The Suffering We Can't See

I’m back after a few days to writing again about Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.‘s recent article, “When the Troops Come Home.” It’s a lot easier to write about fun things like fishing days and quilting than about the darkest downside of military deployment--the serious psychological trauma that affects many service members and their families. Though most of the article is about spouses,it's obvious that the shape of a marriage has a profound impact on the children.

In 2002, early in the Afghanistan war, four Fort Bragg Army sergeants murdered their wives, and two committed suicide after. Three them had returned from Afghanistan. Suicide rates continue to rise. Marital tension can be overwhelming, and many marriages do not survive the deployed service members’ return.

Service members now always return home to a series of post-deployment briefings from chaplains, financial advisers, and psychologists but many veterans are afraid to report problems that might hurt their career, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Herbert Simpson did seek counseling but discovered there is no magic cure. He describes having frequent arguments with his wife. “I was rigid; I demanded things to be my way. I didn't want to take my anger out on my kids or my wife, and I did my damnedest not to. There was one [time] I just got so mad, I just went to the garage and closed the garage and just started to cry."

According to his wife Selina, "He was angry at the world. He wasn't angry at the children....They only saw their fun-loving dad who likes to give horsey rides. [But] I saw it. My demands were, 'Either you fix it -- 'cause it's got to change -- or we'll have to discuss living arrangements.' "

Three years of therapy later, they, unlike many others from his unit, are still together. "I can't fix him, I support him, but I can't fix it,” Freedberg quotes Selina as saying when speaking of the terrible things her husband witnessed during his deployment. “I have chosen not to be burdened with his knowledge, just for my own mental health. I don't need to know those things. And I know that sounds like a horrible thing to say aloud and to try to explain to somebody, but I deal with the day to day and making sure the kids are happy."

Part of going on, I've learned in my own life, is understanding that that’s all anyone can do about many things.

But the trauma isn’t limited to the service members themselves. Dawn Phillips, an Army wife of 30 years, was talking on the phone with her husband, Brig, General David Phillips, who called from Baghdad's Green Zone. “It dawned on me that the noise in the background was a rocket coming in. The last thing I heard was BOOM, and the phone went dead. I just fell down on the floor sobbing," she says. "I thought he was gone. Twenty minutes later, he was able to get a call through, and I still couldn't quit sobbing."

In the DSM-IV, the official handbook of the psychiatric profession, the triggers of post-traumatic stress disorder include "learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or injury experienced by a family member or other close associate." As Freedberg points out, “almost any deployed service member's loved ones can meet that criterion.”

But the question of how much to share is a difficult one. Most don’t share the details, to protect their spouses’ peace of mind. This can make the spouse feel shut out, though, when service members get together after their return.

After Brig. Gen. Phillips's unit returned from its first Iraq deployment, "we had a huge picnic there, and...a big group of us [soldiers] got together. All of a sudden, we're talking real animated because we had all been through different experiences together....[W]e're around this little bonfire, and all the spouses were outside of that circle. And when my wife pointed that out to me, I saw what she meant. She goes, 'I don't know you now. You don't include us; you don't include me in what took place.'"

We all know that to a certain extent such isolation and disconnects are an unavoidable part of the damage of war. Still, we know so much more about how to help and how to advocate that families get that help. It’s true, as Selina Simpson says, we can’t fix it or them, but we must never lose sight of the fact that a great deal of hidden suffering goes on in the families of those who are fighting our wars.