War and Society hosts panel on psychological costs of war

The Psychological Costs of Forever War was moderated by Gregory Daddis, director of the War and Society Program, (far left) and included therapist Naveen Jonathan (left), scholar David Kieran (right) and veteran Josue Barron (far right). The panelists gave multiple perspectives about the emotional costs of war. Photo by MAKAYLA GALLIMORE Staff Photographer

Raised in the streets of Los Angeles by a single mother, Josue Barron, a retired Marine Corps combat veteran, was only 14 years old when he joined a gang. Barron was living a life of violence in the streets until he chose to join the United States Marine Corps.

“It got to the point where I was 17 years old and I knew that my life wasn’t going to last forever,” Barron said. “I was either going to go to jail or I was going to die—until one of my friends told me about the military and I felt like it was calling me.”

The Psychological Costs of Forever War event featured three panelists to discuss the mental health of veterans Oct. 23. The invited panelist were veteran Barron, scholar David Kieran and therapist Naveen Jonathan. It offered a holistic conversation and multiple perspectives on the emotional costs of war. 

After Barron returned from his first deployment, he met his wife who he married six months after meeting. Shortly after his marriage, Barron was deployed again and was injured two months later. 

He was stationed as an infantry rifleman in 2010 and was severely injured in Afghanistan after he stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED). Barron lost his left leg above the knee and his left eye and was awarded the Purple Heart Medal, a medal given to armed forces members who are injured by an instrument of war from their enemy. 

“She didn’t even know me that long,” said Barron, whose wife was only 19 years old when he was injured. “Rehab was our honeymoon. She could’ve took off. She could’ve said that she didn’t want to deal with this, but we stuck together and pushed through.”

Because Barron was forced to learn how to use a prosthetic leg and glass eye, he had “a mission” to accomplish and that prevented him from developing mental health disorders like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, many people don’t have “a mission” when they return from deployment, making them more susceptible to alcoholism and not seek out mental health therapy, Barron said. 

“When somebody loses a limb, it is a lot more visible than my friends who suffer from invisible wounds,” Barron said. Members of the military are required to go through hospital testing before they return home to ensure they receive mental health treatments. However, this testing is done in the first month of their return, known as the “honeymoon” period. Oftentimes members of the military are so grateful to be home and see familiar faces that issues like PTSD, anxiety and depression cannot be detected until approximately three months after their return. 

Kieran’s book, “Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military’s Mental Health Crisis,” discussed research conducted about the psychological consequences veterans experience.

In 2004, the United States Army surveyed the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. The PTSD rate was approximately one to two percent with extremely low rates of depression, family issues and substance abuse issues. 

A year later, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research conducted similar research on a group of soldiers, who experienced PTSD symptoms at a rate of approximately 20 percent. These soldiers had been interviewed six months after being home, as opposed to within the first month of their return.

“When soldiers came back from Iraq, they were thrilled,” Kieran said. “They had survived their deployment and had seen their families for the first time.”

But after being home for a month, soldiers processed their experiences and the initial euphoria of coming home worn off, Kieran said.

“My wife’s support kept me alive,” Barron said. “But I realized it wasn’t all about me. I reached a point where I had completed therapy and people paid attention to me, but I was like, ‘What about her?’”

Naveen Jonathan, who serves as the Marriage and Family Therapy department chair at Chapman, said that PTSD symptoms have begun to appear in partners and families of veterans in the form of vicarious and secondary trauma. 

Vicarious trauma occurs within a caregiver who begins to act similar to the suffering individual, which can lead to them feeling irritable and burned out. Secondary trauma occurs when individuals hear stories of the traumatic situations repeatedly.

Family and marital mental health therapy is just as important as veteran therapy, Jonathan said.

“When you have a family member that was deployed and reintegrates back into the system, the whole system has to adjust,” Jonathan said. “Often times, clients have gotten some post-deployment counseling, but the entire family didn’t and then the whole system doesn’t know how to operate.”

Leana Sottile, a student in the Master of Arts War and Society program, attended the event because of its focus on veteran mental health as a negative effect of war, which Sottile claimed is often overlooked.

“I have always been super passionate about discussions on mental health, as someone who has an anxiety disorder,” Sottile said. “Mental health isn’t talked about enough in the media, specifically in relation to the impacts of war and conflict.”

Due to the lack of media representation, people don’t know that wars and conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq are still occurring, Sottile said.

“As opposed to the Vietnam War, (the media) was projecting death counts and video footage of the war on the news every single night,” She said. “We are so disengaged from the war that it perpetuates this cycle of endless war.”

The United States Military Draft expired in 1973 and the U.S. transitioned to an all volunteer force. Less than 1 percent of the current military has been on active duty, according to The New York Times. Due to the lack of volunteers, many members are completing multiple deployments instead of just one.

“What happens is their mental health problems aren’t treated after their first deployment and these issues start to augment and stack on each other,” Sottile said. 

Sottile believes a solution to the problem is to reevaluate what the military is asking its soldiers to do. 

“The state departments that work toward peacekeeping are more underfunded than the military and the U.S. Department of Defense; that should be reevaluated,” Sottile said. “(Through peacekeeping) there is not as much of a human cost, whether through the actual death toll, the damage to the environment or the destruction of soldiers’ mental health.”

Barron and his wife have been married for 10 years and have three sons. He aspires to be the father figure he never had so his children don’t have to join the military.

“I didn’t have options. Nobody believed in me,” he said. “Nobody told me, ‘I’m going to help you.’ I am going to guide my kids every step of the way.”