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The suicide rate among veterans who have served since Sept. 11 is alarming.
At least 20 veterans kill themselves every day, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. The organization based its figures on a survey conducted with members, 40 percent of whom know a veteran who has committed suicide. Vice reported an even higher number: More than half of Iraq and Afghanistan vets know at least one colleague who has tried or managed to commit suicide.
When soldiers come home from combat, they've seen things that many civilians can't fathom, and find it difficult to continue leading a normal life. Roughly 11 to 20 percent of soldiers who were a part of the forces that served in post-Sept. 11 campaigns have post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the National Center for PTSD, and the number is far higher when factoring in veterans who served in Vietnam and the first Gulf War.
To better understand what soldiers encounter when they fight in battle overseas, as well as the mental health issues they face after returning home, I spoke with Ben Sledge. A former staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, Sledge served 11 years in Afghanistan and Iraq, beginning in 2003. He now works for a non-profit organization called Heart Support, which offers support to millennials coping with depression, anxiety, suicide ideation, and family or sexual abuse.
Sledge gave us insight into soldiers' war experiences that the public never hears about, the complex emotions they have while fighting, how the military handles mental health for vets, and returning home.
When did you serve, and where did you go?
I served 11 years in the Army. I spent some time under the Special Operations Command in a division called Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations. I worked a lot with the local population [in Iraq], so I had a real heart for and understood a lot of the struggle that they were going through, too.
But at the same time, [I] did a lot of clearing operations and gathered intel within that. I served in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2004, shortly after 9/11 and the Iraq War.
A lot of people think that things got progressively worse over there, and it wasn't. I was on a small forward operating base in a Pakistani oil refinery with non-stop fights. There was combat all the time. When I was in Afghanistan, I was in a place called Orgun-E and Shkin, on the Pakistani border. I spent pretty much my entire tour up there, like, in a tent [laughs]. No plumbing, none of that plush stuff you kind of see now as far as Baghdad. You had to burn your own feces, and half of you get dysentery the minute you get there [Laughs].
Do you find that public perception of what the military is adds to that sense of isolation soldiers experience?
It's interesting. I've read a lot about this as far as the public perception of what a veteran is. I would say that a veteran feels so isolated and alone because there's a growing chasm between what it means to be a civilian and what it means to be a soldier.
The amount of [Americans] that fought in World War II was around 11 percent of the U.S. population. And we go, "...It seemed like everybody kind of served." Well, everybody was rallied around the cause. It was the only thing that mattered, the only thing they talked about ... so when the veterans came home, there wasn't this great schism between the civilian and the soldier, because everybody knew the cost of it. Everybody knew somebody that had served, everybody was employing a veteran when they got home, everyone had bought war bonds, or whatever it was.
Fast forward to the Global War on Terror, the longest running war in the history of the United States. It blows World War II out of the water. I mean, we're going on what, 15 years now, practically? Only 0.45 percent, less than one half percent, of the American population has served overseas. There is no draft, there are repeated deployments, and you have basically the institutionalization of soldiers in the same way that when you spend many years locked in prison, you have trouble adapting to the culture around you because you spent so many years at war.
And because of that, [veterans] feel alone, they feel isolated, they feel like people don't understand them or what they've been through because, you know, the American populace at large—even though they have to watch it on the video screens—they have no connection to it. There's no human connection to it, the way that World War II [was] ... everyone was connected to it. ...
I started looking into the case studies as far as PTSD in mandatory-service environments. You have Israel and Germany, which are huge, huge, huge—you have to serve*. You get out of high school: mandatory service. Their PTSD levels are extremely low, like maybe 2 percent of the population, whereas, [the U.S. is] looking at about 30 percent right now with those returning home.
[*German conscription ended in 2011. PTSD levels remain low.]
Do you think that there's a larger sense of community [for veterans in those countries], and that contributes to better mental health?
Yes. And that's really what I believe it is for most of the veteran population at large. It's a lot of community. Based on what I studied with Heart Support, one of the big things that you see with those that are caught in cycles of addiction, has to do more with the loss of community, and the fact that they numb whatever it is that's nagging them—whether it's [with] drugs, alcohol, a cell phone, work. Because they feel the isolation, and they don't feel like people can understand them and can relate to them, it tends to lead to more, obviously, veteran mental health issues.
As far as the waning support for troops or the waning sense of community, do you think that comes with more abstract ideas behind modern wars? Like World War II seemed to have a very specific "enemy" and mission, whereas the mission became broader over the decades. With the War on Terror, there's this undefined timeline.
You don't really have a clear enemy. It's not like we invaded Iraq to fight the Iraqi people, or we invaded Afghanistan to fight the Afghani people. Whereas World War II, [veterans] jumped in there and were like, "We're fightin' Germans." Or, "We're fighting the Japanese." It's kind of this weird, like, we don't know who we're fighting.
It's not that we're even necessarily over there fighting for our country. All that goes out the window when you're there. What it really becomes about is the man on your left and your right, and you begin to sense this humanity, especially in combat against other people. But it's either kill or be killed. And coming home, it's just a strange feeling to come back to. [In the army, there is] this sense of complete brotherhood and community that you have people that will do anything for you. They've seen you at your best, they've seen you at your worst, and then you come home and you're back at Wal-Mart working a job, and you don't know what you're doing with your life anymore.
