacekeepers question the official purpose and legitimacy of the operation, and they come to find sympathy for the opposition.16 All of this demonstrates that the role of peacekeepers in peacekeeping operations can be complex.

Peacekeepers in Rwanda. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Fair use.

Consider the example of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda [UNAMIR]. According to former Canadian peacekeeper Jean-Yves St-Denis, UNAMIR was not a Peacekeeping Mission, instead it “was an aberration of life, seeing people die or dead.”17 St-Denis described his deployment as a UN peacekeeper in Rwanda as a limited deployment. Canadian peacekeepers had to ensure their own survival, raising the question of how the mission could be carried out efficiently under these circumstances? St-Denis who suffers with PTSD as a result of his deployment contends that peacekeepers felt “helpless” in restoring peace and security in the region.18 The restraint and limitation on engagement rules generated a sense of helplessness for many Canadian peacekeepers, increasing the possibility for peacekeepers to be diagnosed with PTSD.19 UNAMIR was a peacekeeping mission created to ensure the enforcement of the Arusha Accords, but it failed. The death of the Rwandan president in 1994 triggered the extremist Hutu movement toward Tutsis and moderate Hutus.20 The Rwanda genocide was responsible for the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in one hundred days.21 The West’s silence in responding to General Roméo Dallaire’s warning of this potential genocide left peacekeepers in a very difficult situation.22 The documentary Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire suggests the lack of support for peacekeepers both before and during their deployment: “they sent [Dallaire] out to [Rwanda] without support, without briefing, without background, without knowledge. They plunked him into the middle of the most incendiary human predicament.”23 Dallaire had to operate the peacekeeping mission with limited resources and peacekeepers, limiting the efficiency of the task, but he as the head of the operation lacked experience, and peacekeepers under his command were disabled to provide humanitarian aids. UNAMIR and its failure exposed Dallaire and the peacekeepers under his command to war traumas as they were unable to provide humanitarian assistance to locals and were powerless to stop, other than witnessing, them being slaughtered. Similarly, the United Nations Protection Force [UNPROFOR] in former Yugoslavia is another example of the inefficiency of a peacekeeping mission. It was an operation initiated with the purpose of restoring and maintaining peace and security in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Srebrenica, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Under the leadership of Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, UNPROFOR was deployed to the region in 1992 with a force of roughly 14,000 peacekeepers.24 The Security Council denied MajorGender Mackenzie’s request for the deployment of 135,000 peacekeepers that Mackenzie considered necessary to carry out the mission.. Peacekeepers in the operating countries were guided by the rule of the safe-haven. As the solution to the lack of peacekeepers in the area, the Security Council changed the rules of engagement after recognizing the circumstance in the region was becoming out of control due to the lack of peacekeepers from “the UN will defend the safe havens” to “by their presence will the UN deter attacks on the safe havens.”25 In July of 1995, the Bosnian Serb army massacred approximately 8,000 civilians at Srebrenica; UNPROFOR peacekeepers were helpless to stop it.26 What happened in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia has tortured UNAMIR and UNPROFOR peacekeepers physically and mentally. They were witnesses to evil without being able to protect the civilians from that evil. General Dallaire is still experiencing PTSD, and he has attempted to commit suicide. The deployment exposed him to PTSD and created a

sense of separation from his family. Dallaire described his return to his family as being like “a zombie or at least a foreigner.”27 Other Canadian peacekeepers experienced similar feelings. Separation from family is the primary stressor for the majority of peacekeepers. It has become a concern for many who cite “being separated, a lack of contact, worry over the welfare of family members and being unable to deal with problems when they occur back home” as a significant stressor that negatively affects their mental health.28 Ronald Miller’s story reflects many of the challenges faced by Canadian peacekeepers. Miller, a former major, has PTSD. He had been assigned to a number of peacekeeping operations following his deployment to Germany during the Cold War. Unforgettable memories of peacekeeping deployments eventually triggered Miller’s PTSD in 2016. Miller says he was “exposed to the kind of death and destruction that can be rather difficult from a psychological standpoint.”29 Based on Dr. Lanius’s neuroimaging research on what caused Miller’s PTSD, the result was clear that the “moral injury” from the missions was the source. He often experiences the circumstance where he can only obverse innocent civilians dying even though he feels responsible for providing humanitarian aids.30 Because of the chapter mandates of each UN peacekeeping mission, peacekeepers like Miller can experience “moral injury” as a result of their feelings of helplessness. Both St-Denis and Miller dedicated their early years as soldiers to peace securing operations; the impact of these operations and the resulting PTSD has remained with them throughout their lives. Another issue for Canadian peacekeepers is financial stressors. Long-distance deployments also create financial pressure on peacekeepers, as the authors reveal that soldiers on UN Peacekeeping Operations often experience a financial delay.31 Many Canadian peacekeepers struggled with managing their personal finances while they were on peacekeeping missions.32 The financial uncertainty in addition to separation from family as well as the stress of the mission itself resulted in intense tension for many peacekeepers. These high levels of stress resulted in a high incidence of PTSD among Canadian peacekeepers. On a global scale, UN peacekeeping missions have had a profound impact on securing regional and international peace and security. “UN Peacekeeping helps countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace. We have unique strengths, including legitimacy, burden sharing, and an ability to deploy troops and police from around the world, integrating them with civilian peacekeepers to address a range of mandates set by the UN Security Council and General Assembly.”33 Despite the role peacekeeping forces are designed to play in international affairs, misconduct by peacekeepers, especially the sexual abuse of local civilians, has come to light in recent years. Cases of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers have been reported in Haiti, Congo, Liberia, South Sudan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and beyond. This is an urgent issue that has put the UN peacekeepers on the hot spot.34 Professor Defeis from Washington University believes that the social environment in peacekeeping areas is so fragile that “the rule of law is absent,” and the code of conduct for each peacekeeping personnel (UN staff, military observers, police, peacekeepers) is different.35 Defeis also claims that the masculine culture among UN troops is a contributing factor to this abuse of power.36 This behaviour has dishonoured the work of UN peacekeeping missions globally.

In conclusion, Canada has been a proactive player in global peacekeeping missions. Since the Suez Crisis, Canada has indicated its firm stand in participating in regional and global peace and security in the peacekeeping field. This has created the image of Canada as a middle power active in worldwide peacekeeping. Canadian soldiers have actively participated in many UN peacekeeping missions, dedicating themselves to securing regional peace and security. Since the end of the Cold War, many Canadian peacekeepers who have completed their missions have returned to Canada as decorated soldiers. They have earned their war honours. Sadly, they have also brought home the trauma of their experiences in failed peacekeeping operations. PTSD and clinical depression have become a threat to many Canadian peacekeepers’ wellbeing, complicating their transition from active military service to regular military life or civilian life. The two primary causes of the high incidence of PTSD and clinical depression The International Myth of Canada as a among post-Cold Peacekeeping Nation,” The Walrus. Fair use. War peacekeepers is combat and contextual stressors. Both have had negative impacts on peacekeepers’ personal and military lives. Canada needs to invest more resources in preparing soldiers better before they deploy them. They also need to provide proper treatment after deployments to prevent and address PTSD and clinical depression. UN peacekeeping missions have been criticized from time to time for failing to ensure peace and security in the region of their operation. Moreover, there have been reports of sexual abuse and exploitation of locals by peacekeepers. The Canadian military was immersed in a controversial scandal when it came to light that Canadian peacekeepers perpetrated sexual assault, exploitation, and murder in Somalia.37 As dishonouring as this behaviour was to both the Canadian military and the United Nations peacekeeping missions, these actions are not representative of most Canadian peacekeepers, or peacekeepers generally as outlined by Antonio Guterres, current Secretary-General of the UN: “we will not tolerate anyone commuting or condoning a crime, and in particular, crimes of sexual exploitation and abuse.”38 Canadian peacekeepers have served and are still serving in global peacekeeping missions; their service should be valued and remembered as an important contribution to global security. Jericho Cui International Studies Major; Media and Communication Minor

Photo of Brest France 1944 by Cptn Claxton Ray, 360th EAB US Army during WWII, University Archives in St. John’s Newfoundland, public domain.

‘What Happens in Vietnam Does Not Stay in Vietnam’: The Truth Behind PTSD in US Combat Veterans and Their Families The Vietnam War is often described as one that left the greatest psychological impact on those who served. Combat veterans in particular developed far more severe trauma and PTSD than those who served elsewhere.1 Few discuss the impact of PTSD on veterans’ families. Affectionate spouses and parents returned from the Vietnam war as zombie-like beings.2 Vietnam combat veterans whose trauma symptoms were left untreated suffered internally, while also impacting the lives of spouses and children who lacked support as well. Scholars estimate that over one third of the two million Americans who returned home from the Vietnam war suffered PTSD.3 The DSM-IV explains that those with PTSD tend to be irritable, short-tempered, and hypervigilant while also being more prone to nightmares, anxiety, paranoia, depression, emotional numbing, distress, sporadic aggression, and withdrawal.4 One combat veteran, commenting on its severity, called it “Permanent Traumatic Stress Disorder,” something that has stuck with him for decades.5 He claims that “[a]nyone who tells you the Vietnam War ended on April 30th, 1975 is a liar … It came back with all of us. Buried deep in our psyche.”6 Considering the enduring effects of PTSD, he concludes, “[t]he Vietnam war will end only when the last veteran or the last family member of a veteran dies.”7

Soldiers Laying Down Covering Fire. W. Wolny. Wikimedia Commons.

The combat experience in Vietnam was unique. The nature of the war made postwar reintegration into society challenging. Consider the impact of jungle warfare, undercover enemies, and hidden dangers on the psyche of American soldiers: “Half the time you didn’t even see anything.... Until you’d find the bodies. They could booby-trap everything. A cigarette package – anything – and leave it around.”8 This unpredictability resulted in Vietnam veterans suffering psychological impairment at nearly double the rate compared to other wars.9 The psychological impairment could be severe enough to cloud veterans’ judgements once back in the United States. To make matters worse, Americans’ overall lack of support for the war exaggerated PTSD symptoms.

“Karl Marlantes explains that his psyche was so damaged that he could not differentiate between holding a weapon and holding his kids.”10 Marlantes recalls arriving home from war and being spat on when he was in uniform.11 30

Vietnam War Protestors at the March on the Pentagon. Frank Wolfe. Wikimedia Commons.

For many veterans, an immediate loss of identity and purpose was felt once back to the United States. The average age of Americans who served in Vietnam was nineteen, as opposed to twenty-six in WWII, making it difficult for veterans to find employment after the war.12 Furthermore, roughly twenty-six percent of veterans came back with drug addictions, a function of drugs being a cheap and accessible stress reliever in Vietnam.13 Back in the US, veterans self-medicated rather than seeking therapy to cope with PTSD.14 Unemployment, substance abuse, and a lack of treatment often led many veterans to homelessness or criminal activity.15 For some, the trauma resurfaced as assault, child abuse, divorce, rape, homicide, and suicide, hurting those closest to the veteran.16 For example, Marlantes awoke to his mother telling him that he had “reached out and tried to choke her,” though he had no recollection of this incident.17 Likewise, one woman commented that after her husband’s return from war, he nearly killed a stranger because the man had startled him.18 Vietnam veterans were not trained to address their heightened defensive responses, thus preventing them from being in control of behaviours that had become reflexive. Their psychological wounds were so deep, and their trauma was so raw, that their lives at home hardly felt different than their service in Vietnam.

The day’s battle ended, soldiers await the helicopter that will evacuate their comrade from the jungle covered hills in Long Khanh Province. Pfc. L. Paul Epley. Wikimedia Commons.

The impact of PTSD currently remains prevalent for many veterans and their families. It is estimated that similar PTSD symptoms.19 Bruce Taneski states, “there is not a day that goes by … that [I] am not remind forehead goodnight, and there is a stir, and a beautiful, trusting face has been transformed into the bubb have for killing innocent people particularly troubles them.22 Unfortunately, some view suicide as the easi field on Tuesday … and arrive[d] back in ‘the world’ on Thursday.”24 Though some veterans received ther with combat fighting.25 Marlantes suggests several interventions that may have reduced the long-lasting or special ceremonies could help veterans gain control of their emotions and behaviours.26 Moreover, pre postwar.27 Finally, mandatory counseling funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) would limit th

The lack of postwar support structures for veterans placed unreasonable pressure on their spouses. Vete challenging for spouses to contribute positively to healing if they are uneducated about PTSD. Some com help. One wife did not realize her husband had PTSD until she read online about the disorder.30 She was with resources to aid him.31 Another wife was knocked down in a parking lot and thought to herself, “Oh God, I’m going out with a crazy man” because she did not understand the effects of her husband’s PTSD Family members must be familiar with PTSD in order to be an appropriate support for a veteran.

A barrier preventing spouses from supporting veterans is that they battle a trauma of their own. Marlante them “veterans of a different war” due to the isolation, pain, and fear they endure after the veteran’s retu Avoidance and distrust are common symptoms of PTSD which often causes decreased intimacy or inexp behaviour.34 One wife describes her husband before and after Vietnam, “He was affectionate, considerat kind. When he returned, he had a quick temper ... right now I do not like him.”35 A veteran recounts a tim he was looking through photos: “I just flipped out … I beat my wife over the head with a full quart bottle beer.”36 These behaviours lead to a lack of safety, increased stress levels, and greater parental and dome responsibilities for the veteran’s spouse. One spouse claims that “[i]t’s hard to live with somebody who’s miserable… who’s broken on the inside.”37 An overabundance of stress may result in a separation betwe veteran and his or her partner.38

Children of veterans with PTSD are also affected in numerous ways. Some veterans with untreated PTSD struggle to show emotions to their kids, thus fostering abandonment and a lack of self-worth.39 The abse familial involvement from veterans with PTSD often causes children to feel emotional distressed, disappo or undervalued.40 As a result, children of veterans with PTSD may struggle to develop or maintain friends Furthermore, scholars determined that men with PTSD demonstrate greater parenting difficulties, trigge poorer behaviour amongst their children.42 Consequently, children of Vietnam veterans frequently experi more unease at home as a result of their parent’s behaviour. Regarding the severity of this disquiet, one w explains that her husband with PTSD has had unhealthy thoughts about hurting his kids.43 Another wife r when her son startled her husband and suddenly “he had our son pinned on the floor.”44 The increased burden placed on spouses as a result of the veterans’ PTSD may alter their parental functioning as well.45 implications of this behaviour toward children are significant. One Vietnam veteran explains that for a lon time “my children didn’t talk to me, [they] had nothing to do with me.”46

Nearly half a decade after the war, veterans and their families continue the search for effective supports t promote healing. One source states that roughly 2.3 million Vietnam vets received services from the Vete significantly reduce the severity of PTSD, hence Marlantes’s claim that “[t]oo many veterans, from Vietnam the VA assisted him by issuing pills that proved to be ineffectual.49 Other efforts such as the “Social Secu financially support veterans who cannot work, though the long-term effects of such efforts are not always resources. Additionally, it is estimated that thirty-five percent of American’s homeless population served

roughly 500,000 Vietnam veterans had PTSD in 1990, though many undiagnosed veterans expressed ded of the Nam.”20 Another veteran explains a recurring nightmare: “I am leaning over the bed to kiss a bled, flaking, disfigured black horror of the kid I once saw in the hospital.”21 The guilt combat veterans iest way to eliminate guilt.23 Taneski explains, “all too often men were in combat on Monday, [left] the rapy through the National Center for PTSD, it was not beneficial if the psychologist was unfamiliar effects of combat trauma. For instance, healing minds, bodies, and souls through religious meditation ewar training explaining why combatants kill could reduce the psychological burden felt by veterans he severity of PTSD symptoms for veterans and their families.28

erans with a supportive spouse experienced greater success in the postwar healing process.29 It is mbat veterans were silent about their trauma and their spouses were not provided with resources to s later told that her husband would likely commit suicide within the next ten years yet was not provided h my D.32

es calls urn.33 plicable te, me e of estic

een the

ence of ointed, ships.41 ering ience wife recalls

The ng

Spouses often bear the burden of coping with veterans’ PTSD alone. Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com. that erans Health Administrations (VA) between 2007 and 2009.47 Many of these services, however, do not m … are still waiting to come home.”48 For instance, after a Vietnam veteran was diagnosed with PTSD, urity disability and VA benefits” and the “Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers” s positive.50 Veterans who receive financial support may be at risk of becoming dependent on the VA’s in Vietnam which questions the validity and accessibility of the financial aids.51

Solutions that have previously helped Vietnam veterans cope with PTSD are often inaccessible, and therefore, ineffectual to the general population. In the state of Washington, for example, a therapeutic helicopter program is offered to veterans to provide them with a sense of triumph in their PTSD recovery.52 Although this program has considerably improved veterans’ ability to cope with their trauma, it is only accessible to those who can travel to Washington. Other states should consider adopting a similar program to aid veterans. War memorials have also been labeled as a useful agent for decreasing the intensity of combat veterans’ PTSD symptoms.53

