Healing Combat Trauma

Sometimes a Photo Just Says It All...

News from Hell before Breakfast: Journalists, War Trauma and PTSD

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast." -- attributed, perhaps erroneously, to Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman.

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A different quote:

"On Thursday, June 26th, I witnessed the immediate aftermath of an Al-Qaeda suicide bomb attack.  Several dozen people lost their lives... children, old men, civilians, police, and military men.  The scene was horrific beyond words, even for someone like me who has a fairly high threshold for such things.

I found it nearly impossible to look through the viewfinder.  What I saw was abhorrently graphic, yet far too important for the world to ignore.  I present images that provide an uncensored view of a terrible event, and some small measure of dignity to those who lost their lives."

-- Zoriah, international humanitarian photographer, whose gripping images from that event were later censored by the U.S. military, and he was evicted from his embed assignment with the Marines. (The link to the post where he talks about those images, and shows them, is here.)

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PTSD from being a combat journalist of photographer, embedded or otherwise:  Not everyone who's exposed to combat trauma develops PTSD, as we know.  Recently, Kimberly Dozier, CBS correspondent and author of Breathing the Fire, says she didn't develop it from her horrific near-death incident in Iraq in May of 2006, though ironically -- according to Dozier -- almost everyone she interacts with believes thatshe must have.  (See article to that effect by Dozier, linked here.)  However...many do; and for others, the signs and symptoms take time to manifest themselves. 

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Journalists bear witness, both to some of the most savage atrocities of wartime, though without the training and the mindset of combatants, and also to the suffering of the survivors, military and civilian.  Says one photographer who served in Vietnam:

It has been very difficult for me [to recount some of his memories from the past] as it has brought back many of the horrible nightmares that I had thought that I had finally put away. It did get them out in the open and off my chest so to speak and now my family now knows why I sometimes have to take those walks out into the woods alone to just get away. Hard to explain. I do have severe survival guilt as I have lost far to many friends in combat in up close and personal confrontations. I have many photos of me smiling and yes there were many good times. However; there were enough bad times to more than compensate for the good ones. I have learned to cope with this new world that I came home to only because I still feel a great need to help my fellow veterans. We 'Nam veterans are all but forgotten in my eyes.

Two significant resources: Dr. Anthony Feinstein's work, and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

Two excellent books:

Dangerous Lives: War, and the Men and Women Who Report It, by Anthony Feinstein (2002); and Journalists under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War, by Anthony Feinstein. (2006).  (Recommended by Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., noted PTSD expert.)  Shay wrote: "the first and only book about the occupational [psychological] hazards of being a war correspondent.  Published in Canada, will come out in the US next year from Johns Hopkins UP with a new chapter on embeds."

Dr. Anthony Feinstein is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and a neuropsychiatrist at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. He is an expert on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in war journalists. Feinstein received a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue his research. Dr. Anthony Feinstein's bio is linked here.  Much better bio, linked here.

For reporters: War, Journalism and Stress: The Self-Assessment Test, linked here. (General description of the test, linked here.)

What Feinstein has to say:

More than anything, says Feinstein, he’s learned that, “War is not good for journalists. They suffer from it.”

Specifically, they suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and anxiety disorders. One in five journalists, over the course of a long (15-plus-year) career, endures significant PTSD, says Feinstein. That means, among other things, bad dreams, flashbacks, numbness, an overly sensitive startle response and an inability to get close to others emotionally. One in four experiences depression. “And a number drink very heavily as well,” says Feinstein, “but I don’t know how many, because I never know for sure what they’re telling me.”

The most surprising revelation of the research for Feinstein? “I didn’t realize that the journalists were in such great danger. You see them when they report the news: cool, collected, with everything seemingly going on behind them. But these people are really right in the middle of it all.”

He is particularly sympathetic to still photographers. More than anyone, he says, these professionals have no choice but to get into the thick of things to do their jobs well.

