I have been thinking heavily for many years about the effects of war on soldiers and what we must do to help.
I knew a guy at Dartmouth who was a Gulf War veteran, an African American, a Native American, a very large, imposing young Republican. He and I were sometimes friends -- not close friends, since he did not apparently let people become too close. We were close enough to share beers and stories every few months -- not close enough to feel comfortable calling each other friends.
The mention of his name would undoubtedly conjure images of an angry, lost, threatening young man many were happy to see leave Dartmouth. He held a very rigid code of conduct within his militaristic world, yet later on he broke it. He was investigated by the government for sending hate mail to a Dartmouth administrator -- anonymous letters containing threats to kill and rape. He was a harsh, outspoken, bellicose, melodramatic, wry soldier-student who wore his 101st Airborne uniform around campus and greeted me with a loud "Airborne!" when we would pass each other between classes.
Once, he told me a story about riding in a helicopter on a mission over Iraq during the night. The aircraft took small arms fire, quickly developed an engine problem and had to crash-land in the desert. It hit the ground very hard. When I pressed him on what happened next, he was loathe to tell me that he had defecated in his pants -- a purely physiological reaction to a fearful situation. He felt it was dishonorable and shameful, but admitted that he wasn't the only one who had done it, and that he was relieved to have lived, unscathed, to fight another day.
Another time, he told me about what happened in the tanks roving around in the desert, shooting Iraqis. The operations were mostly carried out during the night, with infrared night-vision cameras and digital displays. Inside an American tank, one could see the Iraqi soldiers and vehicles like a video game on the screen, and aim and fire 35mm armor-piercing shells at them. The targets would blow up and disappear from the screen, with a distant rumble outside.
Armor piercing shells, he told me, enter and exit the exoskeleton of a vehicle, and everything soft -- including human flesh -- rushes through that hole, sucked by an enormous vacuum created by instantaneous puncture. He told his story with relish, like it was the coolest video game he had ever played. I listened to his stories with horror, amazement, incredulity and curiosity.
After the last time I saw him, when I helped him move a few of his large Army-issue duffel bags to another dorm room, he went off the deep end. That's when he sent the anonymous hate mail and came under investigation. He was incarcerated for a time, first before his arraignment, then later at a psychological facility where he was under suicide watch. He was expelled from Dartmouth and went to live at home in Seattle after being sentenced to 5 years of probation. There, in the stairwell of a parking garage under the tallest building in Seattle, he shot himself in the head and died.
During my freshman fall term of 1989 -- prior to the Gulf War -- this guy was my supervisor at Dartmouth's main dining hall. I swept floors and washed dishes on the late shift, and he and I closed up shop. We got along. He was a decent manager, demanding enough but not unfair.
After he returned to Dartmouth in 1992 from his service in the military, he was changed -- palpably different after the war. He was much more prone to violent outbursts and irrationality.
Once, when I was checking my e-mail at a public computer in the student center, he came up behind me putting his fingers like a gun to the back of my head and shouted, "Boom! You're dead, Toler!" I wheeled around and, after I realized it was just him, I went back to what I was doing. His behavior felt weird, hellish and unnecessary to me. I tried to discourage him from conducting himself that way.
After he was arrested, incarcerated and psychologically evaluated, I suspected he might have been carrying a dark secret, something that was perhaps hidden even from him. This is the heavy suspicion that I referred to at the beginning.
I can never be sure, but I think that in addition to the two traumas of the helicopter crash and combat in the war, my friend was exposed to chemical weapons. My evidence is scant. However, his thought processes were just not right at times when we met for beer at the tavern. Our conversations often consisted of me trying to come up with novel ways to distract him with humor and contain his rage. He put on weight. He was often up all night, not doing schoolwork, but conducting self-concocted military exercises on the golf course. He obsessed over his guns being kept in a safe at campus security. He behaved erratically. His outspokenness flared to maniacal proportions at times. He engaged in shameful, hurtful crimes. He became depressed and suicidal. He did himself in.
Sadly, I will never know why. I regret that, as a friend, I did not recognize that he had a serious problem and was in need of counseling. I feel sad that no one at Dartmouth or in the military recognized that his life situation needed urgent attention, before it was too late.
The risks to our nation are great when we send our people into combat, but there is also an aftermath to war that will persist for many years. A war is never completely over, though it may seem to be forgotten later. The many layers of repercussions of war should not be dismissed, no matter how our nation feels politically at any one time.
One thing that remains true is that chemical weapons are nasty, evil devices with unaccounted-for effects. We have euphemized their long-term effects by calling them "Gulf War Syndrome." It is debatable whether Gulf War Syndrome exists, as is the question of whether or not my friend was exposed to chemical weapons. However, whether you agree or disagree with my speculations -- or with the two wars we are fighting -- you should know that many of the men and women who come back from the Gulf will not be the same ones who left here. If chemical weapons are used, these soldiers will be further changed, perhaps to the breaking point. Either way, they will need serious care.
I do not know the totality of what programs are available now, but my sense is that things have not changed significantly in the realm of readily available psychotherapy for returning veterans, and I have heard that VA hospital budgets are being cut. We need to address these realities now, and set aside adequate funds for long-term counseling for soldiers now, in the current Congressional budget process. We must help our service men and women re-integrate themselves into our communities more gracefully than we have afforded veterans of wars past. Agree or disagree with President Bush, we must commit ourselves to this act of compassion for our fellow citizens, the future veterans of the Gulf.