Vietnam veterans at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial facilitates the grieving process for Vietnam veterans as it forces them to confront their losses.54 Though war memorials may be an important element for reducing PTSD in veterans, they are not available to all Vietnam veterans in America. Therefore, efforts that are applicable to a minority of the population cannot be deemed a successful solution for reducing the severity of PTSD symptoms amongst veterans. There are several evidence-based treatments (EBTs) that have significantly eased PTSD symptoms for Vietnam veterans. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programs remove the unrealistic perceptions associated with the veteran’s trauma, thus re-defining their experience in a more positive way.55 Exposure therapy is frequently recommended to those with PTSD as it reduces depression, anger, and guilt through the confrontation of traumatic memories

and feelings.56 Eye movement desensitization is designed to help veterans process unsettling memories or thoughts with the goal to relieve them of PTSD.57 Finally, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are commonly used to treat veterans battling depression.58 These evidencebased treatments all aid veterans in making sense of their experiences, which reduces the severity of their PTSD symptoms. Despite the efficacy of these methods, the cost associated with EBTs and the lack of clinician training prevents the widespread adoption of EBTs for veterans with PTSD.59 There are few efforts made to heal and support those married to or parented by a veteran with PTSD. Most programs offered to spouses and children of veterans are designed to help them mend the veteran rather than to reduce their secondary trauma. For instance, “Coping Skills for Loving your Veteran” is a course from the Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America which helps spouses develop empathy when caring for their partner.60 Likewise, the “Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy for PTSD” addresses communication issues and triggering incidents in relationships to prevent veterans from exhibiting aggressive outbursts.61 Veteran organizations must recognize the effects of trauma and PTSD on spouses and children. Pressuring family members to be healing agents undermines the severity of their own suffering. Additional efforts are needed to specifically assist the children and spouses of Vietnam veterans heal from secondary traumatization. Effective and low-cost measures for aiding veterans and their families is the formation of adequate support systems and the commitment to open communication. Numerous VA centers have employed Vietnam veterans trained in counselling to work specifically with Vietnam veterans with PTSD.62 This creates a comfortable, safe, and trustful atmosphere. Forming support groups amongst veterans promotes healthy discussions and reduces the tendency for veterans to avoid or supress their experiences.63 Once veterans learn to gain control of their feelings, their understanding of their trauma is clarified, and healing can begin. Moreover, family counselling is encouraged to restore relations that were disrupted due to the veteran’s PTSD.64 Support groups have been deemed effective for many spouses of veterans with PTSD. One wife even deems her support group her “saving grace.”65 The most effective healing agent for children is communication with the PTSD victim. Intergenerational trauma often transfers to children when the PTSD victim becomes emotionally numbed, detached, and avoidant.66 Therefore, the communication of wartime experiences is necessary. The avoidance of sensitive subjects can cause children to form their own beliefs about a parent’s experience, though often “the made-up story may be even more frightening than the real one.”67 Therefore, if veterans openly discuss their trauma, they will likely help their children heal as well. It is a misconception that the psychological trauma from the Vietnam war was eradicated once combatants returned to the United States. As one author writes,

“[m]any veterans are still fighting the war and desperately need our help.”68 The limited choice of post-war support systems for veterans and their families contribute to longlasting PTSD symptoms. With further research and interventions, victims of the Vietnam war will develop coping mechanisms which can lead to eventual peace and healing.

Kimberly Vandermeulen Education major; History concentration; French minor

Still Paying: Civilian Casualties (CIVACS) and Human Development

Figure 1

This map reveals the number of civilian casualties in each country since 1989; lighter shading represents a higher number of casualties. The countries in beige are the ones that had either no data, or 0 civilian casualties. The data for this map comes from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and is pulled from thousands of news sources.

A bombshell rocks the house of Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian refugee li eight, rushes to his daughter’s bedroom – the site of the impact. A gruesom dismembered by the blast.1 On July 12, 2020, a six-bedroom structure in No years old; they are about to sit down for a midday meal. A missile, said to h

Figure 2 This map is the UNDP’s most recent Human Development Index map. As with the previous

map, a darker shade indicates a better HDI rating. The HDI score considers health, education, and have economic conditions (each with their own indicators). The HDI is a highly respected indicator as it takes a holistic approach to measuring development.

iving in the Gaza strip in 2007. In a terror-filled daze Abuelaish, a father of me sight meets him, two of his beloved daughters and his niece have been orthern Yemen hosts twelve women and children between five and fifty-five have gone awry due to bad weather, hits the house and leaves nine dead.2

Figure 3

Civilian casualties map with locations of armed conflicts added.

These stories are only two among millions, each as heart wrenching as the next. Civilian casualties, henceforth referred to as a CIVCAS, are a devastating product of armed violence and are destructive to the communities in which they occur. This study examined the degree to which these casualties impact the development level of the country. Figure 1 represents the number of casualties caused by armed conflict in each country; lighter shades indicate higher casualty numbers. To compare, Figure 2 is a map of Human Development Index (HDI) ratings from 2017, the most recent data available. One can immediately see that many areas— such as South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine—that have high civilian casualties also have low HDI ratings. There are a number of cases that have low civilian casualties and low HDI (such as Guyana and Papua New Guinea), or high CIVCAS and high HDI (such as Nigeria and Thailand). These instances are a minority.

For the most part, countries with low CIVCAS have higher HDI and vice versa. Significantly, this is insufficient evidence to draw the conclusion that civilian casualties are the sole, or even greatest, contributor to the low HDI. Figure 3 plots each instance of armed conflict in the same period and shows a direct correlation between the number of armed conflicts in a country and the number of civilian, or non-combatant, deaths. Therefore, it is highly possible that the decrease in HDI is related to other factors of war, including disruption of economic activity, redirection of government finances, interruption of education, etc. Despite the inconclusiveness of this data, it seems unlikely that civilian casualties are not a contributing factor to a long-term decrease in HDI. Civilian injuries and deaths will undoubtedly decrease life expectancy, stress can increase infant mortality, orphaned children may have less access to an education, and working-class non-combatants will no longer contribute to society. All of these are HDI indicators. The case of Afghanistan, explored in the next section, clearly demonstrates that CIVCAS plays an important role in human development.

The Case of Afghanistan, 2020 The political conflict in Afghanistan, between the Taliban and Afghan Government, became an international conflict on September 11, 2001. As part of the war against terrorism, the United States sent troops to Afghanistan, effectively overthrowing the Taliban, and killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The intricacies of this war are beyond the scope of this article, but there are a few elements that are inseparable from the case of civilian deaths in Afghanistan. First, there are many players in the conflict who share responsibility for the 3,035 civilian deaths and 5,785 injuries that happened in 2020: the Taliban (45%), anti-government insurgents (17%), Afghan National Security (22%), international military forces (1%), and pro-government armed groups/forces (2%). The remaining 13% of civilian casualties have been attributed to crossfire and other indistinguishable causes. Second, most of the conflict is between forces that are supporting the democratic Afghan government, while the other forces, such as the Taliban, are determined to reinstate Islamic rule under Sharia law. This is a simplified version of the conflict, but the foundation for the violence that leads to civilian casualties.

The greatest cause of civilian death in 2020 was ground engagements (872) and improvised explosive devices (IED’s)—727 non-suicide and 145 suicide. These were followed by targeted killings (707), airstrikes (341), explosive remnants of war (103), and “other” (140). Children are disproportionately impacted by explosive remnants of war, making up 80% of these casualties.3 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachalet, stated in the Afghanistan Protection of Civilians Report 2020 that “Afghanistan remains among the deadliest places in the world to be a civilian.”

Assessing HDI in Afghanistan The impacts on civilians can be divided into the three categories that the HDI uses to assess human develo and ranks 169th in the world.

Health The Human Development index measures health according to average life expectancy at birth. Currently, i conflict because of the increased risk of being killed in the conflict. It is also important to consider the long infrastructure damage to hospitals and doctors, which increased in Afghanistan in 2020.5 Even once the co most appalling examples of this kind of civilian murder was on May 12, 2020 when armed groups forced th destroyed; twenty-three civilians— mostly doctors and mothers who had just given birth—were killed and my only son. He was twenty-eight years old. In the past twenty-eight years, I worked very hard but did not work. I left him to focus on his education. In just a few months he was going to graduate from the medical and after that he was going to have a job to support the family financially. Unfortunately, he was killed, and lost all hope.”6 Killing civilian doctors decreases the capacity of hospitals to effectively treat patients. Emo distress, which was reported by 100% of the 132 individuals interviewed by UNAMA, can also contribute to miscarriages and health defects, ultimately decreasing longevity. Most individuals feel that there are no se available to help them with their mental health.7 Health is a multifaceted dimension and will also be impac the quality of life and education.

Gross national income (GNI) is impacted as businesses struggle to import or export goods, become seriou unappealing to capital investors, and are damaged beyond repair. Other civilian workers are unable to get work due to the uncertain safety conditions. The long-term ramifications of these economic indicators are as the country loses skilled labour, falls behind other developing nations in the capital market, and families forced into cycles of poverty.

Quality of Life The quality-of-life dimension in the HDI is determined by GNI per capita. The GNI of Afghanistan is $2,229 2017 PPP, as compared to Canada which is $48,527. The 2020 survey conducted by UNMA showed that 8 of victims of CIVCAS (either directly or having lost someone close to them) stated that their primary need w income assistance—some having lost their primary breadwinner, damage to property or business, and incr medical expenses. Other individuals are simply no longer able to work due to their injuries.8 Many civilians were previously contributing to the GNI of Afghanistan, or becoming educated to do so, have been killed armed groups. A suffering parent shared, “My son was a student of the law faculty—We had a lot of dream for our son because he was the only one in our family who had a higher education…It is becoming everyd business in Afghanistan that parents lose or witness the death of their sons and beloved ones.”9 Only 24% the victims interviewed received any kind of material aid, and many verbalized their lack of faith in the sys In addition to the murder of working civilians, GNI is impacted as businesses struggle to import or export g become seriously unappealing to capital investors, and are damaged beyond repair. Other civilian workers unable to get to work due to the uncertain safety conditions. The long-term ramifications of these econom indicators are serious as the country loses skilled labour, falls behind other developing nations in the capita market, and families are forced into cycles of poverty.

Education The education component of the HDI is measured by mean years of schooling for adults and expected yea while the expected years of schooling is 10.2 years. These figures are nearly halved for women. Education know how to engage in proper hygiene, and GNI. In 2020, 258 schools were closed due to Taliban military with violence and insecurity, decreasing women’s access to education and overall literacy.12 Due to strong I destructive cycle. As fewer girls are educated, fewer female teachers will be available, and there will be ev teachers on route to school or at schools.

opment: Health, education, and standard of living. Currently, Afghanistan has a rating of 0.511 on the HDI

in Afghanistan, this is 64.8.4 Life expectancy at birth is immediately decreased in times of armed g-term impact of civilian deaths on life expectancy. Perhaps the greatest lasting impacts are a result of onflict ends, the lack of doctors and hospital space will limit access to proper healthcare. One of the heir way into a Kabul City maternity ward shooting and throwing hand grenades. The maternity wing was twenty-three were injured. In a survey conducted by UNAMA, one man shares his testimony: “[He] was t let him l faculty dI otional o ervices cted by

usly t to serious s are

9 in 80% was reased s who by ms day % of stem.10 goods, s are mic al

A malnourished Afghan child, weighing 14 pounds (6.4 kg) at 18 months of age, is treated by a US Army medical team member in Paktya, Afghanistan, December 7, 2007. Capt. John Severns, Wikimedia Commons.

ars for children entering school. Currently, the mean years of schooling in Afghanistan is only 3.9 years, n is critical for human development. It impacts health, since doctors must be educated and individual must y mobilization against schools.11 Girls are often the first to stop attending school when a region is faced Islamic values in Afghanistan, girls are often only allowed to be educated by female teachers, creating a ven fewer opportunities for girls to be educated. This is in addition to Taliban attacks on girls, boys, and

A soldier interacts with children in Afghanistan. Pexels.com

Conclusion HDI is impacted by many factors, but there appears to be a negative correlation between increase in civilian deaths and increase in HDI. Although it is impossible from this data to determine the degree to which CIVCAS impacts HDI, a deeper look at the impacts of CIVCAS on civilian functionality shows a strong connection. Therefore, in addition to the ethical reasons for protecting civilian populations, decreasing civilian casualties must be a priority for an international community committed to human development. While it is the responsibility of each group responsible for CIVCAS to take ownership of their role in innocent loss of life, the international community has learned some key lessons that have contributed to a decrease in CIVCAS in the past.13 1. Training soldiers before they go into the field on principals and risk factors, as well as training them to identify civilians—in addition to reducing CIVCAS, it leads to an increase mission effectiveness. 2. Tracking and analyzing CIVCAS increases accountability and provides additional information that helps with region specific mitigation of CIVCAS. 3. Air-to-ground CIVCAS often have more casualties per incident and the international community should exhibit restraint in using this technology in civilian populated areas. Ultimately, the cost of providing proper training to soldiers is likely far lower than the ongoing costs to human development in years to come.

Olivia Knull International Studies major (international development and cultural change track) major

Compelled by Poverty: Child Soldiers in Somalia

Located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia is home to roughly fifteen million people, many of whom suffer fro and political fragmentation, making it one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ninety percent electricity, education, or clean water. As a result, many families are susceptible to the unstable social and Somalians borrow money, sell their property, and even their bodies to survive. One of the most horrific so

Somalian family living in the Gadid camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs). Sebastian Rich. Hunger still stalks Somali Children. 2015. UNICEF. Fair use.

Child soldiers are defined as combatants under the age of eighteen involved in either a country’s armed Children who live long enough to escape or be liberated from their military duties are psychologically tra challenging, lengthy, and expensive. Therefore, over the years, organizations such as the United Nations as soldiers. Through proper medical care, access to education, and a gradual reintegration into society, f enough? Would it not be more constructive for organizations and aid to be directed first at Somalia’s pov occur, it is vital for organizations to partner alongside communities to resolve the country’s entrenched so beliefs which promote violence. Only by adopting a more “comprehensive and multidisciplinary approac

Who should be held responsible for creating Somalia’s child soldiers? The largest recruiter is the Al-Shab insurgent group with openly declared links to Al-Qaeda. Committed to the harsh form of Sharia law, the Members enforce strict punishments, including stoning and amputations for individuals who break their l established a strong network around Somalia and its neighbouring countries thus making it a powerful fo serve as fighters, spies, and sex slaves.3 Each day children are subjected to violence and brutality. These

When it comes to recruiting children, the Al-Shabab do not shy away from using violent and threatening Shabab enter homes and physically remove children. However, it is becoming increasingly common for t 25 children ages 8 to 15…After they hit me, some of the children started crying and tried to run out of th After sending death threats to the community, altogether, the Al-Shabab took fifty boys and girls from th schools where they indoctrinate younger children with their religious beliefs and enforce military training 44

om the clutches of poverty. Additionally, since the 1980s, the country has been rocked by civil violence t of Somalian households have limited or no access to essential resources such as a stable income, d economic changes which threaten their livelihoods. Moreover, without social safety nets, many olutions to self-preservation occurs when children turn to soldiering to survive.

Child soldiers practice military drill. The National Interest. Fair use.

