Fellow Looks into the Hearts of Soldiers
Wilson Center Fellow Nancy Sherman, a professor of philosophy at Georgetown, looks into the emotional complexity of being a soldier and urges that we invest more in their mental health.
"What does war feel like?" asked Nancy Sherman. This is one of the interview questions she asks soldiers as she delves into the moral psychology of soldiering. Sherman, currently a Wilson Center fellow, is writing a book that examines the emotional complexity of war through the stories of soldiers, to include a look at their therapeutic treatment and ideas about soldiering in literature.
"I'm looking at the battlefield of emotions," she said. "Typically we think of the extremes—-patriotic pride as soldiers leave for war or post-traumatic stress disorder when they come home. But there's an unexplored middle ground of feelings such as fear, anger, shame, remorse, revenge."
Sherman said some soldiers come home with a mix of pride and anger; others feel frustrated, having fallen short of their own expectations. "There's a societal stigma in soldiers showing their emotions and so grief and other emotions are deferred," she said. "But unspoken emotion needs a voice."
Many who join the military, for the discipline or the adrenaline rush or toned body, once thrust into war, become troubled by its moral messiness. One veteran sniper Sherman interviewed described being a soldier in wartime as a professional job and a lifestyle. But did he feel shame or regret? Another soldier she interviewed was involved in an accident that killed his friend and, though exonerated, he was overcome with guilt and shame.
Sherman has interviewed about 30 soldiers including Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Vietnam vets, and soldiers convalescing at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington. She said the survival to death rate in the current war is 14 to 1, yet a third returns with mental health problems. Some are coming home with traumatic brain injury, a concussive disorder caused by roadside explosives. Compared to past wars, many soldiers are outliving their injuries and are receiving medical treatment, she said, but attention to mental health often is still neglected.
Trained in psychoanalysis, Sherman initially came to military ethics in the mid-1990s, when she arrived at the U.S. Naval Academy to teach ethics following a cheating scandal. She was later appointed Inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics and designed and taught ethics courses at the academy. As part of that course, she taught ancient stoicism, a philosophy of self-control that shaped military and public culture in Rome, and that still resonates throughout the military. For example, the writings of Epictetus, a first-century Stoic who advocated emotional control, are still commonly read in military academies. Sherman's most recent book, Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind, was published in 2005.
"The after-effects of war often stay with soldiers for a lifetime," Sherman said. "When a traumatic event is so great and vivid, it overwhelms the system. Biologically, the memory of events becomes consolidated through the powerful biochemicals we release. Thus, the memories are searing and revisit intrusively."
Sherman hopes her research will help inspire greater attention to the mental health of soldiers and veterans. "We idealize the strong, steel body of the soldier who goes to war," she said. "We need a similar public investment in the soldier who comes home."
