Military / Ptsd / Uncategorized / Veterans

Deeply held moral beliefs surface in life after war…with symptoms of PTSD…

by | Feb 7, 2013


Photo by Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times
The Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock focuses on helping people whose actions in war have shaken their deeply held moral beliefs…Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War by Rita Nakashima Brock can be purchased from this website by clicking the book cover…

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/us/12religion.html?_r=0  Quotes from this website and article…

By
Published: January 11, 2013

“When you said you were a Christian, they thought you were a Jerry Falwell person,” Ms. Brock, 62, recalled. “I don’t think I ever said I was the daughter of a veteran. It was something I tried to forget from my life. It didn’t fit anywhere.”
      

“That moment of painful clarity redirected Ms. Brock’s life and ministry. She has devoted the years since then to tending the spiritual wounds of warriors, seeking theological answers to the condition among veterans called “moral injury.” In her current position at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, she has begun the first program in the nation to develop a treatment that she terms “soul repair.”


http://www.twainquotes.com/Morals.html#.UPHik6xR8s4.facebook

“The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.”
– Mark Twain in Eruption

It seems that every other day my thoughts return to moral injury…  I am looking forward to a conversation over Skype later today with my mentor and friend Erv, a retired psychiatrist, who is doing extensive research on this subject.  Now we see a higher educational institution, Brite Divinity School http://www.brite.tcu.edu/ offering graduate and doctoral programs on Moral Injury and Soul Repair.  I also observe just about every day the effects of moral injury on those who return home to life after war.  The symptoms of PTSD are ever present 24/7 and cause extreme emotional and physical pain invisible to a casual observer.  We regularly hear about military suicides that are on the increase and now exceed casualties on the ground during combat duty.  We even know now how PTSD takes on a life of its own with family members, including the most vulnerable, our kids…  We have a nation in shock from war with a multi generational problem to fix in life after war…  But we just keep talking about it, and appear to be in denial…  What we need as a nation is a “call to action” in local communities with public and private partnerships providing the “soul repair” so critical to the lifetime journey of healing in life after war…

Steve Sparks
Author
Reconciliation: A Son’s Story

About the author

Steve Sparks is a retired information technology sales and marketing executive with over 35 years of industry experience, including a Bachelors’ in Management from St. Mary’s College. His creative outlet is as a non-fiction author, writing about his roots as a post-WWII US Navy military child growing up in the 1950s-1960s.
View all posts by stevesparks →

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