Al-Shabab, Somalia insurgent militant group. Number of Child Soldiers in Somalia May Top 5,000, UN Reports. 16 June 2016. VOA. Fair use.

forces or in a non-governmental entity (NGE) regardless of whether enlistment was voluntary. aumatized, physically injured, or seen as social outcasts. The rehabilitation process for child soldiers is s (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF have fought hard to rescue children trapped former child soldiers are offered a chance at having a life not centred around armed violence. Is this verty crisis, which underlies the grim realities of child soldiering? In other words, for real change to ocietal issues such as economic inequality, the lack of a social security system, and the spread of cultural ch” will the notorious practice of child soldiers be eliminated.1

bab militia whose name translates into “the youth.”2 Established in the early 2000s, they are an Islamist Al-Shabab prohibits forms of pleasure such as movies and the smoking of khat, a narcotic plant. laws. Funded by piracy, kidnapping, and an extensive racketeering operation, the Al-Shabab have orce. Boys in the militia typically serve as cooks, porters, messengers, and fighters. Girls in the militia behaviours become the norm in their lives as youth.

measures. The most common way for children to become soldiers is by abduction where the Althe group to threaten children’s schools. A teacher in the Burhakaba district, recalled that “they wanted he classroom. But the fighters were all around. They caned a 7-year-old boy who tried to escape.”4 he village. To increase recruitment numbers, since 2017, the militia has been targeting more primary g.5 This is just one example of how authoritative these rebel groups can be. 45

Children and youth are significantly impacted by their experiences as child soldiers with most suffering the consequences for the rest of their lives. Physical injuries include stabbings, gunshots, and physical maiming. Girls who are raped often contract sexual diseases such as HIV/AIDS and obstetric fistulas. Furthermore, as medical care is scarce and practically non-existent in warzones, children who have weaker immune systems are much more vulnerable to illnesses such as yellow fever and malaria which are deadly when left untreated.6 Psychologically, after witnessing severed heads and mangled limbs, children suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and are mentally scarred.7 In an interview, Abdi a former child solider said that “Even now after all these years, I have nightmares. Sometimes I wake up screaming in the middle of the night.”8 He recalled that at nine years old, he participated in a village raid where homes were burned to the ground and innocent civilians were gunned down. Beyond their mental and physical suffering, children are shunned and ostracized within their own communities. People see them only as violent members of society who are dangerous and should not be associated with. Girls who have been raped are regarded as damaged goods and are no longer considered fit for marriage or respected within the family.9 As deputy director of the United Nations Children’s Fund Yoka Brandt stated, the children “need immediate support. We cannot give up on them…As we heal these [them], we also heal divided societies by erasing the stigma that released children face [by] building peace and most importantly hope.”10 Statistically, Somalia has the largest number of child soldiers in the world, and this figure continues to climb. In 2018 alone, over 2,300 Somalian children were documented as soldiers; however, the number is likely much higher as many children are left unaccounted for.11 Thus, the question remains, why do militias continue to choose children as soldiers rather than adults? What is so appealing about using children who are society’s most vulnerable and delicate members? First, children are an inexpensive and endless resource in Somalia. They are an expendable resource. As well, by taking advantage of their immaturity during the early stages of mental development, children can be easily manipulated and forced into submission to take on more dangerous tasks.12 For example, one of the most shocking and recent uses of children by the Al-Shabab is as suicide bombers, otherwise known as victim bombers.13 These children are forced into buildings or crowded areas and told to detonate bombs strapped to their bodies, this, effectively killing those in the area of the bombing along with themselves. As a Canadian General Romeo Dallaire put it, “Man has created the ultimate cheap, expendable, yet sophisticated weapon…Desperate children, boys and girls, are cheap to sustain, have no real sense of fear, and are limitless in the perverse directions they can be manipulated through drugs and indoctrination since they have not yet developed a concept of justice and have been ripped away from their families to fend in the new perverted family of armed force.”14 Obviously, these extremist groups have no regard for the children themselves or their physical and mental well-being. The only thing the Al-Shabab is concerned about is the obedience of the military force willing to follow its commands.

A boy in Mogadishu, Somalia armed with an ammunition belt and a rocket propelled grenade. Mohamed Sheikh Nor, Child Solider in Mogadishu, Somalia, 2014. Britannica.com. Fair use.

Somalian community. “Revealed - The ugly face of poverty in Somalia,” 20 May 2020. The Somalia Investigator. Fair use.

There is a glimmer of hope for this horrible situation. For the past twenty years, UNICEF has been active in rehabilitating children affected by such traumatic experiences. Focusing on aspects such as healthcare, education, and the reintegration into society, UNICEF has rescued thousands of children from danger and placed them in safe environments where they can experience their youth. In a meeting of the United Nations, the comment was made that “The children of the world should be students, not soldiers, they [deserve] to grow up in safe communities where they [can] reach their full potential. These are fundamental rights of all children — not aspirations.”15 The goal of the healing process, is to enable children to become fully functioning members of society who can enjoy their early years and engage in activities suitable to their age. For adolescents, one important aspect of rehabilitation is vocational training in trades such as carpentry, hairdressing, dressmaking. Equipped with professional knowledge, these young people are better prepared to participate in society and support themselves financially. Politically, laws have been ratified by the African Union to protect children from harm. In 1990, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child prohibited the recruitment and direct participation of children across the continent under the age of eighteen in armed conflicts.16 However, these regulations have not been able to prevent the problem of child soldiering that haunts Somalia today. Perhaps the greater issue which must be investigated addresses children who are willingly join the army. More specifically, due to the consequences of living in a world constantly ravaged by war, circumstantial factors have left children no choice but to join militarized factions. There are many factors that can influence a child’s decision to become associated with groups like the Al-Shabab. The most common is poverty and a lack resources for survival. With an overwhelming number of families living in destitution, children are lured to the AlShabab by promises of food, shelter, money, and security. Eighteen-year-old Adbinasir Omar Hashi, felt like he had no choice: “My family was poor, and we did not have enough food to feed my brothers and sisters…I was so desperate that I joined the militia.”17 By joining the army, children hope that they will be able to sustain themselves, and that they will also be able to send their earnings back to their families. Additionally, children who live with

St So

the consequences of displacement from civil conflict, or the death of their parents struggle with finding a sense of purpose and belonging. As Somalia suffers from ongoing warfare, families are often separated, and children are left without protection. Alone in the world, a child loses their own personal identity; by joining the army, they regain their sense of identity and belonging in a community even though this acceptance is led by a misguided belief.18 Finally, within the army, children receive rewards such as shoes and money which serve as status symbols. When asked why he stayed in the militia for so long, one former child solider replied, “The gun gives me power, and I know how to get what I need. Why should I go back to the village when I have no money and no job, no education?”19 Therefore, becoming a child soldier has a strong appeal to youth who are reassured that their lives will improve when they join the militia. Whether it be through material possessions or psychological reassurance, a child can always be deceived into participating in this devastating lifestyle, thus perpetuating the vicious practice of child soldiering.

The crisis of child soldiers that plagues Somalia will not be resolved quickly. As has been made clear, children are seen as tefanie Glinkski, “The Horrific life of a Child a disposable and easy source of labour olider,” 12 February 2018. Getty Images. Fair use. based on their innocence. Consequently, groups like the Al-Shabab have recognized this and have chosen to exploit children into committing all sorts of unspeakable and horrific acts of barbarity. This brutality not only scars children mentally and physically, but it also perpetuates the country’s never-ending cycle of violence and poverty. Although, it appears the source of child soldiers in Somalia is children being forced into this way of life, the root cause of child soldiers can be traced even further back to a hopeless social situation that points children into joining the armed forces. As families live under the weight of poverty, militias offer a twisted form of safety which is very attractive to young children who are poor, unsupported, and unprotected. Thus, there must be a balance between stopping to extremist groups who continue to take advantage of children, while at the same time organizing a humanitarian response to the harsh realities of a poverty-stricken country. Heather Lam History major Humanitarian aid provided by UNICEF. “Humanitarian action for Children.” March 2020. UNICEF Somalia.

The Struggle Continues - Syrian Refugees Pre- and Post-Migration

Syrian sniper on top of a building in a destroyed city. The New York Times, September 18, 2016. Fair use.

The 2011 Syrian uprising against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad began as a non-violent movement, but quickly transformed into a lethal civil war.1 This uprising has displaced 6.6 million Syrians.2 The displaced populations migrated to multiple different cities around the world where they continue to face challenges such as cultural integration issues, loss of family members and experiences of discrimination, along with their long-lasting traumas of having experienced war. Syrian civilians experienced distressing events during the war. For instance, soldiers at government check points stopped civilians, many of whom were arrested, as they moved from one place to another.3 There are also cases of people being arrested and tortured like the Syrian couple who explained, “a lot of arrests and kidnappings were happening. They were taking civilians depending on their living area, so if they’re from this area, no matter if they’re an adult, woman, child they still get arrested.”4 Other systemic changes during the heat of the uprising included little to no access to healthcare or food, and the use of chemical weapons, physical and sexual violence, bombings, and massacres.5 Syrian civilians reported systematic killing of families in their city: “[they] choose a family, and just kill all of them. And they started with the child to the mother, to the dad. . .so they didn’t just kill the mom and dad, they killed them like five times, because they killed their children before them.”6

Trauma of war: man holds a dead child after airstrikes in Syria. The Gospel Herald, October 6, 2016. Fair use.

The Syrian civil war killed over 500,000 people and is the worst humanitarian crisis of our time with over six million Syrian refugees worldwide.7 Many Syrians experience significant loss: loved ones, homes, cultural identity, relationships and support systems as they resettle in new countries.8 Many adults seeking refuge find it hard to move to a different country as they have built a life for themselves in Syria and leaving everything behind is difficult. However, studies suggest children have a hard time when it comes to being welcomed and having a smooth integration process into the education system of their new country.9 A psychiatric study conducted in 2018 compared the impact of age on 1) the levels of trauma centrality, posttraumatic stress disorder and psychiatric co-morbidity, and 2) models depicting the association between trauma centrality and distress outcomes among Syrian refugees.10 1197 refugees completed the Centrality of Event Scale, Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and General Health Questionnaire-28.11 Age groups were divided into young adults, middle-aged adults and adults forty-five or older.12 Trauma centrality states that memories of war can act as a daily reminder of previous experiences of traumatic events and can have a re-traumatizing effect.13 Young adults reported significantly less trauma centrality and psychiatric co-morbidity (having more than one diagnosis in an individual at an occurring time) than the other groups because “compared to those who were older, the war seemed to have impacted to a lesser degree the way young adults attributed meaning to other events in their lives, their outlook on life and personal identity, and psychological wellbeing.”14 Findings showed that trauma centrality was significantly correlated with PTSD and psychiatric co-morbidity.15 Multi-group analysis showed the model for the young adult group to be significantly different from the middle-aged group model.16 Findings suggest age did not seem to influence the severity of PTSD among Syrian refugees. The war had a less severe impact on young adults’ sense of self and other psychological problems than those who were older.17

Syrian and Iraqi refugees arrive from Turkey to Skala Sykamias, Lesbos island, Greece. Volunteers (life rescue team - with yellow-red clothes) from the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms help the refugees. From Wikimedia Commons.

Syrians who migrated to parts of the Middle East stated they still felt stressed dealing with financial hardships and fear of violence.18 Those who spent time in refugee camps in the Middle East described limited access to water for bathing, small living quarters, lack of privacy, no ability to cook for themselves, and the use of tear gas in the camp.19 Syrians who migrated to the United States stated they felt lost and confused at first and found that adapting to a new language was difficult.20 Syrian refugees in the United States also faced racial prejudice and were often accused of being a “danger.”21

Syrian woman in the camp for displaced persons in Atmeh, Syria (January 2013). Joel Carillet, iStock, February 6, 2013. Fair use.

Syrian refugees in Canada can access resources through the federal government to help with their mental health. Canada offers services from the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture (CCVT) where they provide doctors, lawyers, and social workers to help with traumas and integration.22 The CCVT also offers English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) classes as well as music and art therapy support groups,23 whereas IG Vital Health Services offers psychotherapy services performed by skilled professionals.24 There are also other resources such as health care coverage, health lines, community resources for youth, and tips for caregivers of Syrian children.25 The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) created a Services System Advisory Committee and Diverse Task Group to examine mental health

Over thirteen months, 350 communities across Canada welcomed 40,081 Syrian refugees. The Tyee, April 4, 2017. Fair use.

improvements for immigrants, refugees, ethno cultural and racialized groups in Canada.26 Canada’s federal government and the programs it has established have a major influence on the psychological well-being of new refugees. In Canada, there are several factors that increase mental health problems in Syrian refugees, these include: internment, unclear resident status, poor housing, multiple moves, poor access to jobs and education, and poor social support.27 Plans that are sensitive to these needs will promote wellness and decrease mental health problems.28

A study by public heal bearing age to be five several difficulties thes process.30 Refugee wo barriers.31 UN Women girls.32 These include f of violence towards th

Jehan Sayed Issa tells was pregnant and was unaccompanied) who attention. Once the ba he did not have a cellp and children but “the husband or children ab Neighbours noticed th job. Her husband and grade son had to stop go to school. The fam family shows the resilie age group (mid-thirtie

Traumatic events in wa issues such as, depres show that 65% of them exposure and PTSD sy showed a decrease in migration stress.40 A st status (SES) differs from with health than those provides limited prote conclude that Syrian p benefit from the curre previously living in hig

This article has highlig that the displaced pop show that middle aged younger refugees has on refugees, although had a more challengin Syrian refugees. These stress and healthcare. in addressing refugees It is important for coun refugees that are cultu

Abdulmonam Eassa, “Syrian Woman and Child Walk down a Destroyed Street as Civilians and...” Getty Images, March 24, 2018. Fair use.

lth researchers at the University of Saskatchewan in 2015 identified Syrian refugee women of childe times more likely to develop postpartum depression than Canadian-born women.29 This is due to se women face before coming to Canada as well as challenges encountered during the resettlement omen usually face many obstacles when accessing health services, including language and cultural n has noted that the humanitarian crisis in Syria had had many negative consequences for women and food insecurity, loss of educational opportunities, lack of safe water and health services, and high rates hem.33 Early marriage is reported as a concern in many communities within Jordan.34

s the story of a Syrian woman from Damascus who fled to the US in the wake of war.35 At the time, she s with her wounded son (whose age is not stated but he is a minor as he is not allowed to stay at home had been shot in the leg. She had to leave behind her husband and four other children to seek medical aby was born, she was still without her other family members and could not contact her husband as phone in the camp. She got a job as a supermarket cashier so she could send money to her husband job was not deemed appropriate according to her cultural background, so she decided not to tell her bout it.”36 The story does not elaborate on the details about why it was “not deemed appropriate.” hat the woman was not home to look after her son: the police got involved and she had to quit her four children managed to leave the camp because her husband got a job in Amman where her eighthp going to school in order to help his father out to ensure his three younger sisters could continue to mily has been separated for four years and has still not been reunited. The story of this woman and her ence of both men and women and the difficulties they face in relocating. It is harder for people in their es) as young children are usually involved.

ar such as terrorist attacks, kidnapping, torture, and rape cause refugees to suffer from mental health ssion, anxiety, sleeps disturbances and PTSD.37 A sample of sixty-nine Syrian Refugees in Australia m have moderate to high levels of untreated sleep disturbances.38 The sample found that the trauma ymptoms affected post-migration stress and caused sleep disturbances after migrating.39 Participants symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression and insomnia after a year of migrating, but an increase in posttudy conducted in Germany in 2016 shows the health of pre-migration refugees of high socioeconomic m those of low SES.41 Once migrating to Germany, Syrians of higher SES in Syria had greater difficulties e who came from low SES backgrounds.42 This could be because “high SES before crisis and migration ection against the adverse health effects of migration passage.”43 Findings from the study in Germany people from poorer parts of the Syrian society seem to be less affected by migration and might even ent conditions as a refugee in Germany, the same conditions appear to be harmful for individuals gher classes of the Syrian society.44

ghted the traumas experienced by Syrian refugees before and after they left Syria. Findings conclude pulation continues to face challenges regarding their mental health even when seeking refuge. Findings d Syrian refugees had a more challenging time migrating than younger refugees. The mental health of also progressed compared to those of older people. The traumas of war will have long-lasting effects h their post-migration stressors should get better over some time. Findings show Syrian refugee women ng time with pre- and post-migration compared to men. In Canada, many resources are available for e resources once accessed will help aid their mental health, familial issues, language barriers, integration These resources will also address the traumas they have experienced. The importance of resources s’ traumas through psychotherapy and medical care help the emotional and physical healing process. ntries to have services that are easily accessible to promote trauma recovery and resilience in Syrian urally proper. Melissa Palitti Education major; History and Psychology minors

Unexploded Mines, Sabotaged Wells, and Dead Livestock: The Ecological Trauma of War in the Middle East Environmental degradation is typically associated with war through the lens of resource scarcity creating conflict; people go to war over resources that are difficult to share. Examining how conflict in the Middle East has affected agriculture and livestock suggests that war— even just war—is futile in resolving conflict over natural resources. The intentional and unintentional weaponization of agriculture in the Middle East reveals the irony of justifying war for a greater good because it perpetuates one of the reasons people go to war, which is ecological resource scarcity itself. Agricultural productivity is linked with economic and ecological sustainability worldwide. As the heart of the economy, culture, and livelihood in the Middle East, agriculture is crucial to sustainable recovery in regions impacted by war. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Near East is one of the most arid regions in the world and per capita availability of arable land in the Near East is of the lowest in the world.1 This places people groups in the Middle East in a vulnerable position. The Yezidi, an Iraqi minority often targeted by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, are agricultural labourers whose geographically isolated land is vulnerable to IS terrorism; along with other residents in the Sinjar area of Iraq, Yezidis rely on an economy based on wheat, barley, and vegetables.2 In Yemen, where war has placed 257,000 hectares of cropland in distress, the intersectional crisis of food insecurity and human displacement has highlighted that 16.2 million Yemenis are food insecure.3 One of the ways war in the Middle East targets agriculture and livestock is through deliberate attacks on farmland and infrastructure. In Yemen, the Houthis are an insurgent group who have sought to weaken the state by attacking agricultural sites and infrastructure to damage the livelihoods of Yemenis. The Conflict and Environment Observatory, an agency that monitors and raises awareness of the environmental dimensions of war, counted 489 incidents of attacks on agricultural sites or infrastructure in southwestern Yemen in 2019, along with 220 incidents in the northern highland plains of Yemen.4 The methods to achieve such destruction included destroying water sources like wells and dropping cluster bombs in agricultural areas; the 220 incidents also include indirect attacks on infrastructure such as roads or buildings which impede the transportation of crops and livestock across the country.5 Alice Martins, “An empty water tank and a sabotaged irrigation well on an abandoned farm near Sinune town north of Sinjar mountain.” Amnesty International, 2018. Fair use.

