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Sabina Haase

Lang 380

12-12-2021

Eric Ross

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Veterans from Modern Day Wars”

“PTSD has been officially treated since 1980 by the military and mental health

community. Moral injury is not yet officially recognized. But it is Moral injury, not PTSD, that is

increasingly acknowledged as the signature wound of this generation of veterans” (David

Wood). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been very prevalent in every single war of

time; however, many people didn’t understand what PTSD was until Vietnam. In World War I

and II many people called it Shel Shock, but really it was PTSD. Now a days we know what

PTSD is. However, there aren’t many diagnosed treatments for PTSD and everyone responds

differently to different treatments, and that is finally being recognized.

I studied the documentary “Almost Sunrise”, which follows the life story of two veterans,

Tom Voss and Anthony Anderson, who served two deployments in Iraq. The documentary talks

about what happened to them before, during and after going to Iraq. It starts by talking about the

reasons they went into the military in the first place. Both of them said that their families always

preached community service and they decided to give back to their country by joining the

military.

When they came back home, they said that it was very hard to maintain relationships.

Tom had a girlfriend and Anthony had a wife and a child. They both said they struggled a lot

being back after everything they had witnessed or seen, when they were at war. Anthony said

that it was mandatory to go to the Veteran Affairs Hospital (VA) after coming back from
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deployment. He said, “the VA sucks they make everything so hard”. Anthony knew he needed to

make a change in his life and said, “If I don’t change something, I am going to kill myself”. In

the documentary there are facts given about veterans and the suicidal rate when they return.

According to the Veteran Affairs, everyday 20 veterans commit suicide. Every 65 minutes a

veteran commits suicide. I feel that those facts are hidden and not well known by people outside

of the military community. It is known that many soldiers and veterans suffer from PTSD

however, many veterans get prescribed pills, but that might not always be the best solution.

Anthony and Tom said that they went to the VA hospital and told them they couldn’t sleep at

night and were having nightmares. All the VA did was prescribe them sleeping pills. They said

sleeping pills combined with binge drinking sent them in a further hole than before, and they

realized they needed to do something else.

They decided to go on a walk from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Los Angeles, California.

The walk was 2,700 miles and took from August 2013 to February 2014. They felt that the only

way to feel normal again was to go on this walk.

There is a new form of PTSD that many people don’t know about, it’s called “Moral

Injury”. Moral injury is the guilt that many veterans feel when they come back from war. For

example, when they go to war, they kill people. When they come back, they realize that they did

kill someone and can’t forgive themselves and live with the pain and guilt of killing someone. In

the documentary, they interview a psychologist, Yvette Branson, who studies PTSD in veterans.

She said that many soldiers go off to war around the age of 18 and when they go, they have

never experienced love. Then when they come back and have a spouse or a child and experience

that first real love, they realize they have killed someone’s love in the past.
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Both Tom and Anthony described a situation they were in when they were had to raid a

house and they pinned the father up against a wall while the family huddled in the corner in pure

terror. They said to this day they still don’t know what happened to the man and he might have

never seen his family again after that. Both Tom and Anthony said to this day seeing the face of

the family in terror was the hardest thing ever. They also said its super hard coming home and

remembering that you sometimes were not able to help innocent people. One of the things that is

super different about modern-day wars compared to wars like Vietnam, is that there isn’t as

much combat. In wars like, Vietnam, World War I and II, is that many people had PTSD from

combat. Things like having bullets fly super close to your head and having people you cared

about constantly die in front of you, and hearing bombs go off. The modern wars have been

different, wars in the Middle East had less combat. One thing about the war in Iraq was they said

that they didn’t really know who they were fighting, they only knew that they were trying to

spread democracy. The motto in the army was “winning hearts and minds”, but they said it’s

very hard to win the hearts and minds of people after you kill their husband. Tom said he

remembers a kid laying in the street injured and needing help. Tom said he was told not to help

him as he locked eyes with him. He said to this day he is having issues coping with knowing that

he could have helped this little boy, and he couldn’t. All of these situations have contributed to

soldier’s moral injury they feel like they can’t forgive themselves and feel that pills do not work.

