War, Suicide, and Emotional Labor

By Sally Raskoff

Janis Prince Inniss recently blogged about the cost of war and mentioned the rising rate of military suicides. As the New York Times reported, the suicide rate within the military is higher than that in the general population. The graph on the right shows the “self-inflicted death” rates from the Department of Defense from 1980 through 2008. While the peak in 1995 is disturbing, it is clear that the rates have been increasing since 2001.

Military bases overseas and at home, including Fort Hood and Fort Bragg, have seen tremendous rates of – and been in the news for – suicides, domestic violence, and sexual violence. They have instituted many different programs to prevent and deal with the stresses of military life.

For example, Fort Hood instituted a "Resiliency Campus" on the base where soldiers and their families can get help coping with the emotional, financial, and mental health issues they face before, during, and after deployment.

However, the source the source of the stress has not abated. We are fighting two difficult wars and no one can predict when they will end.

The shootings at Fort Hood were allegedly carried out by an army psychiatrist about to deploy, whose job was to counsel soldiers coping with combat stresses. He was also apparently vocal about his objections to about the war. This event and other such mass shootings, including the workplace shooting in Orlando, Florida the day after the Fort Hood incident, remind me of a phenomenon familiar to law enforcement, “suicide by cop” in which a suicidal person attacks others as targets of their anger and frustration yet fully realizes they themselves will die as a result of that act.

Some news coverage has focused on how Major Hasan’s interpretation of his Muslim faith may have been a primary factor motive for his behavior. However, there are many Muslim soldiers who have not acted violently toward themselves or their peers. Further, there are soldiers of many different faiths whose personal opinions about the war are not positive. Some of the soldiers who have acted violently towards themselves and their peers may have said a prayer before their violent acts, but religion is not the main issue here.

To understand this act of violence, I’d like to go back to basics: basic training, actually. Sociologically, the high and increasing rates of violence within the military, violence focused on loved ones and on oneself, can be traced to basic military training and culture.

In basic training, your identity is stripped away, literally. When you arrive, your clothing and personal items are locked away, not to be seen again until you’re heading for home or for your training base. You are given new clothes to wear, identical to everyone else. If you are male, you lose all your hair; if you’re female, you have strict guidelines as to how your hair can appear. You wear no jewelry, or embellishment of any kind. If your clothes have buttons or zippers, they need to be buttoned or zipped up. Your classes teach you how and whom to salute, the customs and courtesies of the service branch you’ve joined, including ranks and insignia.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marine_Corps_Platoon.jpg

You rise in the morning with everyone else, dress quickly, and get in formation to march to breakfast, march to physical training, march to classes, march to your other meals, and march to anywhere else your training instructors want to take you. You look like everyone else and you must act like everyone else. Any individualistic expression is not encouraged.

These are my memories of basic training. Although I’ve been out of the Air Force for almost 30 years, I still remember much of that six-week period. I still eat meals too fast because of basic training!

At mealtime, we filed into the mess hall, picked up our trays, and filled them with food as we went through the line, much as anyone would in a cafeteria. You had to be sure not to take food you weren’t going to eat since you cannot throw any food away. When you approach a table, no one could sit down until there was a person at all four chairs. When your peers who were seated at the first table get up from their meal, people at the last table only have minutes to exit – with all food eaten – and the entire group gets into formation outside the mess hall. The first people cannot linger to allow the others more time since the training instructors are also in the room making sure that these rules are followed.

These rituals and restriction reshapes people into soldiers. You learn to finish what you start. You learn to work together with the other people in your unit to get the job done and get it done the right way. (The “right” way is the Army way, or the Air Force way, or the Marine way, or the Navy way, you get the picture.) You learn to suppress any emotion or feelings about what you are doing since you took an oath to do the job and your peers depend on you. You learn to respect the hierarchy of authority even if you don’t agree with the details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BasicCombatTraining.jpg

People who serve in the military can hold whatever personal opinions they want about political issues. However, they must do the job that they hold no matter if they agree with it or not.

In the military, to acknowledge emotional issues is to appear weak. To acknowledge emotional problems is to appear unable to do one’s job. To appear weak and not do one’s job, you leave your unit to do the job without you and that is not an acceptable alternative.

If one gets physically injured, that can be a tolerable way to leave the front and/or your unit and not suffer any stigma. But psychological injuries have not traditionally been considered within military culture.