IS also targeted environmental infrastructure in Iraq. Though Iraq declared a military victory over IS in 2017, rebuilding the country and returning farmers to their homes and land has been a process slowed by the conflict’s extensive collateral damage. According to a ground report conducted by Amnesty International, IS took advantage of irrigation links by sabotaging wells with rubble, oil, and other objects and destroying pumps, cables, and generators which were essential to crop irrigation.6

International and local forces in the Middle East have also targeted oil plants and energy sites to undermine the economies of enemy states, thereby deliberately damaging natural resources and contaminating agricultural lands. US Operation Inherent Resolve, the international military intervention against ISIL, proudly reports that it damaged or destroyed 1,620 oil infrastructures over the last two decades which had been profitable to IS.7 As a result, experts in Syria claim that groundwater has been contaminated because locals turned to makeshift oil refineries, which pollute surrounding agricultural land.8 “Last year was supposed to be a good harvest season,” said an agricultural engineer based in the Syrian Raqqa governate in 2015, “but trees did not give fruit as expected because they were covered with soot from the burners.”9 Moreover, burners are less efficient in their water use, thus reallocating water away from agricultural land along the Euphrates River.10 Soils become more saline which limits plant growth and reduces crop production and available forage for livestock.11

Agricultural land and infrastructure was damaged or neglected due to UN sanctions against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and due to its conflict with the Islamic State. The country struggles to recover with little political support for farmers. Middle East Online, 2018. Fair use.

War breaks down the regimes that enforce resource management, thus exacerbating losses of agricultural revenue and resources in the Middle East. In Palestine, Israeli settlements since the mid-1900s have unsustainably managed their human waste and garbage where Palestinian communities had previously established local or rural systems of managing waste. When it was established, the town of Beit Omar, located in the Hebron governate of Palestine, contained a small unit for wastewater treatment that has not been upgraded since Israeli communities settled nearby.12 Untreated wastewater channeled annually “for years” at the beginning of the twenty-first century into Beit Omar from Israeli settlements, coinciding with harvest times for grapes.13 The Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem estimates that around 30–35% of agricultural land in Beit Omar in October 2003 was severely damaged by wastewater dumping, affecting the income of approximately 5000 inhabitants of the village.14 More recently, the Middle East Eye reported in 2020 that sewage water was impacting the land between olive trees in 2020, where a local farmer has estimated that seven hectares of his land have been impacted by wastewater from Israeli settlements.15 Conflict over land and water blurs property rights and leads to inefficiency. There is extensive literature on the impact of Israeli land policy and war on Palestine, but environmental impacts cannot be contained to a single state, settlement, or nation. Therefore, while the IsraeliPalestinian conflict has many long-term implications, agricultural collateral damage ultimately weakens every political stakeholder near Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fascinating case study because sovereignty over land, which is a basic ecological resource, has defined this war for decades. News articles dating back to 2003 describe the Ramallah Attack—an attack committed by a Palestinian Islamist militant group—as an aggression which prompted Israel to launch a “grand-scale” bulldozing operation over agricultural lands just north of Gaza.16 Felling orange groves became a signature move of the Israeli army, not only because the orange symbolizes “prosperity and staying power” to Israelis and Palestinians but also because citrus cultivation was a highly profitable enterprise for Palestinians.17 In a 2009 Israeli raid in Gaza, for example, citrus groves were destroyed along with fifteen houses, olive trees, and livestock according to a blogger describing her father’s travels during the 2008–2009 war between Israel and Gaza.18 The blogger, Laila El Haddad, contends that natural resources were “strategically mobilized” as a means of humiliation.19 Israeli settlers in Palestine have also taken more direct control over land and water. Israel has taken control over the headwaters of the Jordan River where, before Israeli occupation, Palestinians had access to water through pumping units. Following occupation, Israeli authorities destroyed and confiscated these units.20 Israeli settlements have also been built on and around Palestinian agricultural land; for example, settlements in the West Bank provide for Israeli livestock farms but farmers report manure dumping onto Palestinian agricultural lands and into water sources.21 Elsewhere in the Middle East, explosive weapons render farmland unusable during and after conflict. In Lebanon, conflict with Israel in 2006 prohibited farmers from accessing their fields as the harvest of stone fruit and potatoes was ready. Bombing forced farmers from their lands, impeded transportation to markets, and allowed much of the harvest to perish on the ground.22 War in Lebanon would render around twenty-five percent of agricultural

fields and pastures in Southern Lebanon inaccessible due to unexploded mines.23 Another estimate states that almost 545 cultivated fields in Lebanon became a danger due to the impacts of artillery shells, cluster bombs and landmines.24 Mines from the Soviet War in Afghanistan have contaminated up to half of workable farmland in Afghanistan, reducing crop production, killing livestock and exacerbating food insecurity to this day.25 These events on their own expose the troubling nature of ecological destruction and the broken relationship between humanity and the planet; from a human-centric worldview the implications of war are equally sobering. According to the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), the biggest impact of agricultural stress has been a loss of livelihoods in the Near East, which, paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, stretches supplies far and thin.26 CEOBS notes it is no coincidence that 2,565 square kilometers of agricultural land are under distress while Yemen is experiencing near-famine.27 Indicators in the last decade reveal how periods of hunger follow extended periods of conflict; in 2014, the FAO reported that 13.5 million people in Syria were in need of humanitarian assistance after conflict limited food production, marketing and imports.29 In Iraq, eighty percent of sheep and goats were reportedly lost in 2016 and 8.2 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance after over three decades of war.30 Environmental degradation directly causes a decline in crop yield and indirectly contributes to food insecurity through lost income, slowed economic growth, and debt. In Afghanistan, gender equality, one of the backbones of economic development, is susceptible to growth and decline in the food industry as agriculture and livestock are integral to the livelihoods of both men and women. According to Rashid et. al., women are particularly vulnerable to the blockage of pastoral and agricultural land because their autonomy is interlinked with agricultural work.30 Of employed female workers in Afghanistan, eleven percent are employed in agriculture and fifty-nine percent in livestock.31 In Lebanon, farmers were heavily indebted by the 2006 War and other conflicts which cost agriculture, fisheries and forestry around $280 million USD.32 Bombardments directed at southern Lebanon created the most financial damage in lost harvests which, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), cost around $232 million.33 Farmers who usually repaid debts during the October harvest were unable to repay a debt that lasted due to the destruction of capital and contamination of farmland.34 This data from the FAO was published in 2006. In 2020, Lebanese economic magazine Le Commerce du Levant reported that the country continues to collapse due to agricultural losses and farm debt.35 The agricultural trauma of conflict persists fifteen years later. Lebanese farmers can’t cover their costs, so they’re quitting the industry. Beirut Today. Fair use.

Fires on agricultural land. Middle East Monitor. Fair use.

Economic loss is evident in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq where conflicts are, according to the FAO, one of the most important causes of food insecurity in the Near East. In Syria, the cost of animal feed increased by 168 percent in 2015, compromising its ability to market and import meat.36 In Yemen, twenty-six percent of the population lives in areas under emergency levels of food insecurity.37 The conflict between Iraq and IS decreased access to irrigation by twenty percent between 2014 and 2017 and agricultural production as a whole by forty percent since 2014.38 Psychological trauma and ecological loss need to be explored as well. Laila El Haddad notes in her journal entries that the dispossession of property, community, livestock, and agriculture in Palestinian communities is an affront to “identity and personhood.”39 A blogger in Iraq under the pseudonym of Riverbend noted “Each tree is so unique, it feels like a member of the family,” after American military forces destroyed orange trees during the invasion of Iraq.40 The sight of a palm tree decimated on the ground evoked for her the image of a dead corpse.41 Defeat takes many forms, but one that “severs ancient people-land connections” has the potential to damage an entire communal history.42 The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq war are among conflicts across the globe that introduce conflicting narratives on Western intervention in war because forces backed by superpowers are accused of deliberately destroying environmental resources. Foreign intervention is politically warranted where it can uphold a greater good, which is usually described as long-term peace and the defeat of an enemy which would have done more harm than the good that results from its defeat. What is left out of this cost-benefit analysis is ecological trauma, which, according to El Haddad and Riverbend, can be psychological as well as physical. If foreign intervention in the Middle East contributes to destroying both short-term and long-term ecological, economic, and cultural connections to land, it must be reassessed. In 2001, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan introduced the first International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Annan noted that modern warfare needs environmental rules of engagement the same way human collateral damage is regulated in armed conflict.43 The costs of war must be kept to a minimum. From this perspective, previous cost-benefit analyses of war which condemned war’s impact on civilians were not comprehensive enough because they did not take into account the long-term destruction of life that comes with ecological trauma in their calculation of net present lives lost. Given the extent of agricultural damage done to lands in the Middle East and the impact it has had on economic and social development, the extension of rules of engagement is futile because it denies that war fundamentally and permanently alters humanity’s relationship to land. In addition to the impact of war on civilians, the collateral damage of war on agriculture and livestock in the Middle East is another indication that war’s outcome cannot be temporally or geographically contained and cannot be predicted. If war can avoid oil sites, avoid vulnerable economic sectors, maintain environmental policy, and respect land and water rights would it be war? Governments must invest in repairing agricultural damage, but until war is no longer a threat to the environment in the Middle East, an end to war is the only sustainable solution. Britney Birkenstock (she/her) International Studies major (international affairs and global policy track)

Witnessing the Past in a Post-traumatic Age: Cultural Memory and Monuments to Trauma after WWII Since the 1980s, there has been a resurgence of interest in the scholarship of cultural memory, primarily motivated by the remembrance of the Holocaust in Germany and Austria. The idea of cultural memory, or Gedächtniskultur in the original German, is the intersection between history and cultural identity. Cultural memory is structured around collective narratives of victimhood and genocide in our current “posttraumatic age.”1 Both World Wars and the Holocaust have become prevalent among historians of cultural memory in European nations. As with any cultural movement, collective memory is not created in a vacuum, but is “created, established, communicated, continued, reconstructed, and appropriated” throughout time.2 Memory on the cultural or national scale is cultivated in hegemonic narratives, artwork, monuments, and museums, to name a few. It is enacted through public representations of loss or victory. As a cultural construction, the idea of public remembrance becomes subject to the following questions: what is important or unimportant? How is the important preserved against forgetting? Decades removed from the Second World War, the emotional dissonance created by such widespread violence cannot be ignored: we live in “the shadow of a past that continues to affect the present in many different ways and haunts those born after it.”3 As we cope with this trauma, cultural memory becomes an institution, anchored in monuments and places that promote remembrance or forgetting. Place-based memory can be demonstrated in a variety of ways, most popularly in public monuments and museums. Several tensions emerge from cultural memory: opposing memories of the time, identity politics, consequences of these interactions at the national and international levels, and the “‘languages’ and cultures through which disputes about memory and identity” occur.4 Memory involves every level of culture and nationhood.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

How do we witness the past? Global injury inflicted during the Second World War and the Holocaust has left physical places marked with both visible and invisible scars. People and places were obliterated, some never recovered. What is required now is “a superhuman effort to preserve the gaps and wounds that are left by destruction.”5 Mnemonic devices such as museums and memorials to the Holocaust and the Second World War have become “public venues for negotiating interpretations of the past,”6 places in which a narrative is formed around the events of history. Memorial places often elicit conflicting emotions by intensifying the past; they are very public ways of breaking a cultural silence and replacing it with cultural memory. Monuments or memorials are essential forms of cultural memory because they “not only proclaim and embody history, [they have] repeatedly become the scene of history, again in traumatic and triumphal moments.”7 Remembering the Holocaust in Vienna Cultural memory is constructed around the narrative that is culturally and politically perpetuated. Vienna provides an interesting case study for researchers of cultural memory because of its annexation by Nazi Germany (Anschluss). Until the last thirty years, the

dominant cultural narrative remembered in Austria was one of victimization, and the government “offici the absence of Austria’s fault and share of responsibility” for the Holocaust.8 These divergent identities an alternative to cultural memory, an enforced cultural forgetting. Within the framework of a victim narra predominant culture of public commemoration was embodied in monuments to Austrian soldiers who s World War II but resisted Nazi command. The memory of resistance perpetuated their identity as victim Mauthausen Concentration Camp was, until the 1960s, a place commemorating the Austrian fight for fr against the Nazis, when in reality only a small number of prisoners had been Austrian, and Austrians ma most of the camp guards.9

Recently, a survey revealed a significant increase in memorials to Holocaust remembrance erected in Vie 1945 to 2015, publicly denouncing the Austria-as-victim myth and assuming its share of responsibility fo crimes.10 The idea of Gedächtniskultur implies an individual or individuals interacting with history. The G of Gedenkstätte or Denkmal (memorial) refers to “a particular place that may or may not contain monum this is different from the German use of Mahnmal, which refers to a memorial built specifically “as a war future generations.”11 While many war memorials are considered Gedenkstätte, memorials to the Holoc concentration camp sites such as Mauthausen are Mahnmal. To the Austrian people, they “preserve the past and serve as a place of lea

Today, the streets of Vienna are hundreds of monuments, plaqu signs, and even pavement ston commemorate violence agains and other Nazi victims. The Ste Erinnerung, or Stones of Reme are small gold plaques placed cobblestones or walls of buildi throughout the city to rememb individuals victimized by the “A or ethnic cleansing of the Jews Vienna’s neighbourhoods. The of Remembrance fuse togethe and place, relating “people’s m sites where victims had their ap made their living, received the practiced cultural activities, or detained shortly before deport

Steine der Erinnerung (Stones of Remembrance): Holocaust Survivors gather around plaques bearing their names. City of Vienna, Press and Information Services,Remembering for the Future. Fair use.

“The trauma of t Nazi crimes commi on Vienna’s streets remembered exac where they happen

ially stressed provided ative, the served in ms. Even the reedom ade up

enna from or Nazi German use ments”; rning to caust and e relics of that arning.”12

e home to ues, street nes that st Jews eine der embrance, in the ings ber the Aryanization,” s, in e Stones er people memory to partments, eir education, were tation.”13

the itted s are ctly ned.”

Close up of the Servitengasse Keys. Sydney Dvorak, 2016.

Another example of place-based memory is a project known in English as the Servitengasse Keys. This memorial is a small glass box set into the street, containing the keys of 377 Jewish people that were “cleansed” from their homes and businesses in the Servitengasse community after the annexation of Austria in 1938. It was found that of these 377 people, 133 were captured and sent to concentration and extermination camps, 150 were likely able to immigrate or escape abroad, and 21 people died in Vienna.14 Only 5 people survived to stay in Vienna, and the fates of 68 people are still unknown. Since its installation in 2008, the Servitengasse Keys has become a meeting place for survivors and the relatives of victims. As it is located on a street populated with grocery stores and shops, visitors to and residents of the neighbourhood pass the memorial going about their daily lives. It brings the history of this neighbourhood to the present.

Remembering The political n the contradict Square. Origin national demo

With the surre remembrance first victim. Au remembering The public rem confront narra

Inauguration of the Heroes’ Monument at the Burgtor in Vienna,1934. Paula Witsch, 1934, Österreichisches Nationalbibliothek. Fair use.