You see it in the movie [First Blood], where [Rambo] gives his long spiel at the end, where he's like, "I ran million-dollar equipment; now I can't even keep a job at, like, a local lumber store." You see it at the end of the movie The Hurt Locker, where it just shows him just in this mundane day-to-day life, and there's just not a community there for these people anymore. It's just, "Welcome home. Now go do something."
When I first saw Hurt Locker, I was [25] and had this surface level understanding of the ending. When I see it now, it feels so real. It strikes me as very effective. Whereas then, I kind of thought—incorrectly—that he was just looking for a "rush" instead of just being bored at home.
[Laughs] Yeah, that was a misinterpretation. And that's what a lot of people did. They're like, "Oh, war turns them into these junkies. They have to go through it." The reality is, no, look what you came back to, and it's just, "I'm in a grocery store," and the tight-knit community that he had with the people over there is what he continued to go for.
What that means for us is, not that (unless you're a sociopath) you miss the killing and everything, like, "Oh yeah, that's awesome." We don't think like that. There's a great quote by General [Douglas] MacArthur that says, "The soldier above all others prays for peace because he alone bears the deepest wounds and scars at war." But what we're missing is that brotherhood, that community, that need for one another. There's such a deep soul-bond connection between me and the guys that I was overseas with. If any of them called me and was in trouble, even now, even if I haven't talked to them in like three years—however many years—I'd drop what I'm doing to go help them. That's what's created. The problem is you come home, and you don't have that anymore. It creates this jadedness, this bitterness.
There are difficult things that I think you get to see both really sides of the spectrum. You either become jaded to one side to where you're like, "...You're all just horrible people because ... you're sending us off to war to do these horrible things." It's this really dichotomous relationship—there's a lot of inner turmoil and conflict.
For me, it was, I remember this guy that I—standing over him one day and just, this dead body. I found myself asking, "I wonder if he has kids. I wonder if he has a family." It was kind of this pity. And there's nothing there. You know, where there once was life, there's no li—there's nothing. You can pick him up, you can move him around, and they're not going anywhere. It's just a body at that point; it's not even a human being. And, you know, it's either kill or be killed, but at the same time, there's this great sadness and almost pity when you see it up close and personal.
I think what we've done is we've effectively trained our soldiers, and the way that they've trained us, is it's like silhouettes, pop-up targets. The further you are away from it, then the less attachment you have to it. Luckily, rifles are long-range weapons, and that creates a greater sense of distance between you. Inevitably, because you don't want to think about it, you put all that stuff out of your mind until you get home, and then you have time to dwell on it, and it jacks with you.
Within that spectrum of emotion and feelings, once you see it up close, regardless of whether they're a terrorist or whoever, it's a very different, sobering experience to think this once was a person like me that had people that loved him, and a family that is probably going to mourn their loss. They were fighting for a cause they believed in, and I'm fighting for a cause that I believed in. And it's either: One of you is going to die, or one of you is going to live, because that's just what war is.
Can you describe [what it was like overseas] a little bit more?
So we were in the mountains of Afghanistan, and the base that I was at was at 7,500 feet elevation. We would hike up to 14 [miles] some days, and that's an epic beat down. Winters were brutal and cold, you know, snow—we didn't have central heat and air. We lived in tents. We had these potbelly stoves where we had to keep a fire going, or freeze to death [laughs]. Luckily, they eventually built this section; it was really weird. They built half of a house, almost. It housed a lot of people and they just put wood doors up. There's concrete about up to my waist, then they decided to put a tent top over it. It was so weird, really strange. They were like, "We're going to build this—we're not going to build it, forget it."
A lot of us lived in there, I was in a room that was with four people. I slept on a cot for nine months, and that was weird. And I lived for care packages [laughs] and mail. There wasn't Internet, really, during that time period. There was a little bit here and there, and I would get to write an email once every maybe month, or so. Most of it was handwritten letters, which took forever, because there's maybe two or three hundred people where I was at, and a lot of them were Special Operations Forces; either Delta [Force] guys, there's a couple CIA guys there. It was a no man's land.
But that's where all the fighting was. That's where they could get across the border to Pakistan. You had to burn all your mail with addresses on it because some of the people in that area had bounties on their head. I would shower I think about every third or fourth day if I could get one in. A lot less during the winter because it was really, really, really, cold. [laughs] It was weird.
Here's the crazy part: Everyone on that base saw combat. We had cooks—we had Army cooks who saw combat, which is crazy. I mean, you don't hear about Army cooks seeing combat, but they did.
Who had a bounty on their head? Was it a soldier, or was it somebody that you were looking for in the mountains?
It was us; it was soldiers. At the time, we were under special operations. I had a beard while I was over there, and wore ball caps. Eventually, we were able to get a lot of information out of the area. It just became known that if [Al Qaeda] saw American soldiers with beards, those were the dudes that [they] wanted to kill. [Troops with beards] had a little bit higher bounty.