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, located on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, is a particularly good, targeted resource for journalists about reporting and trauma: both externally reporting, and internally experiencing trauma from reporting in war zones.  Click here to look through their extensive offerings, which are really superb.

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Who's the handsome young man in the photo? 

That's Robert W. "Grif" Griffin.  Griffin says, "I was a combat photographer with the 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile from 1966 to 1968 and 1970. I was in country [in Vietnam] as a photographer from 1966 to 1968, and back again in 1970."  (He was shot down near Quan Loi in 1970.)  He adds that he "spent 20 years in the Army mostly as a photojournalist/motion picture and still photographer."

According to Griffin, "the photographer who took the photo is Jere L. Smith, a fellow combat photographer and a Specialist E5 at the time. We were both assigned to the 13th Signal Battalion, which was part of the 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile."  At the time the photo was taken, Griffin was duplicating some slides for his Command for a Division briefing that was to take place in several locations at the same time: hence, the dupes.

Doing My Time in Hell - War Just "Dirt, Death, Misery and Guilt," Not Glory - Say Veterans

This photograph of an American soldier displaying his ink about combat is by the noted photographer Zoriah, and is used with permission of the photographer.  (Zoriah's blog is linked here.) 

The tattoo reads: "Walk peacefully on heaven's streets,You've done your time in Hell."

Ahhh, if it only were that "easy." 

I've been keeping one eye on Zoriah's situation lately -- he's the embedded humanitarian war photographer whose iconic images of the true horrors of war apparently got him kicked out of Iraq -- and the other on some writing of Vietnam veterans, all of them Marines (but not for any particular reason), about what it was really like to "be there."  The outcome of my faux research?  Sounds like up close and personal, war can be plenty of "guts," but not necessarily all that much "glory."

"The flashbacks and the hallucinations manifested themselves while I was still in [combat], says one Vietnam veteran, adding, "They have stayed with me for the last forty years." (Rob Honzell, 1st Recon Marines. Rob Honzell's memoir is "First Person: Combat PTSD.)

Another Vietnam veteran questions why Americans reflexively call servicemembers who die in combat "heroes."  He writes,

"Heroes?!! I served two tours in Vietnam including the Tet Offensive of 1968. I killed someone -- a NVA solider -- I was elated -- but years later, I can still see my round hitting this guy. I never see any heroism in war -- just death, dirt, misery and guilt. I have never met a soldier or Marine who felt heroic. We do our jobs to protect our buddies and we want to get home and live our lives as ordinary men not as heroes. When you smell death you no longer have a glorified sense of war. There is honor and duty, but to kill or be killed does not make you a hero. I feel for these young people and their families -- but war and combat are not heroic actions -- they are doing a job and getting home."

(Or hoping to.)

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I've been reading voraciously the accounts of the Marines who survived the ferociously fought battle for Hill 881, part of the battle for Khe Sanh in 1967 -- a particularly vicious conflict.  (You'll find out why, in a few posts, but not right now.) 

One Marine captain writes about his guys, from there:

"As far as the individual Marine goes, I think I learned to respect the individual Marine -- the 18-,19-, 20-year-old, more in this one particular battle than any other time that I've been in the Marine Corps. He was given a job; he went up in the fact of danger, in the face of just being blown away, more or less, and he went up and did his job. To see the faces of the Marines dragging back their dead buddies, their wounded buddies, you could see how close the Marines really were with each other. It was true brotherhood, and I was really proud at the conduct of the Marines." (Capt. David G. Rogers, C Battery, 1/12 Marines.)

Says another Marine, reflecting on his part in the vicious battle for Hill 881 -- "I should have cried" (at the time), but I didn't.  I didn't have time.  I would cry later, and when I did - the tears would never completely stop..."

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It doesn't sound like war has changed all that much.  Remember Ambrose Bierce, Civil War era journalist and soldier, who we talked about a few weeks ago?  He wrote at the end of his highly-charged battle memory / short story, a line -- speaking about himself, after what he'd observed and taken part in -- "the life I should have thrown away, at Shiloh." (Bierce went on to stir things up for a few more years, though...)