After 1955, soldierly sacrifice was no longer part of the narrative surrounding former Wehrmacht soldiers and their participation in fighting under Nazism.17 Patriotism became synonymous with the disentanglement of Austrian history from their association with the German Wehrmacht. While a ceremonial laying of a wreath on the Heroes’ Monument continues as tradition, the monument has been redefined as the “only state memorial site for the fallen soldiers of both world wars and the victims of National Socialism.”18

Austrian Soldiers rally at Heldenplatz in Vienna, 1934. Österreichisches Nationalbibliothek,1934. Fair use.

g War in Vienna negotiation of memory means that there is a constant reshaping and revision of narrative. Symbolizing tions of Austria’s historical response to their involvement in the Nazi regime is Heldenplatz, or Heroes’ nally built to honour the Habsburg victory in the Napoleonic Wars, Heldenplatz has been a place of onstrations in Austria. In 1934 it was re-dedicated to the fallen soldiers of World War I.

ender of the Wehrmacht in 1945, Austria’s official culture of remembrance was centred on e of soldiers who fought in both World Wars, with emphasis on the myth that Austria was Hitler’s ustria remained a Catholic country and in the 1950s, All Souls’ Day became the official day for Austrian Wehrmacht soldiers at the Heroes’ Monument in the Burgtor (Castle Gate) at Heldenplatz.15 membered Austrian soldiers’ commitment to the homeland. In these spaces, “narratives of genocide atives of victimhood.”16

Austrian President Van Der Bellen lays a wreath on the Heroes’ Monument in Vienna. Bundesheer/Carina Karlovitz, 2019. Fair use.

Opposite the Heroes’ Memorial in Heldenplatz is the Memorial to the Victims of Nazi Military Justice, also known as the Deserters’ Memorial. It was installed to commemorate Austrian Wehrmacht soldiers who refused to carry out Nazi orders or deserted their military posts entirely. The display focuses on “Was damals Recht war (what was right/lawful then.)”19 This monument did much to challenge the controversial memorialisation of Nazi Wehrmacht soldiers and existing pan-German nationalist entanglements. 67

German Guilt and Cultural Memory Cultural memory in Germany has been shaped by a desire to bring Germany into the fold of Western European anti-fascism. Immediately following the Second World War, the German narrative of remembrance was centred on rejecting blame for the Holocaust. Some even went so far as to marry German and Jewish suffering, collecting and comparing traumas. Characteristic of this is the statement “For each Jew who died in a concentration camp, dozens of Germans were killed in an [Allied] bombing.”20 While factually true, statements like this perpetuated the false narrative of German innocence. By the end of the 1950s, the word Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which translates loosely to coping with/ overcoming the past, was introduced in (West) Germany. Vergangenheitsbewältigung largely sums up the progression in German cultural memory from immediately following the Holocaust to today. Today, memory of Nazi aggression has given way to a “self-critical memory” of the many “human rights abuses that unites former victims, perpetrators, and bystanders, and lends legitimacy to the European Union.”21 In the first several decades after the Holocaust, German Jews privately remembered those they had lost. After generational shifts in the German Jewish community, the push to tell the stories of Holocaust victims, and a renewal cultures of remembrance, it was decided Berlin would have a Holocaust memorial. On May 12, 2005, after thirteen years of deliberation, the memorial opened next to the Brandenburg Gate. The site hosts 2700 stone steles, representative of Berlin’s murdered Jews, a symbolic cemetery. It is a large, open-air space in which one can wander among the steles and contemplate the memory of the victims. The modern stone maze fits well within the backdrop of Berlin’s modern cityscape. It is a place that introduces new generations to the truth of the Holocaust and the reconciliation narrative that characterizes German cultural memory today.

View of the Steles at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Berlin. Archiv Mahnmal fürdie ermordeten Juden Europas. Fair use.

The memorial was met with mixed reactions in both Germany’s Jewish and non-Jewish community. German philosopher Jürgen Habermas wrote that there is a German obligation to the remembrance of the Holocaust, that the German people must “keep awake the memory of the suffering of those murdered by German hands.”22 Others, such as Jewish writer Rafael Seligmann, criticized the memorial for not including other victims of Nazi persecution, thus potentially erasing their histories of persecution.

Seligmann writes: “You cannot lump all the war dead together. No. But didn’t the Gypsies suffer just like the Jews? Weren’t they murdered in Auschwitz just like the Jews?...Do we today have the right to decide who is remembered where?”23

Still others criticized the memorial for its existence, that it memorializes German guilt. These claims are defended by stating that the memorial breeds negative nationalism, that it is little more than “The monumentalization of our [German] disgrace.”24 Once again, moral dissonance is created in a memory space meant to confront the erasure of the Jewish narrative. Places such as Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial are not designed to make remembrance easy, but rather to invoke the German meaning of Mahnmal (memorial), as a place designed to break cultural silence and serve as a warning for future generations. Losing and Remembering the Second World War After the defeat of Germany in 1945, the more pressing issues of rebuilding the now divided country swallowed any immediate national remembrance. In the late 1940s, some monuments to victims of fascism were erected, but eventually this gave way to the loud lamenting of German defeat and Allied occupation. By the 1950s, remembering the fallen of war became more prevalent; this created an environment of traumatic memory, “in which the psychological damage of war could go underground, explode long after the events which triggered it, and last a lifetime.”25 There are very few monuments or memorials to German Wehrmacht soldiers today. The vast majority of statues of soldiers are relics from the First World War. Though, some of those monuments have been expanded to include the names of those who fought between 1938 and 1945. There are still many Germans, most from older generations, who would like to shut their eyes to any monuments commemorating that dark period of Germany’s history. Writer Martin Walser explained “Everyone knows the burden of our history, our everlasting disgrace. There is not a day in which it is not held up before us.”26 Some see monuments to Wehrmacht soldiers and the Holocaust as memorials to German guilt.

It is more likely to find understated monuments to Wehrmacht soldiers in smaller villages and towns. Fo comrade. Between them are the etched names of those from the town that died in battle. Above them the names of the men from Kollnau who died in the Second World War. Above their names are the date I may be remembered as heroes, those who fought for Hitler’s Germany may not.

Monument to fallen soldiers in Kollnau, Germany. James Steakley, 2012, via Wikimedia Commons.

or example, located in the town of Kollnau, six stone men stand in uniform guarding a fallen stone are the words “Unsere Helden” (Our Heroes) and the dates 1914-1918. Added slightly to the side are es 1939–1945, but there are no words heralding them as heroes. While the fallen soldiers of World War “Musealizing” Historic Representations Historians have often been in favour of “musealizing national heroic representations of the past” as a tool for the development of cultural memory.26 Musealization occurs when something is detached from its original context and placed in a museum for exhibition. This is vastly different from representations of memory as seen in monuments and memorials because the museum is physically separated from the authenticity of the places attached to the memory. The twentyfirst century museum brings history to the visitor through first-hand accounts, objects from the past; and “experiencing a simulated authentic past through replicas and historical reenactment.”27 There are positives and negatives to the musealization of history. The challenge becomes the accurate representation of suffering, without dramatisation. Exhibits of the Second World War must balance how much to involve the visitor and “how to connect ‘difficult’ pasts to the present.”28 Museums focused on war, in particular the Second World War, often reflect the politics endorsed by the country in which the institution is located. The museum provides a space for remembrance in which questions can be asked and answered, and public representations of the losses of the Second World War and the Holocaust can be presented in factual and understandable ways. They can tell stories of heroism or defeat; they can correct or affirm national assumptions; they can honour or exclude narratives. War museums are both agents of politics and messengers of memory. In these museums, “The experiential approach to understanding war suggests, rather than induces, terror.”29 How do we witness the past? Cultural memory is just like any other form of memory: it is created and confirmed again and again. In the case of the museum, the monument, or the memorial there is no real distinction between history and myth: “What counts is not the past as it is investigated and reconstructed by archaeologists and historians but only the past as it is remembered.”30 All nations and cultures have identities informed by historical narrative: the monuments we see, the museums we visit, the history we are taught, and the stories that are left out. It is the mnemonic devices we encounter that encourage us to remember a certain way. What is important? What needs to be preserved? What needs to be warned against or learned? We are all witnesses to history as it unfolds before us, in the form of memory. Sydney R. Dvorak (she/her) European Studies (history stream) major

Trauma begets Trauma: The Holocaust and the Jewish State Families torn apart. Starvation, torture, and brutality. Six million killed. Six million men, women, and children murdered. Six million people murdered based upon uncontrollable circumstances. Six million people murdered purely due to their heritage. The Holocaust marks one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity. An event so significant leaves a stain on humankind. The Holocaust has affected the Jewish people significantly and defines modern Zionism. Zionism has shaped the creation of the State of Israel and the ongoing IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Trauma and victimization of the Jewish people during the Holocaust has since caused further trauma at the hands of the once victimized Jews. First, the Holocaust dismantled the concept of empathy for many of the victimized. Second, the Holocaust has become the sole justification for Zionism by many who were not direct victims of the Nazi regime. Third, the Jewish state has created a hostile environment for the Palestinians, in some contexts almost resembling aspects of the victimization faced originally by the Jews at the hands of the state. Trauma is often the underlying cause of trauma. The same concept applies to the Holocaust. Jewish Trauma caused by the Holocaust has caused trauma for the Palestinian people residing in and near Israel. Zionism: According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Zionism is: “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel.”1 There is contention around which people group

historically settled in the region of Israel. Over the past thousand years, Jews, Muslims, and Christians have all attempted to claim the region based upon historical religious evidence. Until 1945, no religion was granted control of the land now occupied by Israel, but in the wake of the Holocaust, with the intention of rectifying the horrors experienced by Jews in Europe, the United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Local Arabs rejected this plan but on May 4, 1948, Israel proclaimed its independence. This declaration was met with significant pushback by the surrounding Arab countries and those living in the new Jewish state. The creation of the Jewish state is controversial and unorthodox. Many would argue that the Jewish people are not sovereign and should not have the right to the country. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines the core meaning of sovereignty as Children in a Nazi concentration camp. The Globe and Mail, January 25, 2020. Fair use. “supreme authority within a territory.”2 Israelis were not the predominant people group in this territory prior to the Holocaust. Territory is a significant ingredient to sovereignty, and this is where issues arise in the creation of Israel. A final ingredient of sovereignty is territoriality, also a feature of political authority in modernity. Territoriality is a principle by which members of a community are to be defined. It specifies that their membership derives from their residence within borders. It is a powerful principle, for it defines membership in a way that may not correspond with identity. The borders of a sovereign state may not at all circumscribe a “people” or a “nation,” and may in fact encompass several of these identities, as national selfdetermination and irredentist movements make evident.3

Jews and the Holocaust: There are two people groups within Judaism that are important in understanding the Holocaust—those w that were not. Survivors of the Holocaust have undergone great suffering and were changed because of

Psychological studies on Holocaust survivors have found that many survivors suffer from clinical PTSD, an vulnerable to the distress caused by new stressors, such as the current conflict in this region.5 These psyc and friends of survivors are often affected second hand by the trauma of the holocaust. Consider the foll

L. is the only child of her elderly, widowed, Holocaust survivor mother. They have n treat them as family members. However, L. described that when her favorite cat die this loss was trivial in comparison to the loss of her own mo by her mother’s rage and belligerence and shocked by the lack of empathy her own intolerable grief, as well as her difficulty tolerating the emotional and reactions create emotionally potent, incongruous intersubjective ex to the child about which emotions are “allow

“Remembering,” Christians United for Israel, August 7, 2020. Fair use.

who were directly affected by the Holocaust (victims, the family of victims, friends of victims) and those it.

nd show higher levels of somatic symptoms, anxiety hostility, and phobia.4 Survivors are also more chological struggles not only affect the survivors, but those in close proximity to them. Family members lowing excerpt taken from a study surrounding parent-child relationships in Holocaust survivor families:

no other relatives, and L. is childless. Both mother and daughter love their pets and ed, her mother saw her crying and became enraged, screaming at her daughter that other in the Holocaust. L. said she was hurt and devastated y to her loss. Clearly, the daughter’s grief triggered in the survivor mother pain of her daughter. Such instances of dis-regulated trauma-related affect xperiences in the parent–child relationship, sending confusing messages wed” to be expressed or even experienced.6

This does not represent the entirety of Holocaust survivors, but it does illustrate how the psychosocial trauma inflicted by the Holocaust affects not only the victims but their family and friends as well. Trauma is destructive to the human brain. There is evidence to suggest victims of significant trauma can become so dehumanized that they lose their capacity for empathy.7 Empathy is an essential characteristic of human flourishing. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”8 Trauma has a major effect on one’s ability to empathize. The link between self and other is predicated on the possibility and the expectation of empathy, which are to some degree taken for granted. In the concentration camps, the sadistic, bureaucratic killing disproved this basic expectation. An empathic response was absent not only from the Nazis, but from fellow citizens and Allies as well (i.e., from society at large). When people prove malignant on such a massive scale, the survivor retains the memory of a basic deficit—of a compromise in the empathic dyad. When their vital needs are neither heeded nor responded to by others, individuals lose the expectation that their needs will be met.9 The Nazis’ disregard for basic human needs during World War Two caused dehumanization and loss of empathy in those who survived the concentration camps. Victims witnessed firsthand the worst of humanity. These experiences have had a significant impact on their psyche, and changed how they relate to and view others. The loss of hope and trust in humanity shattered any possible belief in basic human goodness. Zionism and the Holocaust: The State of Israel was created in the wake of the Holocaust as a source of reconciliation. On May 14th, 1948 Israel was proclaimed in its capital Tel Aviv:

We, the members of the National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionis right of the Jewish people and the resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, hereby

The events of the Holocaust were horrific. It has become the foundational argument behind the creation of an innocent people group justify the creation of a country? Furthermore, is it justified to displace peop groups, largely Palestinians, and now, their land is no longer their land. The Treaty of Westphalia is the fo system they must be considered a nation. There are a few key criteria set forth by this treaty that help de These criteria layout a clear characteristics of an established and recognized nation. Israel at the time of

We, the members of the National Council, representing the Jews are not a nation deserving of self-de another people’s homes, following a long series of crimes Zionism committed against them. Consequ a state. They obviously have no “historic rights” to the land either. The world consented to the wrong

The author follows the criteria and expectations set forth by the Treaty of Westphalia and argues that the of trauma in relation to the Holocaust, understanding the situation that is Israel, is essential to properly u victims of the holocaust were not the people that suggested the creation of a Jewish state. It is unclear h 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel. It is uncertain how many Holocaust survivors actually moved to Israel Palestinians in Israel.14

Map from mapsland.com

st movement of the world, met together in solemn assembly by virtue of the national and historic proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called Israel.10

n of Israel. Furthermore, it is the foundation of modern Zionism.11 Is this enough? Does the victimization ple groups in the location on behalf of reconciliation efforts? The region was inhabited by various people oundation of the modern international system. For a group of people to participate in the international efine what a nation is. A nation must have territory, sovereignty, and autonomy (self governance).12 its creation, was lacking most of these criteria, most notably true territorial autonomy and sovereignty.

etermination, Zionism is a colonialist phenomenon, and the State of Israel was erected on the ruins of uently, the Jews living in the piece of land called Israel do not have a “natural” right to self-determination or g done to the Palestinians as atonement for not having prevented the wrong the Germans did to the Jews.13

e state of Israel is not worthy of self determination. Although this article is about analyzing the affects understanding trauma. Looking past the unorthodox creation of Israel for reconciliation purposes, the how many of the Holocaust survivors immigrated to Palestine/Israel, but between 1948 and 1951 almost l. Between 1967 and the creation of Israel there were approximately thirty-one terror attacks by carried out

Modern Israel: Israel is a place of conflict and violence. Since 1948, there have been 4,145 Israeli and 2,021 Palestinian

Since the creation of Israel, the region has only furthered in violence and casualties. The situation in Israe Palestinians have been treated poorly by the Israeli government to the point of it being hypocritical with

[T]he Palestinians were never consulted about this, and they have never ag of Israel thus persists on moral credit given by the world at the Palestinian squandered by Israeli policies, at least since 1967, but in fact ever since its f almost exact similarity between the a

Flags of Israel and Palestine, World of Greater Houston, February 25, 2

casualties due to terrorism.15

el since 1948 points to a clear reason for the conflict. h regard to the creation of Israel. Comparing the actions Israeli government towards the Palestinians

greed that Europe’s crimes should be expiated at their expense. The State ns’ expense. Even if this credit had originally been understandable, it was founding, by the conquest and abuse of the Palestinians. In fact, there is an actions of the Nazis and the Israelis.16

d Affairs Council 2020. Fair use.

to that of the Nazi Regime is inaccurate and disrespectful. However, it does illustrate a serious issue in the situation that surrounds Israel. There are faults on all sides of the conflict, there is no one group responsible for the conflict. The conflict arose from the purposeful displacement of the Palestinians. The Palestinians have continued their violent response to this displacement with the help of several surrounding countries. There is not a redeeming aspect to the war in Israel. On one hand, the Jewish people were given rights to the land, which should be respected. On the other hand, the Palestinians are responding just as any group of people would in that position if it were their land and sovereignty taken away. Conclusion: The creation of Israel was, is, and will probably always be a source of contention, especially in a region such as the Middle East. The Middle East is predominately Islamic, and Islam opposes westernization. There is a divide between the ideas, teachings, and ideals of Islam, compared to western culture. Since Israel was created by powerful western countries, largely European countries, Israel acts as a symbol of westernization in an otherwise Islamic region. The dehumanization, loss of empathy, and trauma experienced by Jews only adds to the conflict. There is a major divide between Palestinians and Israelis, which stems directly from the Holocaust. Through the analysis of various studies and sources, it is clear that trauma begets trauma. The victimization of the Jewish people has caused the victimization of the Palestinian people and the furthermore the continued victimization of the Jews. The trauma experienced through this conflict, does not come close to that of the Holocaust, however it argues for the idea that trauma often causes a never-ending cycle of pain and suffering.