We are now paying a lot of attention to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to explain the high rates of suicide and interpersonal violence within the service. Vietnam-era veterans experience more depression, anxiety, and PTSD compared to pre-Vietnam era veterans and their rates of deaths from suicide, drugs, accidents, and homicide continue to be high many years after that conflict ended.

The military has created new programs to deal with PTSD, including public talks by high-ranking members on their own family losses or their own experiences of PTSD. They have also pointed out that PTSD affects brain structure and has physical causes, attempting to re-categorize it as a physical problem, not just an emotional one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Air_Force_Military_Training_Instructor.jpg

Sometimes when boys and men are socially isolated they turn to violence. Social isolation is an important factor in explaining aspects of suicidal behavior, yet the gender distinction is important. The typical military context involves a combination of suppressed emotion, dangerous situations, and a competitive environment and this is the very definition of a masculine culture.

Sociologically, what is happening is that soldiers may use the tools of this culture – aggression and violence - when they experience high levels of prolonged stress and are unable to adequately deal with the situation due to the suppression of their emotions.

The bigger issue is that the masculine and patriarchal culture of the military undercuts its ability to effectively deal with issues of stress in prolonged times of war and deployments. The military features that make good soldiers can also create troubled and damaged people.

Those who do emotional labor, such as flight attendants and service workers, often have a backstage where they can vent or let down their performance of managed emotions. There is no backstage in the military since soldiers must control those emotions while in combat, with their units away from the front, and even with their families.

To limit wartime stresses we could include end war or decommission the entire military. Most would agree that these are not likely or optimal options. Changing the culture of the military is another logical option, but intentionally changing culture of any kind is not an easy task. How would military culture change to allow the full range of expression for human emotions yet still create soldiers who can effectively protect the country?

As long as the military is defined by aggression and emotional suppression, we have to expect that there will be a toll on service members (and their families), especially when there are prolonged exposures to wartime stresses. What might be a solution to this problem of increased violence within the service?

Comments

[Alex]

Possible solution? Well let's first find your theory, then we can determine the action. It seems that the thesis is that the objectification of individuals into hive-minded soldiers is leading to anxiety, which leads to violence within the service. So the action would be to stop the objectification of individuals in the service. Without starting a debate on war and military intervention, we can use the evidence from this blog entry to demonstrate that the tactics the military uses to create soldiers is in some ways making them weaker. Thus, individuality must be more accepted in the military. So how do we do that? The military can either try to erase diversity (what it's doing now), or educate the soldiers on how to accept others and their differences. I prefer the latter.

[sarah]

I found it particularly interesting how you included your own experience of basic training as a defining rite of passage in this article "Although I’ve been out of the Air Force for almost 30 years, I still remember much of that six-week period. I still eat meals too fast because of basic training!" - this really puts things in perspective.
In his comment on this thread, Alex puts the finger on how the whole socialisation/individualiation ratio could be taken in a new direction to make room for greater acceptance and understanding. On a different but related level, I wonder if the presence of female officers has entailed or has been associated with a process of accepting differences within the military over the years and I would be very much interested in your opinion or feedback Sally

[s.powell]

IN RESPONSE TO THE ARTICLE ABOUT THE ALARMING SUICIDE RATES IN THE MILITARY...IT'S SAD, BUT IT'S TRUE. THE BOTTOM LINE, WAR HAS TO STOP, I DO NOT FEEL THERE IS A REAL WAY TO ALLOW THESE WAR VETERANS A WAY TO "COPE" WITH THEIR DEPLOYMENTS. MAYBE 1 DEPLOYMENT, BUT NOT SEVERAL. "ACCEPTING"
DEATH IS ONE THING, BUT TO CONSTANTLY FEEL AS THOUGH YOU'RE TRYING TO ESCAPE OR "CHEAT" DEATH IS SCARY. WE'VE SEEN FIRST HAND...A PSYCHIATRIST ON FORT HOOD RECENTLY "LOST IT" OR HAD HAD ENOUGH, SO WHO'S TO DETERMINE HOW MUCH OR HOW MANY DEPLOYMENTS A SOLDIER CAN TAKE.

