قبل ما تنطوي الصفحة” (qabl ma tantawi as-safha) – Before the page turns (Iraqi Arabic).
قبل ما تنطوي الصفحة” (qabl ma tantawi as-safha) – Before the page turns (Iraqi Arabic).
Flashback
Part 1 Peering into the topic
Part 2 What others are saying
Epilogue
Flashback
She’s dead.
Dimitri repeated, “she’s dead.” Dimi a soldier from Ukraine spoke without feeling, his face frozen. I remember him teasing Nahla a few days before. She was a proper girl and withstood the Ukrainian’s flirting comments (nothing really stops soldiers from flirting).
We were three people standing amidst the swirl of coalition soldiers in one of Saddam’s palaces. I remember black marble laced with gold veins covering the floor, the walls, chandeliers looming overhead. I suppose tears began to fall. I don’t remember doing so, but my translator took a step back unable to understand what was happening. Dimi turned and walked away.
Nahla, “the first drink from the Tigris river” somehow was the meaning of her incredibly short name. I had recruited her and 23 other college level men and women to participate in a public relations training program representing 24 Iraqi Government ministries. Iraqi’s needed to hear of the progress the coalition was making. I decided to use the voices of college educated Iraqis on TV and the radio.
Nahla was warned not appear on TV; she would be killed warned older Iraqi’s. Sadly, Nahla agreed but she said that radio would be safe enough. Training proceeded, although all the students went through print, radio and TV training. I passed by a class and listened before entering. The camera was rolling, a strong feminine voice was calling out to the audience. I turned the corner and there was Nahla. The instructor smiled at me…” she’s a natural.” She was my star pupil.
Flashforward…I walked into the Ministry of Museums and Antiquity and people were in tears. Nahla had called in, “Oh no, the car hit a bomb,” she said. A little later, “I think I’m bleeding.” Then Silence.
I was asked to say some words at the next soldiers service. Yes, soldiers especially those in combat zones avidly attend religious services (all flavors). Whoever the creator of the adage, “there are no atheists in the fox,” is strongly debated, and certainly many atheists soldiers would disagree, but I have seen enough combat situations where nominal faith believers (all flavors) return to rediscover what faith has to offer in combat situations.
“Before the page turns on Nahla, Let me tell you how she lived,” I started.
I wonder, would Nahla be alive if I hadn’t recruited her? All my workers lived in fear for their lives when they left the Green Zone. Had I painted a target on Nahla and others? Moral injury and moral bruising have become particular topics of interest for me. In July we hope to establish a sports/trauma therapy retreat for Ukrainian Christians ministering in time of war.
I am told that any loss can create trauma. Dr. Marc LiVecche’s speaks to both moral injury and something new moral bruising in his book, The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury. [1] LiVecche’s insight into moral bruising causes me pause as we set up our Ukrainian retreat.
He writes, “To mitigate this, I suggest a distinction between moral injury and what I will call moral bruising.
Part 1: Peering into the topic
My interest in Moral Bruising is piqued. LiVecche explains, “I want to reserve moral injury for that justified trauma that comes from the guilt of having done something morally wrong. Moral bruising, however, comes not from guilt but from grief, even the grief attending action that is morally right – as is lawful killing in war – or morally neutral – as it is accidental killing.[3] (For me a personal revelation).
LiVecche gives an excellent summary of the entire book within his first chapter. He also identifies a specific goal, LiVecche writes, “Finding avenues through moral trauma and into posttraumatic growth [4]: increased maturity, new wisdom and the like.”[5]
He continues, “In one sense, therefore, this book is an effort in moral persuasion. I want to help warfighters and those who care for them to reevaluate false beliefs about what it means to kill in war, to interrogate deeply held principles, and, where necessary, to adapt them, reinterpret them, and thereby to grow in wisdom, emotional and spiritual health, and resilience.[6]
In the flow of his words, several key sentences leap out to me.
Vindication, he writes, is what is given to one who is proved to have done nothing wrong in the first place. Forgiveness is offered to the guilty. Vindication Is owed to the wrongly accused.[7]
“Secondly, and more significantly, we may know that what we have done is not morally blameworthy and yet still suffer moral injury for it, as might occur following an accidental killing for which we are not to blame.[8]
Unless one were simply heartless, it seems essentially unavoidable that great – perhaps crippling – grief would follow.[9]
There is much to unpack here and I am looking forward to Dr. LiVecche’s talk. I think he will cover this but I am interested in hearing him retell us, “We can say without madness that while all killing is evil, not all killing is sin. Where there is no sin, there is no guilt. (updated (p. 67).
Part 2 – What others are saying.
