Humanity and War

(Bringing home of an American troop)

The name of my blog website is Humanity and War, and while every topic concerning war has to with humanity, I have yet to show how war impacts humanity on an individual level. The United States alone has been in an armed conflict 223 out of 240 years since it has been founded. Somewhere in the world at any given moment, there is a war. What does this do to humanity? War corrupts and distorts the mental well being of all those involved by forcing violence and suffering to become real and tangible.

Violence appears almost everywhere in modern media, UFC fights are broadcast all over the country, video games depicting gang violence and murder are sold, movies are filmed with often gruesome scenes of killing, yet these things aren't tangible to the average American. Most people aren't afraid of someone hunting them down to kill them because they aren’t usually in a huge conflict. Soldiers in wartime however, are constantly forced to deal with horrendous acts of violence that strikes to the very core of human empathy. A soldier's main job is to end someone else's life, even if that person wasn't necessarily innocent taking away someone's presence on the planet prematurely can have devastating effects on soldiers psyche. Soldiers tend not to talk about killing during wartime says Lt Col Pete Kilner, a serving officer in the US Army, "It tends to be the secret we have that we're not proud of. We want to fight bravely, but it's hard to be proud of killing another person”. Every 1 in 5 soldiers who toured in Iraq or Afghanistan were diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and veterans account for 20% of all suicides in the U.S. The effects of war are not limited to those who served in combat, families of soldiers also have to deal with the consequences of war.

Wives of soldiers who were diagnosed with PTSD have had to deal with a frightening ordeal, domestic abuse. Stacy Bannerman, a military wife, has had multiple military friends who fell victim to domestic violence from their veteran husbands. Male veterans with PTSD are two to three times more likely than veterans without PTSD to engage in intimate partner violence according to the Veterans Association. This is not only detrimental to the wives of the soldiers, but obviously the soldiers themselves are going through periods of intense emotional trauma.

(Officer returns home from war in Afghanistan)

For those that don't make it back, another set or personal challenges arise for families, dealing with the empty space that would otherwise be occupied by a father. Lauren Gibbons, the daughter of Army Chief Warrant officer Thomas J. Gibbons, has had to go through most of her childhood without her father. “Sometimes it just made me feel different,” Lauren said. “Whenever there was a father-daughter dance or breakfast, I would have to find a neighbor or an uncle to go with me”. For those who have fallen in the line of duty, there is always the memory they leave behind, but war will never be able to return those that it has taken.

(Lauren Gibbons with Sister at her fathers grave)

Works Cited:

Bannerman, Stacy. "Husbands Who Bring the War Home." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 25 Sept. 2009. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/09/25/ptsd-and-domestic-abuse-husbands-who-bring-the-war-home.html>.

Evans, Stephan. "How Soldiers Deal with the Job of Killing." BBC News. British Broadcasting Company, 11 June 2011. Web. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-13687796>.

Hendrix, Steve. "Children of the Fallen: Portraits of Loss." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/childrenofthefallen/story/portraits/>