Isaac Alstad Education major; Political Studies and Music minors

Medical Advancements Spoils of War: Debts of the Future Introduction Militaries cause the advancement of medical knowledge because pursuing war leads to the creation of new weapons that cause new types of injuries. New injuries force doctors to develop new medical treatments; this pushes the field forward. War with its mass casualties also provides a large-scale testing ground for these new developments. Mass experimentation out of necessity and desperation leads to improvements in medicine for both soldiers and civilians. MacMillan Context War is tied to power in history. The drive towards power produces societal pressure for military innovation to increase an army’s chances of defeating their enemy. Technological advances produce a cycle in war as all sides seek to outpace the others to gain advantages: armour was developed in response to metal tipped spears; fortifications were built in response to mounted warriors; and other technologies fell out of use as they become obsolete like Roman road building techniques.1 Three primary innovations developed prior to 1800 are considered the most important technological shifts in warfare: the production and use of iron, the domestication of horses, and the use of gunpowder.2 Despite these military advances increasing causality rates when they were introduced, the primary cause of death during war has always been infection.3 Before Louis Pasteur and the modern understanding of germ theory emerged in the late nineteenth century, several theories of medicine existed, but none were able to address infection.4 Though we now have proof that substances like honey used on wounds have some antiseptic qualities, the knowledge about the root cause of infection was not known, allowing infections to fester in wounds causing significant injury and even death. This was especially bad in military campaigns where sanitary conditions were poor and wounds were large.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.

Many military advances affect civilian life, including modern technology like the internet or navigation services.5 Just as these technologies developed for military use have influenced civilian life, medical advancements developed for military injuries have changed civilian life. Much of our knowledge surrounding wound care, infections, and transmittable diseases comes from times of war. The high number of injured individuals combined with the chaos of treating the wounded on or near the battlefield has allowed doctors, medics, and nurses to innovate, leading to the acquisition of medical knowledge that has subsequently applied in civilian medicine. To this end, the knowledge gained during war continues to be used in times of peace.

Roman Surgical Scalpels, year unknown, Historical Collections at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia. Fair use.

Rome Rome endured a fifteen-year civil war that ended in 30 BC. When Caesar Augustus consolidated his power in 27 BC after the fall of the Triumvirate with whom he had previously shared power, one of his first actions was to implement the first military medical corps in response to the large casualty rates in the preceding conflicts.6 Military physicians had different ranks based on their work, including camp physician, medici ordinarii, and legionary physicians, and were entitled to land and other benefits combat veterans received.7 Notably, once medical care was made free and available to all Roman soldiers their life spans increased to five years longer than their civilian counterparts.8 Romans had a strong history of surgical technique; over 200 instruments were recovered from Pompei and records show that tools were cleaned in hot water between uses.9 The mentors of many aspiring doctors encouraged them to enter the military because it was the best avenue for experience and honing their skills. Texts from Rome contain some of the earliest descriptions of amputation from the first century.10 These amputations were not the field amputations seen in later history and they were mostly in response to gangrene or another infection in a wound. Descriptions of the medical procedure for these amputations echoes the techniques used much later in history; in his writing about the subject, Aulus Cornelius Celsus stressed the importance of a clean wound and leaving enough flesh to create a good stump.11 The Roman physician, surgeon, and philosopher Galen wrote about the technique of tying arteries to reduce bleeding while working, much like modern surgeons do. This was time intensive though, so the practice of cauterizing a wound with hot irons or pitch remained popular.12 Eventually, following the trend of the rest of the empire, medical knowledge began to be lost in the western empire and an organized medical corps would not reappear in western civilization for over a millennium. 82

An oil painting showing the ca Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Rückkehr auf die Insel Lobau a Oil on canvas. Palace of Versa

are of the wounded in . Charles Meynier, Napoleon’s am 23. Mai 1809. 1810-1820. ailles. Fair use.

Middle Ages The Middle Ages were not a time of great medical advancements. Under the feudal system, lords levied a fee on their local populations for military engagements.13 The lord may have had a physician in their party but the peasant soldiers were left to either treat themselves or rely on their fellow warriors for care.14 Most historians agree that receiving a killing blow was kinder than being left wounded. Barbers, or barber surgeons, were typically the medical professionals that accompanied armies, though they were considered little more than skilled tradesmen. Of these barbers Ambrose Paré was likely the most successful, serving under five successive French kings.15 Paré was responsible for rediscovering several techniques lost from the Roman era including Galen’s technique for tying arteries and the use of turpentine for wound care.16 By the early modern period in the late 1700s, some more advancements appeared in the medical military field with three textbooks being written that laid the foundation for the work of the surgeons in the 1800s. William Holl, “Portrait of Ambrose Paré” (1510-1590). Wikimedia Commons.

The Long Nineteenth Century The French Revolution is considered the turning point for war, bringing it into what is called the modern age, making war a total mobilization of a nation. Levée en masse became the norm, and larger proportions of the population were now killed and wounded in battle. The 1800s witnessed several significant technological advances in weaponry including mobile artillery and more accurate firearms. These weapons left more severe wounds and higher casualties than previous generations of doctors had seen.17 The slow round projectiles used in the guns of the 1800s caused a lot of internal damage by ricocheting around inside the body.18 In response, medical personnel needed to develop new ways to treat the large number of wounded soldiers they were seeing. Infection and disease were still the major causes of death as germ theory was not yet understood.19 Turpentine, pressure sponges, and alcohol were all used on smaller wounds to help them stop bleeding and heal, while cauterizing larger wounds remained the norm.20 These techniques were not for cleaning wounds as modern observers might assume; many doctors believed that pus was necessary for the healing process because it was so common in wounds.21 The use of these substances was to encourage healing. High infection rates made surgery the best course of treatment for major injuries.22 Surgery became a constant feature on the battlefield as enormous numbers of amputations were performed to cope with the difficult wounds caused by musket and artillery fire. Speed became a surgeon’s best skill for amputations to keep patients from bleeding out; this became much easier once Petit’s tourniquets became widely used.23 The tourniquet was tightened using a hand screw which made it easier and faster to use in the field than other tourniquets, variations on the device were used until the late 1900s.24 83

A Closer Look: Napoleon’s Napoleon’s Army was one o Dominique Jean Larrey was system for removing the wo battlefield to collect wound amputation if necessary, the from the fighting to recover Despite the significant succ along with Larrey’s work in t

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioso

’s Army of the first in the modern era to organize a system for removing the wounded from the battlefield.25 s in charge of developing the medical organization in Napoleon’s Army as chief medical officer. He set up a ounded from battle and getting them the best care possible. Stretcher bearers would be sent out onto the ded and bring them to the field hospital. The wounded would then be stabilized in the hospital, including en they would be loaded on to the carriage ambulances and taken to a more permanent hospital away r.26 The carriages used for this purpose has suspension to reduce the jostling for the comfort of the injured. cess of this organization method, few armies copied it until many years later.27 The success of this system the Russian campaign to care for the ill and wounded turned him into a folk hero in France.

on, Portrait of Dominique-Jean Larrey, 1804, oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, France. Fair use.

A drawing showing what the ambulances in Napoleon’s army would have looked like. These light weight carts were colloquially known as ‘flying ambulances’. Edmond Lajoux, Ambulance Volante de Baron Larrey 1920. Engraved Plate. Fair use.

Caption: Amputation of the Thigh, 19th century, Charles Bell (1774–1842), Wellcome Collection Gallery, Wikimedia Commons.

A Closer Look: The American Civil War The American Civil War marks a shift in military medical treatment from the past towards a modern system with the wounds the weapons inflicted. Like the wars earlier in the century, doctors often used amputation doctors typically favoured trying to save the limb, which usually led to a slow painful death by infection. Th and favoured quick surgery.28 Initially, the US Department of Sanitation, whose recommendations were wid recommendations were updated with new battlefield data to include bone splintering—regardless of the s quick surgery, while medically necessary, earned Union doctors a reputation for excessive use of amputatio to save their limb.30 Despite gaining a public reputation for being too quick to amputate, the Union Public in amputation was called the flap method. Developed by William Cheselden, the flap method created a be circular method and left a larger wound.32 Time was difficult to come by in these hospitals making the proc of post-surgical infection. The result was that both the new flap method and the older circular method wer

Another new development used during the Civil War was anesthesia. Though not developed for military u used on the battlefield because it was time consuming to administer so chloroform became the preferred of overdoses.34 This means that the doctors using chloroform were very good at the technique of applying Modern studies now show that had ether been more widely used in the war there likely would have been m

The American Civil War is also classified as one of the first modern wars because large quantities of data w outcomes was compiled into the Medical and Surgical History of the War of Rebellion published in 1870.3 this data which ultimately informed future practice of American doctors.37 Much of the American medical a to their communities.38

Amputation being performed in a hospital tent, Gettysburg. 1863. Photograph. #520203, The National Archives and Records Administration. Fair Use.

m of medicine. During the Civil War, the weapons technology was ahead of the medical ability to deal ns, despite disagreement between them about how often amputations should occur. Older, conservative he younger doctors tended to be more excited about the new techniques developing in amputations dely followed by doctors, only recommended amputation after a direct hit from a cannon. Later the source—as a reason to amputate; this advocated more liberal use of amputation.29 This preference for on among the soldiers; there were reports of some soldiers threatening surgeons with a pistol in an effort c Health Director stated that generally, there should have been more amputations.31 The newest technique etter stump which led to a better post-surgery life for the patient, but the procedure took longer than the cedure difficult to use, and the larger wound resulting from this technique did create a higher possibility re both used during the Civil War.

use, the Civil War provided ample testing ground for the development of anesthesia. Ether was not widely anesthetic.33 It is easy to administer an overdose of chloroform, but records do not indicate high numbers g the chloroform to a towel and dropping it on the mouth and nose of the patient in the correct dosage.35 more deaths because of ether’s tendency to worsen the effects of shock which harms surgical outcomes.

were collected in coordinated efforts. This collection of data about wounds, surgical methods, and patient 36 The Enlightenment with its focus on the scientific method encouraged the collection and examination of apparatus formed in the wake of the war was staffed by the 15,000 experienced veteran doctors returning

Medics helping injured soldier in France. 1944. Photograph. War and Conflict Number 909, The National Archives and Records Administration. Fair use.

World Wars The World Wars were yet another time in history where a large portion of the population mobilized for war, taking up actively dangerous roles. By the twentieth century, germ theory was understood and universally accepted. This meant that these were some of the first major conflicts where infection was not the main cause of death for soldiers due to the introduction of penicillin.39 Burn care was also improved by the introduction of antibiotics; infections are especially susceptible to inflection. During the First World War the modern procedure for burn care was established: deep burns required excision, pain management was prioritized, and skin grafting became possible with minimal complications.40 Technological improvements led to an increased range for artillery, which forced hospital construction at least 2000 feet behind the front lines.41 The distance between the fighting and the hospitals required ambulances to become motorized for the first time. Once the First World War started, many private vehicles were commandeered for the war effort.42 The use of cars and trucks continued in the Second World War alongside the added capacity to air lift those who were gravely injured on the wings of planes or in helicopters.43

American Red Cross WWI soldier facial reconstruction documentation photograph (Before) 1920. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Fair use.

In combination with the improveme the First World War contributed to t to enemy fire.44 The surgical improv The solution the Allied side employe Third London General Hospital in th Medical Corps.46 The prosthetic mas prosthetic with gutta-percha, a subs

Conclusion The concept of sacrifice dominates However, considering sacrifice throu They were wounded and in despera to save lives so experimentation bec As Eric Weiss says, “this was an exp casualty rates, the doctors had no ch this forced arena of practice led to s

This is the paradox of medical advan losses, but in medicine the losses ar principle behind many wars that is fo at a high cost, like any gain from wa we venerate when we memorialize w much of what gives moderns a high

American Red Cross WWI soldier facial reconstruction documentation photograph (After) 1920. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Fair use.

ents in artillery, the introduction of small firearms and the use of hand grenades, the military techniques used in the high number of facial injuries; peering over the top of trenches left the neck and faced visible and vulnerable vements of the era meant that more patients were surviving these injuries, but with visible facial disfigurement. ed was the use of facial masks or prosthetics45 The Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department opened in the he First World War under the guidance of Francis Derwent Wood, a sculptor and orderly for the Royal Army sks were made specifically for the patient with plaster molds of their faces used as the guide for sculpting the stance similar to rubber, then the prosthetic would be painted to match the rest of the face.47

narratives of war. The same applies when discussing the medical advancements that developed out of conflict. ugh the lens of medical care is difficult. These soldiers never consented to being experimented on by doctors. ate need of care. The physicians treating them were not in an easy position; known practices were not enough came the only option. Doctors had to have become as desperate to save as many of their patients as possible. perimentation that was forced upon the medical community, not elected by it,”48 and when faced with the high hoice but to try any and every thing they could. Sometimes doctors’ attempts worked; often they did not. But several theoretical ideas being tested, and it resulted many tangible benefits and advancements.

ncement. Like any experiment, there will be mistakes and re human. To save many lives, a few will be lost. This is the orgotten in the aftermath of peace. These advancements came ar, and should be acknowledged alongside the other sacrifices war. The unknowing sacrifice of countless soldiers has led to h quality of life and this deserves to be remembered too.

Victoria Spencer Political Science major

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.

The effects of war, such as mental and physical distress, have been and are continuously being explored, and so is the connection between war-related trauma and religious belief and participation. While there are, despite common assumptions, very few wars that have been waged on religious grounds, (the Encyclopedia of Wars identifies only 6.98% of wars in this category),3 individuals’ motivations and religious institutions’ justifications for war have occasionally involved religion. Taking all of this into account, it is evident that religion has played a major role in the actions, personal conviction, and recovery of war survivors, just as the introductory testimony suggests. As the medical field better understands moral injury as its own entity separate from PTSD, can the pursuit of spirituality and participation in religion help heal these moral and mental wounds? The research conducted in this area affirms overall that religion does indeed aid in the treatment of PTSD and moral injury, but that not all kinds of religious coping and beliefs are beneficial, suggesting that certain precautions may be necessary. Leaders within religious organizations and spiritual communities are historically accustomed to witnessing the lasting effects of war-related trauma as well as aiding in the process of healing from such wounds. In medieval Europe, western Christendom required that warriors perform penances, even those who did not kill anyone in battle. While a similar purge-like process was common in ancient Judaism to prevent the spreading of possible diseases from the blood on soldier’s weapons, the later Christian practice of the Sacrament of Penance was done in part to relieve guilt. To this day, the ancient Indigenous tradition of having a spiritual leader host veterans in a sweat lodge is used across North America, and even suggested by many Veterans Affairs (VA) centers in the United States.4 This process focuses on both the symbolic cleansing of the spirit through sweating and the cleansing of the mind through conversations and confessions that take place in the sweat lodge.

Whit Richardson, Veterans and Members of the Local Navajo Community Erect a Sweat Lodge near the San Juan River in Southeastern Utah, April 8, 2015, Sierra Club, sierraclub.org. Fair use.

For those attempting to recover from a large-scale conflict where morals are inevitably assaulted, suppor Whether through indoctrination prior to or during training, or a traumatic event that took place during a environment or within themselves. These changes may include a different social or political climate, an in training, soldiers often hear that the civilian world and the world of combat are two different realities, and and journalist Gwynne Dyer discusses the training tactics of militaries, specifically that of American Marin

The secret of basic training is that it’s not really about teach they can do things they wouldn’t have dreamt of otherwise you do is put them in a place where the only right way

This teaches soldiers that their “civilian existence” is separate from their “military existence,” and that th existence,” they will discover that both spheres are one in the same, and that “actions in war and in peac

Even scholars who emphasize the dangers of this teaching are prone to admit is it difficult to avoid. Shan writes: “[w]arriors need to recognize that what they did in service of their country was outside the norms message still implies that the expectations placed on soldiers when reintegrating into a civilian lifestyle p existence to civilian existence.

This is precisely the reason that PTSD cannot be the only recognized condition from which soldiers suffer and emotional distress. Moral injury and the confusion that can come with realizing the mental causes of worth. As theologian Karen O’Donnell puts it: “[t]o reduce all the soldier’s symptoms to stress alone is to acknowledge and care for the wellbeing of war-trauma survivors in their congregations.

