Make Sure Our Veterans Can Stand Tall
Don't make them war criminals in a misguided effort to win.
Combat does not automatically cause combat fatigue (also called post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD). Pre-service trauma contributes to its onset. Also, committing war crimes increases the likelihood of getting combat fatigue. This fits with my view that making sure soldiers fight under rules of engagement is more than just compassionate to civilians caught in a war or enemy soldiers no longer resisting. Fighting within the rules of war and under the rules of engagement enables our troops to come home with their heads held high as defenders of our country rather than as war criminals.
This aspect of soldiers getting combat fatigue isn’t something I’ve previously read about:
The researchers also found that soldiers who inflicted harm on civilians or prisoners of war were much more likely to develop PTSD.
I listened to Geoffrey Corn from Texas Tech University explain the laws of war. He was preaching to the TDR choir. First of all, he said they apply to all parties in war--even actors like Hamas.
He said the two biggest misconceptions about the laws of war are misunderstanding "proportionality"--both on comparative weaponry used (you can use much more to end the threat) and wrongly measuring that by comparative casualties; and who is responsible for civilian casualties--inflicting civilian casualties isn't actually illegal. What is illegal is deliberately killing civilians or failing to mitigate casualties as much as you can while carrying out your mission.
Unaddressed was what I think is the role of laws of war in protecting your own troops from psychological damage in a business that is basically killing other humans. [Emphasis added]
My interest in this last angle of the rules of war and the rules of engagement leaders set out to achieve military objectives without violating the rules of war was on my radar during the Iraq War. Reacting to pro-war advocates for “taking the gloves off” to defeat the insurgents and terrorists, I objected to the implications of the demand:
[American] rules of engagement that promote winning hearts and mind allow our troops to fight with honor and come home as soldiers and Marines--not as killers. If we let our troops loose to kill as they see fit to terrorize the population into submission, they become judge, jury, and executioner. Even if they make all the right decision in a fight with enemies in civilian clothes, our troops will always wonder if they were right in the decisions they make.
Rules of engagement take much of the judging and responsibility out of their hands and put the responsibility on the leaders where it belongs. As long as soldiers know they followed the lawful rules of engagement they can come home with their heads held high, having fought as soldiers. As long as they allow us to fight and win, this is just fine.
One of our sergeants, in a National Guard unit coming home after duty in Ramadi, put it well:Walls says insurgents wear civilian clothes and use women and children as shields.
"If you're going to fight the enemy, there are two ways to look at it. You either become just like them, fight them on their own terms or you take the heavy burden like we're doing it right now and it's going to cost American lives. It's a hell of a price to pay but if you fight them on their terms, you're no better than them.
"That's the true dilemma of the soldier right now, to get his sanity and keep his morals, keep his integrity. And it's hard. It's a ... minute-by-minute struggle ... over in Iraq."
This brigade of 2,000 lost 15 men but the rest come home as soldiers with their integrity intact and not as a rabble of killers no better than the enemy. The rules of engagement they followed in war may have seemed like a burden--and it was; but they go home with their heads held high, sane, and their morals and integrity intact, knowing they behaved as soldiers.
And really, it isn’t fair to say that refusing to fight like the enemy caused any of the fifteen KIA the unit suffered. Being brutal may have caused more American KIA by both inspiring people to join the enemy and by breaking down the discipline that makes soldiers effective.
This is aside from the practice being counter-productive for a free country waging war. Some civilians here at home may want to sanction brutality to win. But most will recoil in horror to oppose the war. And most calling for taking the gloves off will join them as the reality of their rhetoric shocks them.
Mind you, I’m not writing this as a combat veteran. My military service was limited. I certainly don’t know how I’d react to the perceived need to be brutal just to survive. I’ve never seen a friend die in front of me because enemies routinely violate the rules of war.
I do know that after I enlisted I changed my mind about what soldiers should be allowed to do. As a civilian who supported a strong defense I had felt I had no justification for saying a soldier can’t do what it takes to survive. After I wore the uniform I felt an American soldier should strive to uphold the rules of war.
What I hope is that having those rules and following them will rescue even a soldier who in an extreme case in the heat of the moment of fear and confusion violates the rules. Knowing that moment was an abberation may at least mitigate the damage that being brutal can inflict, as the initially cited study suggests.
War is Hell. But it doesn’t mean you must be a demon.
NOTE: I made the image with the Substack capability.