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A current veteran and fellow fan of Zoriah, now studying social work in an attempt to ease the burden of his fellow PTSD sufferers, has this to say about combat trauma, on his blog, "PTSD - a Soldier's Perspective," linked here:

"We tell a soldier or veteran of war "welcome home" because the battle never leaves us, as we return from conflict everyday of our lives. This is my story and struggle with PTSD, it affects every aspect of my life. I want people to know what a combat veteran goes through after the media and people forget."

And later:

Taking another's life in the name of freedom, patriotism and because of your job description profoundly changes the person. How do we reconcile the killing of another human being and still maintain our principles and values? Someone who has not done so can say all they want about what they think or believe. When a soldier goes home to his or her family, friends and community, how do we relate to people who expect the person that is no longer us? How do we tell them that each time we took a life that, we too died in spirit a little more? They congratulate us on a job well done and we tell ourselves that we did our job, what we were trained to do. They tell us how proud they are, and we cannot make them understand how we feel guilty for that pride. How do we tell them that we cannot get those faces or images out of our mind?

Dirt, death, misery and guilt -- that's a heavy, heavy burden for any one person to share.  Let's hope we shoulder it with them, and NEVER forget.

We Made History Together: The Oral and Written Histories of Combat Veterans

Combat veterans - where did your memories go?  Not as in, "have you lost your memories?" but more to the effect of, "how are you saving them or transmitting them, for posterity?"

This marvelous photograph was taken by photographer Jeremy Hogan, and is used with permission. Hogan wrote the "Poem for My Father" which we blogged about earlier, and in his free time, he's helping to document the history of his father's squadron in Vietnam.  He says about this photo, taken over Memorial Day weekend, that the subject is, "Ron Klus, who served with my dad at Quan Loi, and received a Distinguished Flying Cross with an Oak Leaf Cluster. Unfortunately, Klus died due to issues related to his PTSD and now the VA is now denying his widow death benefits."

Recently, I've been privileged to receive several veteran's memoirs, bound up in book form -- one is a work in progress, the other already published.  I know that Jeremy is working with at least one of the guys from his dad's old squadron (13th Signal Battalion, part of the 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile), a combat photographer who did multiple tours of Vietnam, on cataloging his old photos, and creating some sort of archive for posterity.  That photographer says he's been interviewed as well, and is the subject of an upcoming article in a military magazine, but admits that dredging up the memories has been extraordinarily painful, because all those memories just come rushing back, from where they've been suppressed all these years.  That situation is challenging enough -- but what of others, who will die before they set anything down on paper, or on tape, about what they went through?  Those memories, painful and otherwise, which capture who the person was, will forever be lost to time. Unless...they're preserved some kind of way.

We've written on this blog before about the exceptional StoryCorps project -- click here for that link -- but what else is there out there, that archives veterans' recorded stories of their adventures and misadventures in combat?  (By recorded, we mean "set down" -- which could be on paper, digitally, or taped.)  One thing I've run across -- and please let us know if you know of other things like this, that are national in scope, not just regional or local -- is the "Veterans History Project," a project of the "American Folklife Center" at the Library of Congress, linked here. 

To participate in the project takes a few easy steps (their words, not mine), and seems pretty straightforward.  You register for the project, print the project field kit, prepare f the interview, conduct the interview, and send the resulting work product to the collection at the Library of Congress (of course keeping at least one copy for yourself).  Students and teachers can make this an educational project for school credit, -- that information is linked here -- but veterans themselves should think about getting involved. There's even a very cool place on the site where you can search for histories by other people who've participated -- for all you know, you might find a wartime buddy via that search engine, which is linked here.

I recently shared a quick conversation and a hug with longtime Friend of Veterans Maxine Hong Kingston, and asked her my one burning question, which was how long it took veterans before they were willing to talk about their experiences.  She said, "20 years."  I'm hopeful it doesn't always take that long -- or won't take that long, for the current crop of veterans -- but when you read some individual's war experiences you can see exactly why that would be. 