William P. Nash, Facets of Moral Injury, July 27, 2017, Center for Deployment Psychology, deploymentpsych.org.

rt rooted in religious belief about the meaning of life and the right to dignity is incredibly beneficial. military engagement, many soldiers return from battle unable to reconcile with the changes in their ncrease or decrease in formality, and the reestablishment of public customs and moral codes. In military d that what occurs in one will not affect the other. In the film, Anybody’s Son Will Do (1983), veteran nes stating:

hing people things at all. It’s about changing people so that e. If you want to change people quickly and radically, what y to think and to behave is the way you want them to.5

heir behaviour in the latter needs no moral restraint. However, once a soldier returns to a “civilian ce are judged against the same set of values and principles.”6

nnon E. French’s article “Warrior Transitions: From Combat to Social Contract” is an example of this. She of human existence and cannot be allowed in civilized society.”7 Despite her expert stance, French’s perpetuates the dualism of two separate realms, and hence no carrying over of guilt from military

r, nor can the events associated with the outdated term “shell shock” be the main reasons for mental f one’s trauma is not only valid and important, it also affects one’s understanding of humanity and selfo empty their experience of moral content.”8 Spiritual communities therefore have a duty to responsibly

To simply profess a Holy Scripture or preach morality is not adequate care for those in distress. A study done by Kopacz, Currier, Drescher, and Pigeonin in 2016 found that among veterans being treated for PTSD, higher levels of suicide ideation were linked to an individual’s difficulties with forgiveness and experience of spiritual struggles.9 Therefore, the acknowledgement of moral injury as separate from PTSD is critical. Furthermore, religious institutions–as primary locations for moral and existential discussions–play a pivotal role in members’ recoveries. So, what differences need to be present for religious inclusion to be helpful in healing and not inducing wounds?

In many Christian denominations, votive candles are used to symbolize a prayer for oneself or someone else. In Catholicism, the lighting is often done in completion of a vow. Anna Shvets, Person Holding Red Candle in a Dark Room, Pexels.com.

The most significant factor in reducing post-war stress is whether one’s religious coping is positive or negative. While some modern beliefs insist that religion is a source of more trauma than it is of joy, an increasing number of studies are finding that the difference between a negative and positive experience is both paramount and effective. Doctors Eunice C.Wong and Thema BryantDavis define positive religious coping as tendencies that include: “praying for relief, seeking God’s comfort through a faith community, or believing that God was present at the time of the trauma and will provide divine justice.”10 Essentially, the divinity sought must be loving and forgiving, and isolating one’s self or emotionally toxic religious communities need to be avoided. Some veterans share positive experiences of religious coping. Consider this example from “Spirituality, Religion, and Suicidality among Veterans: A Qualitative Study”:

Another veteran cited her psychiatrist’s willingness to talk about spirituality as a key factor in her recovery—the psychiatrist “would talk about religion in our sessions. It was very helpful. Because he was like, ‘You feel ashamed because you tried to commit suicide, but, God’s not looking down on you.’ He would tell me stuff like that all the time, he’d be like, ‘God’s not looking down on you just because you’re sick’ ... it helped me a lot with the shame.”11

At the other end of the spectrum, negative religious coping not only hinders the recovery process, it can also exacerbate the pain and add to the trauma. This category can include feeling rejected by others in one’s religious circle, believing that the divine is wrathful or that they allowed the trauma to happen as a form of punishment, and blaming oneself for causing the trauma and praying God forgives them.12 Of these, the two most common experiences of negative religious coping tend to be a feeling of rejection from others within communities and the belief that God’s nature is judgmental and does not include complete forgiveness. For example, differences in belief about sexual orientation can cause grievous amounts of shame for any individual who has felt hateful messaging or a lack of belonging in faith-based spaces. When paired with the stigma or silence around sexual orientations present in many military cultures, as Sawatzky discusses in “Making the Man,” veterans may see religion as completely isolating. One study found that hopelessness, which is often a result of unhealthy isolation, was associated with greater suicidal ideation and lower positive religious coping, creating a difficult cycle to break.13 The same 2020 study, “Hope, Religiosity, and Mental Health in U.S. Veterans and Active Duty Military with PTSD Symptoms,” found that within its subject pool, the correlation between an individual’s religiosity and PTSD symptoms were not significant, but that “religiosity remained significantly correlated with hope.”14 Therefore, religiosity in this study did not directly lower PTSD, it actually increased a person’s hope.

Harold G. Koenig, et al. Figure 1. Relationship between Religiosity (BIACdeciles) and Hope (Stan- Dard Error) (N = 590), 2020, Military Medicine.

A different study done with over one hundred Croatian war veterans found that when compared to a control group of healthy individuals without PTSD, the veterans expressed more hopelessness; they showed pronounced usage of negative religious coping compared to those without PTSD. The veterans who felt less hopeless than their counterparts showed an overall greater usage of positive religious coping strategies.15 These findings emphasize the gravity of the distinction between negative and positive religious coping as it relates to the healing of one’s trauma. This healing is often a slow process, even when an individual or group attempts to do things as effectively as they believe is possible. Despite the hopelessness that statement may induce in a person who is seeking relief, minor efforts and changes are the most foundational in recovering from war. A study done in 2015 entitled “Religious Moral Beliefs Inversely Related to Trauma Experiences Severity and Presented Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Bosnia and Herzegovina War Veterans,” used the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and the Index of Religious Moral Belief (IRMB) to calculate possible connections between a person’s religious experience and PTSD symptoms. The study found that veterans who had higher IRBMs had less severe PTSD symptoms, and that having a faith to involve one’s self in: “makes it easier for veterans to maintain a personal perception of their ability to function in everyday life in spite of being exposed to and surviving traumas.”16 This is where the common and practical application of increased hopefulness can be seen. Finding motivation to rise in the morning and having the strength to end one’s day in an emotionally peaceful state is not easily done for those experiencing mental and emotional distress. Negative emotions, such as despair, guilt, grief, loneliness, and anger, to name a few, have undeniable effects on mundane parts of life. Yet, one can see the difference that participating in religion and spirituality can make in a person’s will to live. Counteracting the difficulty of the mundane for war veterans experiencing trauma does not have to include grand and large scale actions to be effective. It can involve praying for relief, as mentioned earlier when discussing positive religious coping, as well as reading spiritual or religious texts and meditating. Less mainstream practices can also prove beneficial, such as taking vows, spending time in nature, and serving others. A veteran being interviewed during the 2018 study led by Jamie Lusk touched on this when she “noticed that prior to her [suicide] attempt, she was not observing her spiritual/religious practices, ‘I realized that’s part of what gives my life—and my way of living—meaning, so I started seeking understanding again.’”17 This example displays the power that small-scale actions can have in reducing an individual’s unhealthy responses to trauma, even one as serious as suicide. A Muslim man prays early in the morning while outside. Tima Miroshnichenko, Photo of Man Praying during Dawn, November 25, 2020, Pexels.com.

To further ensure that religion contributes to healing, a small number of helpful boundaries have been observed by researchers. As previously discussed, it is important that any religious coping be positive and not negative, but a balance between attending religious services and spending private time in prayer, meditation, or other spiritual practices is also important. In a study done with Liberian refugees who were internally displaced or fled during the fourteen-year-long civil war, “the results indicated that when religious commitment is great, PTG [post-traumatic growth] is low,”18 suggesting that a modest level of participation in traditional, communal religious services is the healthiest amount.19 Even though this has been surveyed, it should be noted that religious commitment and spirituality are separate components of faith practices, and many quantitative studies do not distinguish between the two. Religious commitment is the “religiousness” of a person’s daily life: the systems, practices, and beliefs one indulges in within an institution. Spirituality is a quality of being, or an interpersonal relationship, between a person and the divine. With these definitions in mind, the previously discussed study would then imply that the emphasis of religion in a person’s life actually has to be spread out evenly across all aspects of their spiritual identity, and not confined to practicing within long-established institutions of religion or spiritual isolation. In essence, religious participation is most effective and socially healthy when kept at a moderate level. A surface level answer to the question “can the pursuit of and participation in religion help heal moral and mental trauma from war?” would be “yes, it can help.” Even so, just as the human conscience and human spirituality are complex elements of life intertwined with all others, religiously motivated healing is multidimensional. Studies have shown that discernment between positive and negative religious coping is critical, and that moral injury is often best treated through a mix of community supported and personal, spiritual interactions with a divine moral compass. Ultimately, religious participation is a valuable tool in the recovery from war related trauma, and assists in healing wounds from moral injury. Olivia F. Corps (she/her) International Studies major (international affairs and global policy track); Biblical Studies minor

Thin Red Line of Heroes A Medical Dilemma: Psychiatric Timeline in Defining and Diagnosing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Since 1914 1. Allan V. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), 25. 2. Edgar Jones, Nicola T. Fear, and Simon Wessley, “Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Historical Review,” American Journal of Psychiatry 164, no. 11 (2007): 1641. 3. Jones, Fear, and Wessley, “Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury,” 1642. 4. Jones, Fear, and Wessley, “Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury,” 1642. 5. Charles Samuel Myers, Contributions to the study of shell shock, being an account of certain cases treated by hypnosis. (Lancet, 1916), 65-69. 6. Marc-Antoine Crocq and Louis Crocq, “From Shell Shock and War Neurosis to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A History of Psychotraumatology,” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 2, no. 1 (2000): 50. 7. Crocq and Crocq, “From Shell Shock and War Neurosis to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A History of Psychotraumatology,” 50. 8. Crocq and Crocq, “From Shell Shock and War Neurosis to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A History of Psychotraumatology,” 50. 9. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 59-60. 10. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 60. 11. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 60. 12. Charles Samuel Myers, Shell Shock in France, 1914-1918: Based on a War Diary. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 86. 13. Jones, Fear, and Wessley, “Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Historical Review,” 1643. 14. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 66. 15. Tracy Loughran, “Shell Shock, Trauma, and the First World War: The Making of a Diagnosis and Its Histories,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 67, no. 1 (2012): 107. 16. Jones, Fear, and Wessley, “Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury,” 1644. 17. Jones, Fear, and Wessley, “Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury,” 1643. 18. Myers, Contributions to the study of shell shock, being an account of certain cases treated by hypnosis, 65-69. 19. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 100. 20. Sharon B. Shively and Daniel P. Perl, “Traumatic Brain Injury, Shell Shock, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the Military—Past, Present, and Future,” Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 27, no. 3 (2012): 235. 21. Jones, Fear, and Wessley, “Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Historical Review,” 1643. 22. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 70. 23. John Hart et al., “Cognitive Dysfunctions Associated With PTSD: Evidence from World War II Prisoners of War,” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 20, no. 3 (2008): 315. 24. Hart et al., “Cognitive Dysfunctions Associated With PTSD: Evidence from World War II Prisoners of War,” 315. 25. Michael D. Nevarez, Hannah M. Yee, and Robert J. Waldinger, “Friendship in War:

Camaraderie and Prevention of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Prevention,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 30, no. 5 (2017): 517-18. 26. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 85. 27. Casey L. May and Blair E. Wisco, “Defining Trauma: How Level of Exposure and Proximity Affect Risk for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 8, no. 2 (2016): 237. 28. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 93. 29. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-III. 3rd ed., (Washington, DC, 1980), 238. 30. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 100. 31. May and Wisco, “Defining Trauma: How Level of Exposure and Proximity Affect Risk for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” 235. 32. Crocq and Crocq, “From Shell Shock and War Neurosis to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A History of Psychotraumatology,” 53. 33. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 151. 34. Jamie L. Gradus, “PTSD: National Center for PTSD,” Epidemiology of PTSD, (2007): 1. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/essentials/epidemiology.asp#three. 35. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History, 153. 36. Russell, Mark C. “Treating Traumatic Amputation-Related Phantom Limb Pain,” Clinical Case Studies 7, no. 2 (2008): 151. 37. Russell, “Treating Traumatic Amputation-Related Phantom Limb Pain,” 151. 38. Russell, “Treating Traumatic Amputation-Related Phantom Limb Pain,” 151. 39. Edna B. Foa et al., “Effect of Prolonged Exposure Therapy Delivered Over 2 Weeks vs 8 Weeks vs Present-Centered Therapy on PTSD Symptom Severity in Military Personnel,” Jama 319, no. 4 (2018): 357. 40. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5, 5th ed., (Arlington, VA, 2013), 271-272. 41. Edgar Jones and Simon Wessely, Shell Shock to PTSD: Military Psychiatry from 1900 to the Gulf War. (Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2005), 160. 42. Russell, “Treating Traumatic Amputation-Related Phantom Limb Pain,” 151. Making The Man: Militarized Masculinity & The Queer Glitches 1. Christopher J. Gilbert. “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” Text & Performance Quarterly 34, no. 2 (April 2014): 148. 2. Ramon Hinojosa. “Doing Hegemony: Military, Men, and Constructing a Hegemonic Masculinity,” The Journal of Men’s Studies 18, no. 2 (2010): 180. 3. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 180. 4. Matt Franks. “Crip/Queer Aesthetics in the Great War,” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 65, no.1 (2019): 66. 5. Hannah C. Hale. “The Role of Practice in the Development of Military Masculinities,” Gender, Work & Organization 19, no. 6 (2011): 703. 6. John Fox and Bob Pease. “Military Deployment, Masculinity and Trauma: Reviewing the Connections,” The Journal of Men’s Studies 20, no. 1 (2012): 19. 7. Hale, “The Role of Practice,” 719.

8. Andreas Speck. “Queer and Gender Critiques of Military Recruitment and Militarisation,” War Resisters’ International, July 25, 2013, https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2013/queer-and-gender-critiques-militaryrecruitmentand-militarisation. 9. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 184. 10. Hale, “The Role of Practice,” 713. 11. Fox and Pease, “Military Deployment, Masculinity and Trauma,” 20. 12. Hale, “The Role of Practice,” 713. 13. Fox and Pease, “Military Deployment, Masculinity and Trauma,” 19. 14. Hale, “The Role of Practice,” 713. 15. Gilbert, “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” 148. 16. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 184. 17. Speck, “Queer and Gender Critiques.” 18. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 184. 19. Aaron Belkin. Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Facade of American Empire, 1898-2001, London: Hurst, 2012. 58. 20. Gilbert, “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” 148. 21. David Serlin. “Crippling Masculinity: Queerness and Disability in U.S. Military Culture, 1800-1945,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 9, no. 1-2 (2003): 154. 22. Serlin, “Crippling Masculinity,” 154. 23. Franks, “Crip/Queer Aesthetics,” 66. 24. Serlin, “Crippling Masculinity,” 154. 25. Zoë H. Wool, “Critical Military Studies, Queer Theory, and the Possibilities of Critique: the Case of Suicide and Family Caregiving in the US Military,” Critical Military Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 25. 26. Serlin, “Crippling Masculinity,” 158. 27. Serlin, “Crippling Masculinity,” 155. 28. Speck, “Queer and Gender Critiques.” 29. Franks, “Crip/Queer Aesthetics,” 64. 30. Franks, “Crip/Queer Aesthetics,” 64. 31. Hale, “The Role of Practice,” 713. 32. Wool, “Critical Military Studies,” 27. 33. Hale, “The Role of Practice,” 710. 34. Speck, “Queer and Gender Critiques.” 35. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 186. 36. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 184. 37. Katharine M. Mark, Kathleen A. McNamara, Rachael Gribble, Rebecca Rhead, Marie-Louise Sharp, Sharon A. Stevelink, Alix Schwartz, Carl Castro, and Nicola T. Fear. “The Health and Well-Being of LGBTQ Serving and Ex-Serving Personnel: a Narrative Review,” International Review of Psychiatry 31, no. 1 (2019): 88. 38. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 186. 39. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 190. 40. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 191. 41. Fox and Pease, “Military Deployment, Masculinity and Trauma,” 25. 42. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 192. 43. Wool, “Critical Military Studies,” 27. 44. Gilbert, “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” 146.