[Taylor]

I find it extremely interesting that suicide rates within a specific social institution are rising, although it is alarming. America has had the mentality that we are indestructible until the Vietnam war and the current war today. The institutionalization of these people merely do not affect them for their deployment time, but for a life time. I understand why these soldiers must be trained the way they are, however I agree that there should be some flexibility in allowing individuals to express themselves somewhat. The government implementing these programs clearly isn't enough when the suicide rate is still growing rapidly.

[B.Garcia]

Soldiers know what they are getting themselves into once they choose the path of protecting our country. Most have researched the profession before choosing it. The only way the soldiers can carry out specific duties is by stripping them of their identity, through basic training. It is sad that suicide rates have increased, but it is also because the stress of the war has increased. It will never change. Finding alternatives such as counseling may help soldiers express there emotions. It seems that Americans are finally letting the pressure get to them, which is not something anyone is used to since we are such a strong country. Soldiers just need to be able to talk with someone, such as a counselor and reassurance helps a lot as well.

[Daniel]

I believe that the supression of emotions along with high stress situations of war causes the mental problems in soldiers. It is our nature as humans to show and have emotion. A possible solution would be to shorten the length of time soldiers are in combat and training. Although it would be costly to move and to train more soldiers, I think it would give soldiers time to recover from the high stressors of war.

[Paul Lewis]

I selected this article because I really like Sally’s blogs and because my cousin, who is 19, has recently enlisted in the Marines. I think this is a very good article to discuss because I too was going to enlist myself in the Marines when I graduated high school. Instead I enlisted in college and glad that I did. I had an idea, but didn’t realize that the stresses in the military were that severe. I have a cousin through marriage that is in the Marines and he’s the nicest guy you could meet. He is one big man and would never think that he could be undergoing such stresses. Since they are taught to suppress their emotions day one, I guess nobody would ever know otherwise.
Now that I have read this article, I am a little worried for my cousin. Worried, because I know he comes from a rough childhood, not having a father and having no direction in his life. I think that’s why he chose to go into the military because maybe he saw no other way. I wish I can help him, but he’s old enough to make his own decisions now. On the other hand, it might be good for him. The military can teach him some discipline, responsibility, respect and turn him into a stronger person. He might lose his individuality and maybe even his life, but I’ll pray every day that he doesn’t. In Raskoff’s question about changing the culture and allowing freedom of expression of soldiers, is a very good question. I don’t have an answer, but hopefully someday there will be, because it could help in making humane decisions in time of war.

[JR Tillett]

First of all I have never been to war and hopefully I will never have to. Second I hate the idea of members of the United States Military taking there own lives due to stress, limited expression, and a period of life lived under the command of a superior. Not being a soldier I cannot speak from experience, but I feel that war is something no one should have to endure. Although if our nation is under attack i will be the first to enlist despite the numbers of growing suicides. I feel suicides are due to mental weakness and moral strength. It is ok to show sadness for experiences in war, but to take ones life is no the way to do it. I also feel our liberal population is using these statistics as a scapegoat to pull out of the war on terror.

[Shannon Walters]

My dad has served in the Army for 16 years and has been deployed countless times. What most civilians need to know, is that the armed forces have many services available to the soldiers including access to counseling. Even when attending a regular doctor's visit, they ask how the patient is emotionally. The problem is that you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. Furthermore, saying to remove the troops from the war, end war all together, or to shorten training time is naive. Training is already as short as possible because they want to prepare the soldiers quickly so they will be able to enter the war sooner.
There may be a rise in suicide rates, but I believe this is a light-house effect (you only hear news about the light-house when it fails to work and ships crash). We are not considering the even larger number of soldiers who are saved by the Armed Forces and rise to a better self because of it.

[Francesca Pauline]

I never have read anything about how people in the war are or what they go through and what they have to do. When the author was describing what the soldiers have to go through it was scary and sad. I do not know if I could go through that. The soldiers have to get rid of everything while they are in training. They aren't allowed to have any personal possessions until they leave home or until they go to their base camp. When I read I actually thought if you had a tattoo it would be some nice memory of home. Maybe I would get one, just to remember a bible verse of something to remind me of home. It is also not surprising that many people kill themselves during war. They have to become the same as everyone else and not have individuality. This article is really sad but it also makes people more aware of what the soldiers go through and how we can help them and how much the appreciate it.