Current veterans like Tony Neff, author of the short autobiographical piece on his injury and convalescence, called "All I Want Is What I Deserve," which was published on this blog a few months ago, definitely took the plunge and jumped right in -- good for him. (His story is linked, here.)  I just have the feeling the current group of vets, thanks to the Internet and technology, etc., and their general comfort level with same, is going to break through all previous barriers more quickly with getting their stories told and out there, for the general public and to memorialize what they went through. In fact, it will seem unusual for them not to! 

But for everyone else, from previous wars, it's gonna take a little more coaxing and cajoling. So what of it -- is it time to start getting involved, and sharing with the world what only you know and experienced?  It might even help your loved ones understand you a little bit better -- and in the process, perhaps help you to understand and forgive yourself a little more, too.  Can you hear me cheering you on from the sidelines?  That's good -- because that would be the point :-)

When the Marine Corps Misses the Bigger Picture -- Zoriah, Eric Acevedo, and Censorship

It's discouraging to even have to post about this, but there it is.

In a fight between the Marine Corps and freedom of the press, the Marine Corps seems like it wants the win.  According to Google Playfights (see gimmicky graphic illustrating this post) it already has.  (Learn more about Google Playfights elsewhere: it's not central to this post.)

Following the recently embedded independent photojournalist Zoriah's travails recently, on his blog, it seems he's being kicked out of Iraq, and risking being completely blacklisted, because of at least some higher up Marine Corps officers displeasure with images he posted.  Images that centrally could help America to really get a better grip on the true cost of war for its participants.  If you believe the experts (and the poets), no one comes back from war, unchanged.  Whether it's what you've done/seen/participated in or not been able to do/see/participate in, it exacts a tremendous psychic cost.  That doesn't mean we should stop fighting in them - just that we should be more aware of the actual costs.  For every combatant killed, so many more are injured, and will come home with injuries that in many cases will profoundly transform their lives, and that of their families, for decades to come.  It's a shame the Marine Corps doesn't really want to let us, Americans, wrap our brains around this concept more fully.  It would help make us better empathizers with the true cost of war to its participants.

I had my own experience with Marine Corps censorship, earlier, on this blog.  In an attempt to humanize the story of an apparent PTSD sufferer who'd killed his girlfriend, I dug through the Marine Corps (public) archives on their website, and found a little backstory about the Marine, Eric Acevedo, who'd been accused of the crime.  In and amongst the materials were some very key items: a photo that showed the human side of his grief and pain; and some material -- if you knew where to look -- that explained just what he'd been exposed to, in terms of combat trauma, while he was on the deployment that apparently harmed him the most.  It was a tragic tale, but it was public knowledge -- at least, information accessible by the public, that could be pieced together by someone like a journalist, who knows how to dig, and highlight the important parts of the story.  I posted what I found, in an entry linked here -- and within three days, the Marine Corps had taken pains to scrub ALL identifying information about this poor guy, Acevedo, from their site.  The photo was gone, the article about the memorial service he attended, for the multiple guys KIA from his battalion on the tour in question -- all gone.  I learned about this new development when a reporter from the Dallas Morning News contacted me and said that all my links were down (I'd included them in the original piece, so anyone could follow and see what my sources had been).  Together, we backtracked through the Marine Corps archives, and found NOTHING -- the site had been scrubbed clean of multiple mentions of the accused -- and has stayed that way, since then.

Nobody likes bad publicity, but really, there's so much more at stake than that.  When it comes to combat trauma and PTSD, the focus of this blog -- it's important as a society that we see, learn, and otherwise come to understand what veterans go through -- or we won't have the compassion that we need to, and we won't pull for them to get the services they deserve, otherwise.  We also need to see more clearly the link between instances of combat trauma, and ultimately developing PTSD.   Not so "no one else will join the military" -- not at all.  So that those who do can get the help they need, and those in charge will allocate their resources accordingly.