So individuals didn't have a bounty. It was more of a general bounty for each soldier?
Some of them did. Some of the Green Berets that we worked with. They would just go by their first names, and just call themselves like Commander Whatever. You heard about them as like, "Oh, Commander John has like a $20,000 bounty on his head," and just chuckle at that.
I did serve in Iraq also, and that is interesting, too. Same thing. Some of the Special Operations forces. More infantry over there. I was in Ramadi during the surge. And at that point, Fallujah—everybody remembers Fallujah—well, Ramadi, after the fall of Fallujah, all of the insurgents left and went over to Ramadi. I was in Ramadi from 2006 to 2007 ... During that time period, it was the most violent city on Earth. It accounted for half of all daily attacks that occurred in country. So, if you're sitting in Baghdad and you're getting, "Okay, these are the attacks on our troops," half of the attacks were just coming from one spot, which was where I was stationed, Ramadi. Half of all deaths that occurred in the United States Marine Corps—because it was run by Marines during that time period, until [the] Army plussed them out—half of all deaths that occurred in the Marine Corps from '06, '07 were in Ramadi. We joked and we called it the "Meat Grinder."
Do you still call it that now?
We call it Ramadi now, but if I'm with the guys, we're like, "Oh, back in the Meat Grinder." Everybody knows what you're referencing. That's just what it was. It's just like, Body Count City. A lot of deaths. A lot of deaths.
It's really sad, too. I made friends with one of the chaplains there who was a Catholic priest. That dude, he was a really awesome guy. He was doing funerals non-stop. His story was really kind of cool. He had been a grunt in Vietnam in the infantry, and was one of three dudes in his platoon to make it out alive, out of—I can't remember where it was ... But he was combat wounded, purple heart, whole deal, bronze star. He said, "God, if you get me out of this, I promise to serve you." So, he did, and he ended up going to become a chaplain for the Marine Corps. ...After he left Ramadi, he went home and he killed himself, just because of the amount of death that he had to [see] and people that he knew. Ended up jumping off a bridge.
There was a Vice article from last year that talked about how at least 22 veterans kill themselves daily. While you're in the service, before discharge, what does the Army or Marine Corps do to help you cope with some of the mental health issues and trauma?
You know, to their benefit, they tried. But the way that they're going about it is all wrong.
So they would have you take these mental health assessments, and the problem was that everybody knows that if you actually admitted you were having problems, they would keep you there in what's called "demobilization," like when you're going home, until you got your head straight. But the only thing anybody wanted to do the minute they got home is have a great meal, use indoor plumbing, take a shower. Granted, you would get those things on the base, but everybody wanted to see their family and just feel normal for a few days. The minute that you admitted that you were struggling and had problems, you got detained until you got your shit worked out.
I said, "I don't have any problems," and at the time I was going through a divorce. My wife had left me when I was overseas. I was just a mess. I didn't want that. But I knew that I wanted to be as far away as I could be from a military installation.
What they really should have done instead was let people go home, let them see their families, let them relax a little bit, and then start following up with them. Get them into appointments, talk about stuff, let them know, "Hey, this is not gonna affect you." ...
They're sending contradictory messages within the military right now. It's okay to ask for help; it's actually a sign of strength. But if you ask for help, we're going to pull every position that you feel makes you you until you kinda come out stronger. That's the wrong message to be sending them. Instead, it should be, "We believe in your capability. We know you're struggling right now. So keep leading, keep driving, but let other people know that you're struggling, and come to these appointments with us. You're not going to lose your security clearance. Because you told us you're stronger because of this, you shouldn't get punished for it." So, that’s kind of how they've handled it. It's "Army Strong" to admit that you have problems, but the minute you have a problem, you're going to lose everything [laughs].
Even for me, when I came home, and I started struggling, and I was wanting to kill myself because my best friend had died, and I was dealing a lot with survivor guilt, I didn't go to the VA, I didn't tell anybody in my unit. I went to a private practice that I made sure was under like [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] practice and all that, they couldn't disclose it to the military. So I could get the help that I need, but also still stay in the command of the position that I was at.
Was there ever any point where you questioned why you were there?
Everyone has to at some point. Like, yeah. There were times where we were just like,"What on Earth are we doing?" Like we got it. I actually was there, we faced off against like Al Qaeda dudes ... like some real stuff. Like, you don't know. Political stuff goes right out the window. Democrat, Republican, your views on war, your views on life, all of that—the minute that first bullet zips past your head, that's all out the window.
It's just about survival at that point?
Yeah. It's all survival. What can I do to make it home, and, more importantly, what can I do to make sure that the guy next to me makes it home even over myself.
There were numerous times I questioned what on Earth I'm doing here. ... You question all of it, and I think that's healthy because if there's no room for doubt, then there's never room for faith. I think that's a very healthy emotion; I think you have to question it. I think the most dangerous people in the war are the people that don't question anything. It's just, "I'm gonna do whatever." Instead, all of us have kids, and we want our kids to grow up to be critical thinkers, well-adjusted. And part of that is you should be able to critically think in a war—especially a war!