[lauren]

Having dealt with this myself when my then boyfriend came home from iraq in september i feel that the "debriefing" week when they get back in to the states should be longer. Although i can say that he did have to particapate in classes about PTSD and abuse during his first week back. They also had to speak with a councler about his feelings about what he had seen and about his feelings about returning home.

[Zachary]

I used to feel sympathy for soldiers just because they are placed in harms way to defend our way of life. However, after reading this article I now have a new set of sympathies for our soldiers. Not only do they risk their lives physically, they risk losing what makes them who they are. The procedures in line for soldiers almost seem in place to dehumanize and make everyone more like a mindless robot. Is this really what is necessary to convince sensible people that it is okay to kill? I wish there was another method to train our soldiers and prepare them for war. Personally I find the above stated methods unacceptable.

[ShaRhonda Gilbert]

My status on soldiers is that they are trained not to individuals but a unit. War should be ceased because we are taking the choice of individuality out of people's live. They train them to kill humnas and sometimes innocent people.

[a. moccio]

Throughout history there has always been war and violence in our society. This will probably never change. Along with the physical aspect of the damage that war causes there is an emotional and sociological impact that can sometimes far out last the war itself. When soldiers are put into such high stress situations these problem of PTSD are almost unavoidable. The army has many different options to help reduce the effects of this dissorder. While there is still war and violence in our society we will always have these problems that accompany it.

[kaley]

It is sad that suicide rates are the highest among people in the military. I can't imagine killing someone and then continuing my life once I got home without thinking of that moment for the rest of my life. I feel all people in the military should receive counseling once they arrive home to help them cope with their past in the war. I feel bad for the men and women who are fighting for our country, I do not think people realize how much these soldiers risk for our country. During boot camp they are completely changed as a person and all ask as robots. I do not think war is the answer for our country, too many of our innocent men are dying from it.

[Sirah Dowell]

The higher suicide rate in military personnel than in the general population has been well proved. Unfortunatelt with the current increase of deployments it has risen even more than usual. In my opinion we should expect this. I'm not saying it is right or good by any means. Soldiers simply go through so much psychological trauma that it is hard to handle for anyone, even specially trained people. They see so much death and pain that those images will never go away. On the domestic violence, we train these men to be ruthless in their combat tactics. They go to war and violence is key in their life. Coming home is simply a new shock for them. The natural, and what would now seem normal and comfortable, reaction would be violence. Unfortunately these scenarios and problems won't end until there is no need for armed forces or violent measures. The stop of the wars would certainly help in the meantime though. Our society has become much relient on resulting to the tyrant methods against contries that do something we don't like. The whole society needs a change of heart and thought before we can make true progress.

[psychology degree]

highly suggest the people with depress psychology to go army and be a solider. in the army, the people can be reshaped, with strong character. They can handle high stress, follow the leadership.

[Kim Osbeck]

War, Suicide, and Emotional Labor

I found this blog very interesting. I think that it is kind of ironic that some of the strongest and bravest men in the military can withstand a bullet wound but their mind is their weak point. Men are always "taught" that they are supposed to be the non-emotional ones in society. In the military their emotions are suppressed even more, but society also plays a role in their PTSD. If you look at the number of suicidal and violent military men compared to women, the number is smaller. That's because in society, women are allowed to cry and show emotion. Men, are not.When they leave the military, they are expected to be dignified and the bravest people around. But, in reality, they have so many things going through their head that could make any man cry. In Vietnam, many of the soldiers could have been suicidal because of the things they saw. They were forced to kill people for a cause that some felt was unjust. When they got out, I'm sure that they saw every person they killed. Also, when soldiers came home from the Vietnam War, the citizens of the US also hindered them. When they came home, instead of being treated like a hero, they were often spit on and called names. The people in this country blamed them for the war, when the soldiers were just as helpless as the protesters. I don't think that a military reform would be the best solution to this problem. I think solving this problem will take more time in an office. I think soldiers should go to a psychiatrist, not a military psychiatrist, but a regular one when they get out of the service. Thee need a chance to express their feelings, fears, and dreams.

[Psychology Bachelor]

yeah, I total agree with you.

[Lekeya Jackson]

I don't know if I could answer that question what can be done to change the increase violence within the service.Its sad to see soldiers killing themselves because they can't control they emotions or don't know how to deal with them. Men leave their families a loving person and return a totally different person and everyone has to adjust that hard. I'm not sure what can be done but something definitely needs to be done.