This is why Anthony felt he needed to walk 2,700 miles so that he could maybe think about

some of the issues he was struggling with.

The walk gained awareness from all over the country. They started the walk at the

veteran’s memorial and had a big sendoff from people who came to support. They said they were

doing this walk not only for themselves but for veterans who did not have a voice anymore,
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because they committed suicide due to struggling with PTSD. Many people all over the country

offered Anthony and Tom a place to stay while they went on the walk. Both Tom and Anthony

said, “being around people who were nice and generous restored their faith in strangers and

human beings”. They said that when you are at war you go through a mental shift that you could

die at anytime, and that everyone you meet could kill you. So, once you come home it’s very

hard to get out of that mindset, even though most people do not want to hurt you, it’s very hard

to trust anyone and you are always on edge.

Throughout the walk Anthony and Tom had many breakthroughs they said they started to

feel again and felt that there was more to life and something to live for. However, Anthony had

more breakthroughs than Tom did. After the walk Tom felt that he was still struggling hard with

his PTSD. His girlfriend said that he still wasn’t opening up and that she felt that there wasn’t

much left she could do and take. Tom said he still felt angry and needed to fix something so he

could continue living. His last hope was to try power breathing. Power Breath Meditation

Workshop is a mind-body resilience-building program for returning veterans. It offers practical

breath-based tools that decrease the stress, anxiety, and sleep problems that many returning

veteran’s experience. Power breathing is a new form of meditation to help with PTSD. It’s good

because it’s another form of help and healing that doesn’t require medicine. Tom went out to a

place in Colorado for a power breathing workshop. He was with a bunch of other veterans that

also felt like they needed to fix something and couldn’t keep living. They went through a series

of different meditation exercises and Tom said that he finally felt like he was healing. Tom met

with a pastor who had been working with veterans on trying to forgive themselves. He told Tom

that “veterans can never forgive themselves, but humans can”. He said that many veterans

struggle with the same moral injury that Tom was struggling with and he told Tom, at some point
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you have to forgive yourself because you were doing what you were told to do, and you can’t fix

that.

Speaking with the pastor and going to power breathing helped Tom finally feel free

again. Tom became a big advocate for power breathing and said he broke down crying during the

exercises which helped him finally heal from the trauma. Tom now advocates for veterans and

sets up power breathing workshops for Veterans across the country.

I found this to be very interesting, how different people handle PTSD. Before watching

this documentary, I always thought most people healed from PTSD by medicine and over time,

however, this is not the case. Most people heal from other forms of medicine like nature and

meditation. At the end of the documentary, we see both Tom and Anthony got to go speak in

congress to try and get the VA to implement meditation into its PTSD program.

Many people don’t understand how many veterans are struggling with PTSD especially

with the recent wars. In a 2017 study involving 5,826 United States veterans 12.9% were

diagnosed with PTSD. This is a very high percentage compared to the rate of PTSD among the

general population. 6.8% of the U.S. population will experience PTSD at any point in their lives.

Across the entire U.S. only about 8 million U.S. adults have PTSD in a given year. In a 2014

study involving 3,157 United States Veterans, 87% reported exposure to at least one potentially

traumatic event. On average veterans reported experiencing 3.4 traumatic events during their

lifetime (Hill+Poton 2021). Some of the symptoms most veterans experienced were very similar

to the experiences that Tom and Anthony talked about. Some of the symptoms of PTSD include

1. Difficulty remembering certain details of the traumatic event.

2. Negative beliefs about oneself, others, or the world more generally, such as “I’m a

bad person,” “I’m a weak person”, or “People can’t be trusted”

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3. Inaccurate, self-loathing, or self-blaming thoughts about the cause or nature of the

traumatic event, such as “I could have prevented this,” “I caused this,” “I should

have been able to save him,” or “I should have died instead”

4. Feeling of guilt, shame, fear, or horror in connection with the negative thoughts

and beliefs.