It's my firm conviction that combat veterans don't "give" PTSD to themselves.  They "get" it from what they've experienced.  And this is a true cost of war, for the Marine Corps and others to "count" in advance, so that the right opportunities for treatment and ideally recovery can be provided.  We can see from the late SSgt. Travis Twiggs' battle with PTSD -- or many others like him -- just how powerful, thorough, and deadly an opponent it really is.  What we're not seeing, unfortunately, from the Marine Corps -- in these two instances -- is a reasonable, big picture view on how the horrors of war are not something the American public needs to shy away from, but embrace.  And where the two may be linked up, as in the Eric Acevedo story, it's crucial that the Marine Corps not distance itself from its warriors, even when they're dented with significant wounds, visible and invisible. Sanitizing war?  Why bother... Actually supporting the troops who go? Oh, definitely.  If knowledge is power -- we need more, not less - in order to do so, more effectively.

In the Zoriah situation, it sounds like someone may have snapped under the strain and started a bad ball rolling with that -- created a polarized position that no one could retreat from, gracefully.  If that's the case, that's a real shame.  There's a much bigger picture here, and finding a workable compromise would be greatly important.  I remember reading one Marine officer's published dispatches from Iraq, which got progressively darker and unpleasantly snappier as his tour went on, to the point that it sounded like another person writing them.  I commented about this to someone who knew that Marine, who told me a little side story that explained a lot.  Things had been going well until that Marine's superior, to whom he was very close, was seriously injured and almost died, taking part in a humanitarian mission with the Iraqi government.  At that point, the junior officer hit a wall, got bitter, and got very angry with the Iraqis who could have done that, while the Americans were just trying to help.  What I had been picking up in the Marine officer's writing reflected the personal struggles he was genuinely going through -- struggles which are highly understandable to anyone interested in human nature.  My guess is here, someone who felt very stressed and angry because of Marines he cared about being injured and dying, snapped down on the whole situation instead of privately (or publicly) processing his natural grief -- and the ultimate impact might be, if this continues to go wrong, to keep the rest of us from being able to experience war a little bit more, even vicariously - in order that we better understand, and grieve, with those who suffer.  I hope the Marine Corps finds a way to resolve this situation that respects the points of view of all sides involved, including the American public, which does have a need to know.  The same goes for the Eric Acevedo situation, and scrubbing the information from their archives.

The American public pays the bill for these wars: we have a right to know what they're like for those fighting them.  And those who fight them pay the ultimate price: and we respect their efforts and the character it takes to be warriors, very much.

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I shared a very bleak, grim quote with a Marine Corps Vietnam vet the other day, from an Italian in the Middle Ages who said, "Life is a voyage on uncharted waters, ending in shipwreck.  There are no survivors."  The former Marine, still struggling all these years later with PTSD, said the quote was almost right, but would be better if we switched out "life" with "combat" or, "war."  Then, he said, it would be more accurate, because, quoting him, there are no true "survivors, only shipwrecked lives..."

Editor's Note: You can read about Zoriah's developing situation on his blog, linked here.  You can also read previous entries on this blog where we've mentioned him, here and here.  You can read about the Travis Twiggs story here, and in many other entries on this blog; and the Eric Acevedo story here; both as I've blogged about them. 

And while you're at it, considering asking the Marine Corps to put the Eric Acevedo material (and anyone else's they've removed, in similar circumstances) back on their publicly-searchable archives, as it was before.  I'm sure his defense lawyer would appreciate it, because any good defense of this client is going to need to advance theories that involve his extenuating circumstances (combat) and things that speak to his state of his mind (PTSD), both of which it's hard to picture were NOT service-related.  Acevedo's crime?  A  truly terrible one.  The combat trauma he experienced, and the PTSD he likely developed?  Also terrible.  Without war coverage like Zoriah's "tragic and amazing" photography, also a big picture we're likely to miss.