In light of yesterday’s tragic and horrific shooting at a base in Fort Hood, Texas — at the hand of a military Psychiatrist — mental dis-ease among our troops is a more timely topic than ever. One army chaplain sheds light on combat stress and mental health.
Carlos Ruiz is an army chaplain. He is a youthful forty-year-old whose pumped and imposing physique belies many hours worshiping at the alter we call “the gym.” Before he became a Pentecostal chaplain, he served as a traditional army soldier for eighteen years, and he saw first-hand the horrors of war. I met Carlos yesterday at Miami International Airport when he approached my friend, actor Joey Pantoliano (The Sopranos, Memento) to thank Joey for coming to Iraq on behalf of “No Kidding! Me 2,” an organization founded by Joey to erase the stigma against mental dis-ease and get the world talking about feelings. Joey, who recovered from clinical depression, spouts horrifying statistics about the urgent need for better mental health care for our troops — according to Pantoliano, six suicides occur a day over seas, and 18 a day upon return home. More American service personnel are dying from their own bullet than from enemy fire!
Ruiz has just returned from a one-year tour in Iraq himself, and administered to the spiritual and emotional needs of more than 1100 soldiers. I asked him what was the most common problem presented by our countries bravest. This man did not know who I was. He did not know what I talk about everyday. Yet to a perfect stranger, Captain Carlos Ruiz, army chaplain, did not hesitate as he blurted out the word “relationships.”
I asked him to repeat it as I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly. I mean, these courageous young men and women were witnessing their compadres heads blown off and they seek help for the head trip that their lover back home was putting them through? But indeed it is true. Because, according to this front-line chaplain, relationships provide the emotional support that gets our fighters through the horrors of war. And if relationships are failing, there’s not much else to live for.
And, according to Ruiz, technology isn’t helping. Instant text and emails, sent impulsively, void of emotional content are not providing the real emotional fuel that eases minds and fortifies resolve to get the job done and return home. In wars gone by, when war brides waited and worried, and communication was infrequent, one letter loaded with supportive and loving words sustained a soldier for months. Today, there is an additional pressure to maintain life back at home while preserving life in a war zone. Stateside wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends are cutting off relationships at an astonishing rate and doing it via cold bits of digital data, without regard for the power of their act.
The incidence of suicide has gotten so bad, recounts Ruiz, that at a one American base an exasperated commanding officer called all troops into formation to issue an imperative final order, “You may not kill yourselves. And that’s an order!” He didn’t know what else to do.
So I asked the sage chaplain what he prescribes, how he treats this epidemic of relationship distress. He says he tells them to share their feelings more. To explain to their loved ones, within the military limitations of communication, how they are suffering. To bravely ask for help and support instead of pressure from back home. Soldiers who are trained to appear brave often forget to open up in their most intimate relationships. Many are afraid to unduly worry their loved ones, so emails, text, and Facebook postings, log a mondain list of statuses that includes weather reports, food ratings, and recreational army activity. They aren’t sharing their hopes, fears, and traumas for fear that people back home will retreat. So, what’s designed to keep relationships “happy” backfires. Partners back home think that these unnaturally pleasant reports indicate that a soldier’s mistress is the war itself — that the happy soldier does not even want to return to the relationship.
Ruiz learned this lesson himself when he was a young soldier and watched his own marriage crumble while he was in the army. “My previous marriage ended because of absence of communication, among other things that soldiers face today too, like immaturity and a lack of relationship and effective communication training or experience, while trying to perform their warrior duties.”
As a seasoned fighter, Ruiz became a pastor so that he could help young soldiers and ultimately reduce the disturbing suicide rates among the ranks.
Wow, this is powerful !!!
This ties so well with your previous post about the dangers of technological communication and relationships and gives great focus to the theme, that we Americans are too much subscribed to instant gratification.