Darren Cronshaw, Australian College of Ministries, Sydney College of Divinity writes in his review of LiVecche’s book. “His (LiVecche’s) calls for psychological and spiritual preparation in moral courage and analysis before, during, and after deployment. LiVecche raises critical just war frameworks that add moral protection for the soul in preparation for military engagement, but also points toward the importance of understanding community and reconciliation space for homecoming and post-traumatic growth.”[10]
On a parallel track, Nolen Gertz is an Associate Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Twente writes in his article Just and Unjust Killing, “Through an investigation into the relationship between death and killing we can then ask, from an existential standpoint, whether we can call any war “just” so long as our evasion of death also results in our evasion of what soldiers must go through to protect us, thus preventing the soldier from being able to truly return home. [11]
LiVecche discusses pacifists and the Just War concept. He writes, “The problem is that the only people who might listen to pacifists are not the one hell bent on crushing the innocent.”[12] He brings a pacifist, Reinhold Niebuhr into the discussion who surprisingly says, “We must sometimes kill in order to protect the innocent… Niebuhr..simply believes killing is sometimes – as in justified war – nevertheless necessary.[13]
Epilogue
In his conclusion, LiVecche quotes Kinghorn’s To Relieve the Human Condition, “Faith communities, unlike the clinical disciplines, are able to embrace thick and particular conceptions of human flourishing and human failing and are, thereby, equipped much more robustly than the clinical disciplines to facilitate the healing of morally injured veterans.”[14]
Essentially, the pastors in this cohort need to digest LiVecche’s words. When and not IF soldiers come home to their churches, pastors and their staffs must be prepared to receive them.
LiVecche states, “If, in the concrete, I can contribute to helping just warriors navigate the morally bruising theater of combat without becoming morally injured, I will not have done nothing.”[15]
…….
Nahla was associated with my loose coalition of international soldiers in Iraq. Boris – Slovak, Gabriel – Polish, Dimitri – Ukrainian, and Arrigo – Italian.
Before the pages turns…. “I am sorry Nahla.”
الله يرحمها (Allah yarhamha/Rest in Peace)
……
[1] Marc LiVecche, The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021).
[2] Ibid.,7
[3] Ibid., 7
[4] Ibid., 4
[5] Ibid., 4
[6] Ibid., 6
[7] Ibid., 4
[8] Ibid.,5
[9] Ibid.,6
[10] Darren Cronshaw, “Marc LiVecche, The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury,” Journal of Moral Theology, accessed March 25, 2024, https://www.academia.edu/115083030/Marc_LiVecche_The_Good_Kill_Just_War_and_Moral_Injury.
This calls for psychological and spiritual preparation in moral courage and analysis before, during, and after deployment. LiVecche raises critical just war frameworks that add moral protection for the soul in preparation for military engagement, but also points towards the importance of understanding community and reconciliation space for homecoming and post-traumatic growth. LiVecche artfully links contemporary psychology with ancient philosophical and theological wisdom, mixed with the testimony of veterans and insights of military ethicists. He navigates the reader through pacifism, just war theory, and the realism of “killing is wrong, but in war it is necessary,” pointing to the ethical left and right of the arc that guides when it is justifiable.
[11] Nolen Gertz, “Just and Unjust Killing,” Journal of Military Ethics 7, no. 4 (2008): 247.
[12] Ibid.,8
[13] Ibid., 9
[14] Ibid.,15
[15] Ibid.,14
About the Author
Russell Chun
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Russell,
Your flashback and flashforward are so powerful. I was in tears reading this. You say, “Whoever the creator of the adage, “there are no atheists in the fox,” is strongly debated, and certainly many atheists soldiers would disagree, but I have seen enough combat situations where nominal faith believers (all flavors) return to rediscover what faith has to offer in combat situations.” I, along with so many others that have not served, cannot conceptualize what it is like to attend services of comrades that you are fighting alongside. It is hard to imagine that this happens more frequent than we want to accept. Discovering and rediscovering faith in combat situations is such a powerful and humbling thing to witness. Please keep sharing your stories, there is healing and understanding that resides in the truth.
Hi,
For some reason I thought if I posted early no one would notice or respond.
It is clear from recent events that I suffer moral bruising. Oddly none of the helpers who met with me explained this as well as Marc did.
Sometimes, I think Marc (I knew him when we both had hair) has swallowed a dictionary. I had to pause to look up words.
And then he shares a real world story and I am caught up in emotion.
I just recently was informed that I am officially diagnosed with PTSD. Sigh…I suppose it was inevitable, but still to receive an official document saying you are a “cracked vessel” is disheartening.
Fortunately, we work for a God who uses cracked vessels.
He is RISEN!
Shalom
Hi Russell,
First of all, thank you for your service and for introducing us to this very impactful book. It has been very insightful and helpful to me personally. You highlighted a very important statement, “Vindication is owed to the wrongly accused.”
What do soldiers who bear the burden of false guilt need to hear or experience from those who do not understand the impact of war? Thank you for you thoughtful post!
Hi Jenney,
What do we need to hear? I am not sure. Marc writes, “Finding avenues through moral trauma and into posttraumatic growth : increased maturity, new wisdom and the like”
This helps me understand that being diagnosed with PTSD is not the end point. that there is posttraumatic growth. I know several personal friends who “identify” with the PTSD label and have stayed in one place.
This is not my intention. Therapists I have met, had NO experience with the subtleties of a war time situation. They had no “street cred.” Marc mentions that perhaps clinical therapist should not be center stage, that perhaps a soldier peer group is a place of healing. I am determined to find such spaces.
Thanks for asking.
Selah…
My dear brother. Thank you for sharing this painful story. How have you processed the home-going of Nahla?
Hi Todd,
Thanks for asking. The more I share, the more I heal. I just wish that Nahla was the only story that has caused Moral Bruising. One down 7 to go.
Russ