5. Feelings of detachment or estrangement from others

6. An inability to experience positive emotions as contentment or happiness, even

when the circumstances would seem to warrant them.

Every single one of the symptoms listed above from, Hill and Ponton Disability

Attorneys, is a symptom talked about in the documentary. Number one was talk about when Tom

and Anthony hiked a canyon with a Native American tribe leader. The spiritual leader had them

talk about an event that they couldn’t let go of, and they had a hard time remembering what

exactly happened to them in those particular events. They talked about an experience and then

the tribe leader had them walk three steps through this small arch in the canyon. Once walking

through the arch they saw this beautiful mountain view and they talked about the theme that

there was more to life than just the inside walls of the canyon.

When talking about moral injury number 2+3+4 play a big role. They said they have a

very hard time believing in themselves and knowing that they killed someone because they had

to. They said this was the main reason they struggled. They feel like awful people and

contemplate taking their lives because they are holding on to so much guilt. They said it was

very hard to know that they could have prevented something from happening or could have

helped someone.
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In the documentary number 5 was touched on by both Anthony’s wife and Tom’s

girlfriend. They said its super hard because when they came back it was so exciting at first, but

then you start to see them struggle inside and they realized that they weren’t actually okay.

Anthony’s wife said he used to a great husband who would tell her he loved her every day, but

when he came back, he hardly told her he loved her once. She said it was very hard because he

had always been the person there for her and she could barely talk to him anymore. Tom’s

girlfriend said he was very shut off and wouldn’t talk to her about anything. She said all he

would do is sit and not talk about anything especially not feelings. She contemplated many times

if she could handle it because they were not married. Whereas Anthony’s wife said she felt hurt

that he couldn’t talk to her but since they were married, she would stay with him through

whatever. Anthony and his wife had a child which ties into number 6 from the signs of PTSD.

Anthony said that when his daughter was born, he didn’t feel excited. He said he knows he

should have been super excited, but he didn’t feel hardly any emotion because his trauma was

beating him up inside.

While on the walk Anthony would email his wife, every night telling her how he would

change as a husband and a father when he got back. Anthony said emailing her every night made

it worth it to be on the walk because he felt that he was changing. Anthony was reunited with his

family when he got to Los Angeles. He was so excited to go back home and be a real father to

his daughter. He said he felt less angry than he had before and that one time he almost hit his

daughter and he realized that he couldn’t keep living like that. Walking and being in nature was

the best form of therapy for him, to cure his PTSD. At the end of the documentary Anthony and

his wife moved away from the city and out to the country to be in nature. He now organizes

walks in nature for veterans hoping that they feel some relief from their trauma. It is very
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interesting that different form of meditation work for different people to help with PTSD. I

believe that as mental health and disabilities become more accepted and understood in today’s

society more ways to help people who are struggling will happen.

In an article by Autumn M. Gallegos, Hugh F. Crean, Wifred R. Pigeon, and Kathi L.

Heffner, they discuss why forms of meditation are better ways to treat PTSD than medicine

prescribed by the VA doctors. The authors said “Although several interventions demonstrate

clinical effectiveness for treating PTSD, many patients continue to have residual symptoms and

ask for a variety of treatment options. Complementary health approaches, such as meditation and

yoga, hold promise for treating symptoms of PTSD”. After several decades of research many

psychologists believe that meditation is the best way to treat those suffering from PTSD.

Complementary health approaches hold promise for treating symptoms of PTSD.

