We've all heard the horror stories about what ignorant, impertinent questions strangers and even family members ask of veterans sometimes. "Didja kill anyone?" "How many people did you kill," etc.
It doesn't take much sophistication or awareness about the topic of veterans and PTSD before you realize, those questions aren't appropriate at all, ever; and in general, when it comes to questions about combat experience and what veterans suffered, very clearly let them lead in terms of the disclosure. Don't press. But if they want to talk, be able and willing to listen, if you're so inclined.
Apparently the word hasn't gotten out as far as it should have, though. The other night, I went to a screening of some films by a veteran about his experience, and certain questions by audience members afterwards just made me and many of the veterans in the audience squirm.
I share them because I think it shows how far we all have to go if we actually desire authentic dialogue between the two groups.
(An appropriate disclaimer would be, I'm a civilian too, but I've spent the last five years learning from veterans about what they experience in combat, and about how post-traumatic stress disorder affects them and their loved ones.)
The setting was a small community college auditorium, where members of the public gathered to watch a series of short films produced by an Iraq veteran about his experience reintegrating. The film showing was followed by a panel discussion with a handful of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, both men and women, and a few who'd served earlier. The films were good, and portrayed the experience well, and afterwards, the panel took questions from the audience. Several of the (undoubtedly well-meaning) questioners make me wonder if it's possible for civilians to breach the gap with military on something so raw, personal and volatile as their war experience.
Certainly, when the Vietnam veterans returned, they were met with open hostility and outright neglect, both of which were a problem, and where those after-effects are felt even to this day. Many who were alive during those days, both veterans and civilians, regret those times. It's certainly true that veterans today are getting a different reception -- but is that reception necessarily better, particularly if it includes questions like these?
One audience member, an older woman, said -- though she had a son who had gone to war and was on the panel -- that she herself was a pacificist. "So I'd like to know," she asked (I'm paraphrasing), "just why you would have joined the military?"
The filmmaker who was hosting the panel responded that the answers to that question would be as different as individuals, and that there was no one way to answer to it. To which a young audience member, referring to the woman's question, replied privately, "Just because you don't personally agree with someone else, isn't any reason to question their motivation for doing what they did."
"Spill your guts"
"Take this opportunity right now, you have it, we're listening," another older woman suggested to the panel of veterans, "and tell us, right now, what you would like us to know, about the worst of what you experienced in war."
The panel was, as a whole, taken aback, incredulous; it was the equivalent, of her saying, "here, right now, spill your guts -- on the most difficult memories you have -- what's stopping you? We're listening." In an auditorium full of literal strangers, the question was absurd.
One young Marine, who was on a tour in Iraq where many of his brothers-in-arms died, and has since gone on to study social work, demurred that even when his mother asks him, there are questions about what he experienced that he just doesn't feel comfortable answering.
One teenage audience member, at 18 a few years younger than the youngest veteran on the panel, had a question he wanted to ask, which might have gone over much better than some of the more insensitive ones. What he wanted to know is when veterans self-identify as such, whether they feel that the "label" of veteran helps them to integrate better into the community, or whether they feel it sets them apart?
A question like this, which didn't get heard, would have been one of the more pivotal ones to address. Because while it's great that being a veteran has "come out of the woodwork" so to speak -- and the veteran experience is now one that seems to elicit some interest, versus during the Vietnam era -- that also cuts both ways. For veterans who want to be accepted again for who they are, not necessarily thought of primarily in terms of their war experience, however much it's changed them -- it's hard to say whether identifying publicly as a veteran helps this or hurts it.
And while 'm glad to see civilians embracing to some extent the veterans in their community -- and giving them the recognition and to some degree, attention that they didn't give their Vietnam veteran counterparts -- the reality is, it still needs to be done with compassion, understanding and empathy. And NOT the desire to put veterans on the spot and make them squirm under the spotlight of fairly ignorant questioning, no matter how "well-meaning" their interest.
Someday I hope we'll all find the right balance on this: respecting veterans for their service and their sacrifice, and letting the veterans lead the conversation about how much they really want to say about it. In the meantime, the appropriate posture for the rest of us -- both individually and as communities, is to wait, not press, and certainly not pressure -- veterans to talk about what they've gone through.
© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.
