Life After Service: The Iraq War and PTSD

Iraq War veterans’ battles with PTSD and trauma are oftentimes aggravated by the stress of having fought in a war waged under false pretenses.

The standing ovation did not falter for even a second as President George W. Bush approached the podium, pausing regularly to acknowledge his colleagues on either side of the aisle. As he drew closer to the stage, the applause reached a crescendo, and the President patiently waited to deliver his State of the Union address.

The audience sat focused, eagerly listening as President Bush addressed the nation on January 29 at the first State of the Union after the terrorist attacks that shook the country just a few months earlier. His message was clear — the United States had declared a war on terror and would seek vengeance for the lives lost on September 11th, 2001. In just under an hour, President Bush had successfully convinced many that a war against Iraq, and the Axis of Evil, was one that the United States had to engage in. There were weapons of mass destruction to be found, and they would be.

A little over a year later, the United States military swiftly invaded Iraq and set in motion a catastrophic decade-long war that impacted millions of lives in Iraq and the United States.

Sean Schultz, Michael Flores, and Garett Reppenhagen were three men on the cusp of adulthood when 9/11 occurred. Little did they know, they would soon become a part of the most contentious war in modern United States’ history.

Twenty years later, they are now leading vastly dissimilar lives back in the United States. Flores was drawn to academia and is currently pursuing a career in journalism; Reppenhagen is working with Veterans for Peace to change the United States’ culture of violence. Schultz has taken comfort in his religion and wants people to understand the human cost of war.

Yet, all three men were similarly impacted by their service and the implications of serving in a war that was started based on erroneous information. As these men fought for their lives and for the United States, it became clear to them that their government had let them down. The factors that led to the Iraq War, and its infamy, contributed to these veterans’ PTSD and significantly shaped their lives after returning to the United States.

According to the Pew Research Center, public support for the war was highest in 2003 at 71%, with a grieving nation ready to act against its enemies. Many in the military reflected this sentiment. “I had this romanticized view of war. You go in there and honor someone,” Schultz said, reminiscing about his excitement to fight before being deployed.

By the beginning of 2005, just over a year later, support for the war had plummeted to 47% . The public began questioning the premise of the war and became suspicious when no weapons of mass destruction appeared. This questioning and mistrust quickly manifested into widespread protests across the country, including one where at least 100,000 people took to the streets outside the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. The soldiers went from serving in a celebrated war to one that many questioned and denounced.

While the public was scrutinizing the validity of the war, however, support for the troops did not falter said David Kieran, an associate professor and chair in the Department of History at Washington & Jefferson College and author of the book Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military’s Mental Health Crisis. “The celebration of service members continues even as criticism of the war has grown,” he explained.

One might assume this unwavering public support would benefit veterans navigating their lives back in the United States. This is not necessarily true, Kieran says. To integrate back into society and avoid exacerbated trauma symptoms, veterans needed to feel like they were part of a community that understood their experience. But the narrative of celebrating veterans could be isolating and lead to increased PTSD and trauma symptoms.

Dr. Heidi Kraft, a clinical psychologist who served in the Iraq War and the Chief Clinical Officer at PsychArmor Institute, explained that PTSD symptoms are more pronounced in Iraq War veterans because of their quick transition back to United States’ culture. In previous wars, veterans would travel back together on ships over a longer period. Now, veterans are transported back to their pre-war life in about 12 hours, which is an overwhelming sensory experience.

“I felt like a fish swimming around in a bowl I shouldn’t be in anymore,” Schultz said when asked about his return to the United States. This feeling was all-encompassing, eventually drawing Schultz to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. He escaped from the vicious cycle of substance abuse, but many did not share this experience. “I’ve lost more friends to suicide than combat,” Schultz admitted, saying they took their own lives because they could not make sense of what they did in Iraq and felt immense guilt for their actions against the Iraqi population.

“Oftentimes people get thanked for their service and acknowledged in ways that don’t ring true for them especially if they’re struggling with a particular part of their experience,” Shira Maguen, a professor of psychiatry at U.C.S.F. and a psychologist at the San Francisco VA Health Care System, explained. This well-meaning yet misplaced sentiment compounded with the fraudulent rationale for the war exacerbated some Iraq War veterans’ symptoms.

While many veterans could not process their grief and trauma, others, like Reppenhagen, immediately knew how they wanted to make meaning of and confront their Iraq War experiences. As soon as Reppenhagen received an honorable discharge from the military, he joined Veterans for Peace, an alliance that works to build a culture of peace by educating the public about the true costs of violence.

Reppenhagen’s journey of questioning the war started well before he returned to the United States. On visits back home in between deployment missions, Reppenhagen educated himself about what was happening in Iraq and why he was fighting He read history books to learn about the country and consumed a vast amount of news, something he was deprived of when deployed on missions that lasted a minimum of nine months.

In David Flores’ journal article From Prowar Soldier to Antiwar Activist: Change and Continuity in the Narratives of Political Conversion among Iraq War Veterans, he explained how veterans like Reppenhagen experienced a change in their ideology from prowar to anti-war activist. Flores argued that these veterans experienced morally damaging events during the war, like killing civilians or treating Iraqis in inhumane manners, which caused them to question the premise of the United States’ involvement in Iraq and eventually become anti-war activists.

Reppenhagen’s story reflects this trajectory. “I was witness to watching myself lose a bit of my humanity,” he said. Serving as a sniper, “every shot that I took was morally damaging to my soul,” he added. Reppenhagen soon decided to make a change.

Now a student at the Columbia School of Journalism, Mike Flores echoed Reppenhagen’s sentiments when discussing the war. “I became complicit in the war machine,” he explained, having experienced his comrades’ lock prisoners in pepper-sprayed rooms for hours on end when they “acted up.” After returning to the United States, Flores began to ask questions and do research to understand his participation in the war and apply his experiences in a meaningful way. This eventually drew him to a career in academia focused on learning about the structures and toxic culture of wars. Flores is now an advocate for peaceful international relations and urges the public to question the U.S. government’s dependency on war.

This need to make meaning of the war, Dr. Kraft explained, is a vital part of overcoming PTSD. Veterans need to understand how their experience and their survival helped them grow and develop as people. “The trauma, which was horrible, doesn’t have a meaning, the event doesn’t have a meaning, but the fact that you survived it does”, she added.

Yet, trauma and PTSD are complicated concepts that manifest differently in different people. “Some people might have this event that’s kind of a moral reckoning for them and make them really change their outlook on things,” Dr. Maguen explained. Others, according to Schultz and Flores, do not entertain conversations about the merits of the war and want to move on from that part of their lives. “I deployed with one hundred and fifty people and there’s probably one other person who thinks about it the way I do,” Flores said.

“All of those people are processing what they went through, and they all were changed to some extent, the question is how,” Dr. Kraft explained.

Schultz, Reppenhagen, and Flores pursued vastly different paths after returning from Iraq, but all three men are linked by a common event that has informed the trajectory of their lives. Now, they have chosen to focus on healing, advocating, informing, and remaining present in the lives they have returned to.