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45. Gilbert, “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” 148. 46. Mark Humphries. “War’s Long Shadow: Masculinity, Medicine, and the Gendered Politics of Trauma, 1914-1939,” The Canadian Historical Review 91, no. 3 (2010): 514. 47. Humphries, “War’s Long Shadow,” 529. 48. Humphries, “War’s Long Shadow,” 530. 49. Humphries, “War’s Long Shadow,” 508. 50. Humphries, “War’s Long Shadow,” 508. 51. Fox and Pease, “Military Deployment, Masculinity and Trauma,” 20. 52. Fox and Pease, “Military Deployment, Masculinity and Trauma,” 21. 53. Gilbert, “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” 159. 54. Gilbert, “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” 148. 55. Gilbert, “Standing Up to Combat Trauma,” 148. 56. Fox and Pease, “Military Deployment, Masculinity and Trauma,” 21. 57. Humphries, “War’s Long Shadow,” 525. 58. Hale, “The Role of Practice,” 719. Peacekeeping: The Impossible Utopian Mission 1. Pierre Elliott Trudeau and C. David Crenna, Lifting the Shadow of War (Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1987), 1. 2. Ibid., 1 3. Colin McCullough, “Pearson and Canada’s Peacekeeping Legacy,” Policy Options, November 6, 2017. 4. J.L. Granatstein, “Canada and Peacekeeping | The Canadian Encyclopedia,” accessed March 7, 2021. 5. “Principles of Peacekeeping,” United Nations Peacekeeping, accessed March 7, 2021. 6. C. D. Lamerson and E. K. Kelloway, “Towards a Model of Peacekeeping Stress: Traumatic and Contextual Influences,” Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne 37, no. 4 (1996): 195–204. 7. Marrack Goulding, “The Evolution of United Nations Peacekeeping,” International Affairs 69, no. 3 (1993): 451–64. 8. J Don Richardson, James A Naifeh, and Jon D Elhai, “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Associated Risk Factors in Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans with Health-Related Disabilities,” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 52, no. 8 (August 1, 2007): 510–18. 9. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a multi-dimensional concept that includes domains related to physical, mental, emotional, and social functioning. It goes beyond direct measures of population health, life expectancy, and causes of death, and focuses on the impact health status has on quality of life. https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Health-RelatedQuality-of-Life-and-Well-Being 10. J Don Richardson et al., “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Health-Related Quality of Life among a Sample of Treatment- and Pension-Seeking Deployed Canadian Forces Peacekeeping Veterans,” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 53, no. 9 (September 1, 2008): 594–600. 11. Lamerson and Kelloway, “Towards a Model of Peacekeeping Stress,” 197. 12. Ibid., 197. 13. Ibid., 198. 14. Ibid., 198.

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15. Ibid., 198. 16. Ibid., 198. 17. Veterans Affairs Canada, “No Peace to Keep - Video Gallery - Veterans Affairs Canada,” February 27, 2019. 18. Mark Gollom, “Canadian Peacekeepers Feeling ‘helpless’ to Act Could Face PTSD | CBC News,” CBC, September 5, 2016. 19. Ibid. 20. Marcia L. Sprules, “Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (Brief Article) (Book Review),” Library Journal 130, no. 2 (February 1, 2005): 96. 21. Peter Raymont, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, Documentary (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2004). 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Lewis MacKenzie, “The Real Story behind Srebrenica – Canadian Veritas Observatory,” Canadian Veritas Observatory, accessed March 26, 2021. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Brian Bethune, “The Other Hell,” MacLean’s Magazine, October 31, 2016. 28. Paul Mayne, “Healing from Invisible Wounds – Stories of Service,” 2019., 198. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., 198. 32. Ibid., 198. 33. “UN Peacekeeping 101,” Better World Campaign, accessed April 12, 2021, https://betterworldcampaign.org/un-peacekeeping/un-peacekeeping-101/. 34. “UN: Stop Sexual Abuse by Peacekeepers,” Human Rights Watch, March 4, 2016. 35. Elizabeth F Defeis, “U.N. Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: An End to Impunity,” Washington University Global Studies Law Review 7, no. 185 (2008): 191, 192. 36. Ibid, 192. 37. Richard Foot, “Canadian Peacekeepers in Somalia,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, August 2, 2019. 38. “Standards of Conduct,” United Nations Peacekeeping, accessed March 8, 2021. Tentacles of War ‘What Happens in Vietnam Does Not Stay in Vietnam’: The Truth Behind PTSD in US Combat Veterans and Their Families 1. Jerold M. Starr, The Lessons of the Vietnam War 1st ed. (Pittsburgh, PA: Center for Social Studies Education, 1991), 274-75, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED337409.pdf. 2. Stephanie, “I Want People to Know That There Is Hope,” in When the War Never Ends: The Voices of Military Members With PTSD and Their Families, ed. Leah Wizelman, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011), 176. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/ZTAwMHhu YV9fMzgzODk2X19BTg2?sid=5f1ab7c2-1cc8-4bf3-a526-7681d3c953a3@sessionmgr1 02&vid=1&format=EB. 3. Starr, The Lessons, 256.

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4. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.), (Washington, DC: 1994), 428, quoted in Vincent W. Savarese et al., “Relationships Among Alcohol Use, Hyperarousal, and Marital Abuse and Violence in Vietnam Veterans,” Journal of traumatic stress 14, no. 4 (January 1, 2001): 720, https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid =a0622584-1fd7-45a7-bfc6-f1328681bc5a%40sessionmgr103; Shehan, “Spouse Support,” 55-56; Starr, The Lessons, 275. 5. Bruce Wm. Taneski, I Came Home (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015), 11, Kindle. 6. Taneski, I Came Home, 10. 7. Taneski, I Came Home, 10. 8. M. MacPherson, Long Time Passing: Vietnam & the Haunted Generation, (Garden City NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1984), 176, quoted in Constance L. Shehan, “Spouse Support and Vietnam Veterans’ Adjustment to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Family Relations 36, no. 1 (January 1987): 55- 56, https://doi.org/10.2307/584648. 9. Starr, The Lessons, 275. 10. Karl Marlantes, What it is Like (London: Corvus, 2011), 202. 11. Marlantes, What it is Like, 177. 12. Starr, The Lessons, 278. 13. Starr, The Lessons, 277-78. 14. Marlantes, What it is Like, 188; Cathy, “He Thought I was Telling Him He Was Crazy,” in When the War Never Ends: The Voices of Military Members With PTSD and Their Families, ed. Leah Wizelman, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011), 57. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/ZTAwMHhu YV9fMzgzODk2X19BTg2?sid=5f1ab7c2-1cc8-4bf3-a526-7681d3c953a3@sessionmgr1 02&vid=1&format=EB. 15. Starr, The Lessons, 279. 16. Taneski, I Came Home, 10. 17. Marlantes, What it is Like, 185. 18. Cathy, “He Thought,” 57. 19. R, A, Kulka et al., Trauma and the Vietnam war generation (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990), quoted in Charles C. Hendrix, and Lisa M. Anelli, “Impact of Vietnam War Service on Veterans’ Perceptions of Family Life,” Family Relations 42, no. 1 (January 1993): 87. https://doi:10.2307/584927 20. Taneski, I Came Home, 14. 21. J. Ketwig, … And a Hard Rain Fell: A GIs True Story of the War in Vietnam, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985), 295-96, quoted in Constance L. Shehan, “Spouse Support and Vietnam Veterans’ Adjustment to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Family Relations 36, no. 1 (January 1987): 56, https://doi.org/10.2307/584648. 22. Starr, Lessons of Vietnam, 275. 23. Vietnam Veterans of American, “Suicide Risk & Prevention: Assistance & Resources,” July 2011, https://vva.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SuicideRiskPrevention.pdf. 24. Taneski, I Came Home, 11. 25. Cathy, “He Thought,” 55. 26. Starr, The Lessons, 278; Marlantes, What it is Like, 196, 202. 27. Marlantes, What it is Like, 202.

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28. Marlantes, What it is Like, 203-05. 29. Shehan, “Spouse Support,” 55. 30. Cathy, “He Thought,” 54. 31. Cathy, “He Thought,” 57. 32. Starr, The Lessons, 275. 33. Marlantes, What it is Like, 192. 34. Vietnam Veterans of America, “PTSD: What Every Veteran – And Every Veteran’s Family – Should Know,” November 2007, https://vva.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/PTSD2008.pdf; B. K. Jordan et al., “Problems in Families of Male Vietnam Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 60, no. 6 (December 1992): 925. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/10.1037/0022-006X.60.6.916. 35. MacPherson, Long Time Passing. 36. M. Baker, Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women who Fought There (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1981), 308, quoted in Constance L. Shehan, “Spouse Support and Vietnam Veterans’ Adjustment to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Family Relations 36, no. 1 (January 1987): 54, https://doi.org/10.2307/584648. 37. “How PTSD Affects the People You Love,” Youtube video, 3:18, “AboutFaceVeterans,” October 11, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifmI2w7kJVA. 38. Stephanie, “I Want People to Know,” 180. 39. Stephanie, “I Want People to Know,” 180. 40. Rachel Dekel and Hadass Goldblatt, “Is There Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma? The Case of Combat Veterans’ Children,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 78, no. 3 (2008): 285, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013955. 41. John Parsons, Thomas J. Kehle, and Steve V. Owen, “Incidence of Behavior Problems Among Children of Vietnam War Veterans,” School Psychology International 11, no. 4 (November 1990): 257, https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034390114002. 42. Jordan et al., “Problems in Families,” 923-24. 43. Stephanie, “I Want People to Know,” 175. 44. Allison, “I am Learning Not to Take it Personally When He Pushes Me Away,” in When the War Never Ends: The Voices of Military Members With PTSD and Their Families, ed. Leah Wizelman, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011), 118. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/ZTAwMHhu YV9fMzgzODk2X19BTg2?sid=5f1ab7c2-1cc8-4bf3-a526-7681d3c953a3@sessionmgr1 02&vid=1&format=EB. 45. Dekel and Goldblatt, “Intergeneration Transmissional,” 287. 46. “How PTSD Affects” 47. E. D. A. Hermes, R. Hoff, & R. A. Rosenheck, “Sources of the increasing number of Vietnam era Veterans with a diagnosis of PTSD using VHA services,” Psychiatric Services 65 (2014), doi:10.1176/appi.ps.201300232, quoted in Nida H. Corry et al., “Forty Years After the War: How Are Vietnam Veterans Doing Today?” PTSD Research Quarterly: Advancing Science and Promoting Understanding of Traumatic Stress 27, no. 1 (2016): 2. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/publications/rq_docs/V27N1.pdf. 48. Marlantes, What it is Like, 192. 49. Cathy, “He Thought,” 55.

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4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Amnesty International, “Dead Land,” 9. 7. Wim Zwijnenburg, “Scorched earth and charred lives” Found in Pax for Peace online publications, 2016: 38. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 39 11. Ibid. 12. J. Isaac & M. Ghanyem, “Environmental Degradation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (2003): 13. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Shatha Hammad, “’Paradise lost’: How Israel turned the West Bank into a sewage dump for its settlements,” Middle East Eye, 21 October 2020, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-west-bank-settlements-sewage-dump 16. Kuwait News Agency, “Qassam Martys Brigades claim Ramallah attack,” 20 June 2003, https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticlePrintPage.aspx?id=1355361&language=en# 17. Megan Stack, “In Gaza, Orange Growers Are Bitter Casualties of War,” Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2003 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-10-fg-orange10-story.html 18. Nadine Sinno, “Five Troops for Every Tree: Lamenting Green Carnage in Contemporary Arab Women’s War Diaries. Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Spring 2014): 107. 19. Ibid. 20. Isaac & Ghanyem, “Environmental Degradation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” 16. 21. Ibid. 22. FAO Newsroom, “Lebanon: damage to agriculture, fisheries and forestry estimated at around $280 million” Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, 27 November 2006, fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000445/index.html 23. Ibid. 24. Ian Christoplos, “Agricultural Rehabilitation in Afghanistan: Linking Relief, Development and Support to Rural Livelihoods.” Overseas Development Institute (September 2004): 2. 25. Mohammad Sediq Rashid, Mullah Jan and Mohammad Wakil, “Landmines and Land Rights in Afghanistan,” Published 2010 by Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining. Accessed 3/25/2021 at https://www.globalprotectioncluster.org/_assets/files/field_protection_clusters/Afghanista n/files/HLP%20AoR/Landmines_Land_Rights_Afghanistan_2010_EN.pdf 26. Conflict and Environment Observatory, “Yemen’s agriculture in distress.” 27. Ibid. 28. FAO, “Near East and North Africa Regional Overview of Food Insecurity” (2016): 1. 29. Ibid., 3. 30. Jan and Wakil Rashid, “Landmines and Land Rights in Afghanistan,” p. 9. 31. Izabela Leao, Anuja Kar & Mansur Ahmed, “For rural Afghan women, agriculture holds the potential for better jobs,” World Bank Blogs, 12 January 2017, https://blogs.worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/rural-afghan-women-agriculture-holds -potential-better-jobs.

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Photo of Red Flowers on White Concrete Floor, pexels.com.

By the Grace of God(s): Healing War-Related Trauma in Veterans through Religion and Spirituality 1. Jaimie Lusk et al., “Spirituality, Religion, and Suicidality among Veterans: A Qualitative Study,” Archives of Suicide Research 22, no. 2 (April 2018): 318, https://doi.org/10.1080/13811118.2017.1340856. 2. Syracuse University, “What Is Moral Injury,” The Moral Injury Project (Syracuse University, n.d.), https://moralinjuryproject.syr.edu/about-moral-injury/. 3. Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod, Encyclopedia of Wars (New York: Facts On File, Cop, 2005), 1484–85. 4. Taki Telonidis, “In Sweat Lodge, Vets Find Healing ‘down to the Core,’” Npr.org (Northwest Public Broadcasting, May 28, 2012), https://www.npr.org/2012/05/28/153875444/in-sweat-lodge-vets-find-healing-d own-to-the-core. 5. Anybody’s Son Will Do (Canada: National Film Board of Canada, 1983): 02:24. 6. Karen O’Donnell, “Help for Heroes: PTSD, Warrior Recovery, and the Liturgy,” Journal of Religion & Health 54, no. 6 (December 2015): 2393, doi:10.1007/s10943-015-0034-5. 7. Shannon French, “Warrior Transitions: From Combat to Social Contract.” JSCOPE, January 2005, 2. 8. O’Donnell, “Help for Heroes,” 2393. 9. M.S. Kopacz et al., “Suicidal Behavior and Spiritual Functioning in a Sample of Veterans Diagnosed With PTSD,” Journal of Injury and Violence Research 8, no. 1 (January 2016): 6-14. https://doi.org/10.5249/jivr.v8i1.728. 10. Thema Bryant-Davis and Eunice C. Wong, “Faith to Move Mountains: Religious Coping, Spirituality, and Interpersonal Trauma Recovery.,” American Psychologist 68, no. 8 (November 1, 2013): 677, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034380. 11. Lusk et al., “Spirituality, Religion, and Suicidality among Veterans,” 320-321. 12. Bryant-Davis and Wong, “Faith to Move Mountains,” 677. 13. Harold G Koenig et al., “Hope, Religiosity, and Mental Health in U.S. Veterans and Active Duty Military with PTSD Symptoms,” Military Medicine 185, no. 1/2:97 (January 2020): 97–104, https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usz146. 14. Harold G Koenig et al., “Hope, Religiosity, and Mental Health in U.S. Veterans,” 102 & 101, respectively. 15. Sanea Mihaljevic et al., “Hopelessness, Suicidality and Religious Coping in Croatian War Veterans with PTSD,” Psychiatr Danub 24, (2012): 292-297. 16. Mevludin Hasanović and Izet Pajević, “Religious Moral Beliefs Inversely Related to Trauma Experiences Severity and Presented Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among Bosnia and Herzegovina War Veterans,” Journal of Religion and Health 54, no. 4 (September 27, 2014): 1414, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-014-9954-8. 17. Lusk et al., “Spirituality, Religion, and Suicidality among Veterans,” 321. 18. Hannah E. Acquaye, Stephen A. Sivo, and Dayle K. Jones, “Religious Commitment’s Moderating Effect on Refugee Trauma and Growth,” Counseling & Values 63, no. 1 (April 2018): 68, doi:10.1002/cvj.12073. 19. It should be noted that 70.9% of the participants were male and 93.2% self-identified as Christian. This is less diverse than studies previously mentioned. It is also important to acknowledge that the experience of participating in combat and attempting to escape it produce similar but different kinds of trauma.

“Unless we can see clearly what went wrong in the past, and acknowledge ‘our’ responsibility as well as ‘theirs’, we shall simply substitute a new war for an old, and new dangers for those we so narrowly escaped.” John Gittings, The Glorious Art of Peace (2012), 231. 115

(In)Visible Scars: Warfare and the Human Condition

Articles inside

By the Grace of God(s): Healing War-Related Trauma in Veterans through Religion and Spirituality

Medical Advancements in War

Trauma begets Trauma: The Holocaust and the Jewish State

to Trauma after WWII

Making The Man: Militarized Masculinity and The Queer Glitches

The Struggle Continues: Syrian Refugees Pre- and Post-Migration

Tentacles of War The Truth Behind PTSD in US Combat Veterans and Their Families

SomaliaCompelled by Poverty: Child Soldiers in

The Ecological Trauma of War in the Middle East

Utopian MissionPeacekeeping: the Impossible

Still Paying: CIVCAS and Human Development

Thin Red Line of Heroes and Diagnosing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Since 1914