Complementary approaches are defined as non-mainstream practices typically used together with

conventional medicine. Interest in complementary approaches among veterans and civilians is

growing. Nearly 40% of adults in the U.S. use complementary health approaches and military

personnel engage in these health practices at similar rates. A 2011 report by the Veterans Health

Administration (VHA) indicated that 80% of VHA facilities offer meditation and stress

management to patients.” However, Anthony and Tom said in 2014 the VA’s number one

approach to PTSD was sleeping pills, and medication. An example of stress management

commonly used to treat PTSD, that is talked about in the article is, stress inoculation training

(SIT), a non-trauma-focused CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) approach to PTSD treatment

that teaches skills for managing stress through relaxation and thought-stopping. Though it has

been shown to be more effective than non-CBT interventions, like psychodynamic or present-

centered therapies, it is not as effective as trauma-focused CBT. Both yoga and meditation-based
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approaches are among the most popular complementary approaches for health promotion used by

adults in the U.S. Complementary approaches fit well with the interest in interventions that are

not trauma-focused (Gallegos, Crean, Pigeon, and Heffner 2015).

It's interesting to me that different meditation forms have different responses to trauma vs

non trauma situations. Tom and Anthony went through a lot of trauma while being in Iraq, so

stress inoculation training wouldn’t have been the best form of therapy for them. However,

power breathing was the form of meditation that worked for Tom the best, because it is trauma

focused meditation. Yoga was another form of trauma focused meditation that was discussed in

the article the authors said, “Yoga typically combines physical postures, breathing techniques,

meditation, and relaxation. Yoga has been shown to reduce physiological arousal in PTSD

patients and is believed to affect the pathology of PTSD by improving somatic regulation and

body awareness, which are imperative to emotion regulation. Learning to reflect rather than react

to difficult physiological and emotional states has implications for the experience and expression

of emotions in PTSD. Overall, these mind and body practices not only allow for a variety of

options when choosing an approach to care, but address several domains of PTSD” (Gallegos,

Crean, Pigeon, and Heffner 2015).

There are many forms of meditation, some of which teach practitioners to observe

thoughts, feelings, and sensations in a non-judgmental manner. Which is what Tom did, with

Power breathing. “Mindfulness meditation, for example, teaches participants to orient their

attention to the present with curiosity, openness, and acceptance. Experiencing the present

moment non-judgmentally and openly may encourage practitioners to approach rather than avoid

distressing thoughts and feelings, which may reduce cognitive distortions and avoidance. Present

orientation also avoids excessive orientation toward the past or future, which may reduce worry
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and rumination. Another meditative practice, known as mantra-based meditation, cultivates

focused attention by thinking or repeating a word or phrase. For either meditative practice,

attentional control increases control of intrusive memories, allowing a patient to shift attention to

coping strategies and problem solving. In this way, meditation practices have elements of

exposure, cognitive change, attentional control, self-management, relaxation, and acceptance, all

of which are pertinent to the symptoms of PTSD” (Gallegos, Cross, & Pigeon, 2015).

In the recent years, there has been lots of information out about meditation and how it

helps Veterans with PTSD. While watching the documentary I realized that if these two men

were struggling with sever PTSD and contemplating taking their lives, then there’s definitely a

lot more people struggling with PTSD. This documentary was eye opening to me and I’m very

glad that I researched this topic to know more about PTSD associated with modern day wars. It’s

very interesting that pills are no longer the way to go when it comes to treating PTSD, because

many people don’t react well to taking pills when they are still struggling with their trauma. I

feel more people recognize that PTSD is still very prevalent in veterans and that many still

struggle. I am glad that it is recognized as something that needs to be changed, and that moral

injury is recognized as a form of PTSD that should be treated.

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Works Cited

Gallegos, Autumn M, et al. “Meditation and Yoga for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Meta-
Analytic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.” Clinical Psychology Review, U.S.
National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2017,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5939561/.

Voss, Tom, et al. Almost Sunrise. Almost Sinrise, http://sunrisedocumentary.com/. Accessed 1

Jan. 2016.

“PTSD and Veterans: Breaking down the Statistics.” Hill & Ponton, P.A., 11 May 2021,
https://www.hillandponton.com/veterans-statistics/ptsd/#s1.