Dr. Jonathan Shay in his book, "Achilles in Vietnam" coined the term "moral injury" to refer to those wounds of war that result not from physical trauma or even the trauma of war horror, but those wounds to the soul experienced by a soldier who, for example, kills a child. But it is a more far-reaching term, for the ideal of the sacredness of life and the demands of war to take human life clash in wartime; the soldier's training rewires the ethical system, and on the battlefield he or she crosses over into a world in which the ethical is always sacrificed to the necessity of survival and victory . My best friend is a Vietnam veteran who has suffered this "moral injury," the result of which, among other things, is a life-long search for atoning with his own acts.
Dr. Jonathan Shay in his book, "Achilles in Vietnam" coined the term "moral injury" to refer to those wounds of war that result not from physical trauma or even the trauma of war horror, but those wounds to the soul experienced by a soldier who, for example, kills a child. But it is a more far-reaching term, for the ideal of the sacredness of life and the demands of war to take human life clash in wartime; the soldier's training rewires the ethical system, and on the battlefield he or she crosses over into a world in which the ethical is always sacrificed to the necessity of survival and victory . My best friend is a Vietnam veteran who has suffered this "moral injury," the result of which, among other things, is a life-long search for atoning with his own acts.