{"id":2046,"date":"2023-07-22T17:54:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T21:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forgivenesslab.com\/?p=2046"},"modified":"2023-07-22T17:54:51","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T21:54:51","slug":"moral-injury-forgiveness-and-atonement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forgivenesslab.com\/moral-injury-forgiveness-and-atonement\/","title":{"rendered":"Moral Injury, Forgiveness, and Atonement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Scott Hutchinson and D. Glen Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

(This dialogue is the second of a series originally published in 2017 at\u00a0http:\/\/www.breathingforgiveness.net<\/a>)<\/p>\n

As a combat veteran, I have killed others.\u00a0 In war those killed on the ground, up close and personal, are called enemies.\u00a0 Later on in a veteran’s life he or she becomes more conscious of a nagging feeling, uncertainty or doubt that all killed were enemies.\u00a0 Some might not be.\u00a0 I pause and the soul releases a murder, then another.<\/em><\/p>\n

We, Scott and I, have a relationship that honors truth-telling.\u00a0 We respect and honor each story<\/em>\u00a0as part of what and who we have become and who we intend to be.\u00a0 In our first dialogue we poked, prodded, and revealed my moral wounds.\u00a0 I had witnessed a murder on my very first Army Ranger patrol.\u00a0 Together, we came to atonement as a necessary and powerful step in healing moral wounds.\u00a0 It is important to note that we chose to represent our thoughts in dialogue.\u00a0 Our choice reflects the unveiling of truth-telling as an iterative process.\u00a0 I reveal; Scott interprets with wisdom gleaned over the years in battle zones, as pastor, as counselor.\u00a0 I interpret and respond to his thoughts and in dialogue more understanding enters our being.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In this piece, we continue to explore atonement and its twin, forgiveness.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 —Glen Miller<\/em><\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>You and I have been talking about atonement.\u00a0 It is a path I step into so that my identity is congruent with my life.\u00a0 Helping build a school in Vietnam seems like the right thing for me to do.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>It would enact healing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Yes.\u00a0 I feel a door to healing will open more fully through atonement.\u00a0 I like engaging in movement.\u00a0 You and I have begun to explore the relationship between forgiveness and atonement.\u00a0 At first I thought about forgiveness as a kind of “bridge” to atonement.\u00a0 \u00a0That to be forgiven might be what empowers me to take action toward healing.\u00a0 But now I am not so sure.\u00a0 I think of forgiveness as an internal emotion while atonement requires action.\u00a0 Maybe taking action first is what opens the door for inner change to follow.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0<\/strong> That’s compelling.\u00a0 Tell me more.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0 <\/strong>I am uncomfortable with the idea of “needing” forgiveness.\u00a0 And I don’t like all the talk about sins and sinners.\u00a0 Pastors and the Bible say we are all sinners but I’m not buying every bit of that.\u00a0 If war is sin then, yes, I have sinned;\u00a0 and so has everyone else!\u00a0 War may be a necessary evil to prevent further abuse and oppression.\u00a0 I just don’t accept that my actions as a soldier are necessarily sin.\u00a0 I survived and most of the people I knew survived.\u00a0 I do not see that as sinful.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Sin is a difficult subject.\u00a0 In the New Testament, the most common terminology for sin actually means “missing the mark.”\u00a0 For me, “sinner” is unhelpful as a label but much more facilitative when understood as a condition.\u00a0 I understand sin as the experience of distance:\u00a0 from one another’s humanity; from our own truest selves; from our understanding of\u00a0 God’s will.\u00a0 These are\u00a0experiences\u00a0<\/em>of sin.\u00a0 You have very sensitively articulated each one as a part of your own combat experience.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>That helps.\u00a0 Combat did not necessarily set me right with God!\u00a0 Each patrol was a stride into moral ambiguity.\u00a0 With reflection, I believe moral dilemmas were commonplace.\u00a0 Innocent people, particularly “mountain people,” were not considered people, let alone innocent.\u00a0 On most patrols the Ranger teams were sent into free fire zones.\u00a0 In short, we could kill anyone according to war rules.\u00a0 I resisted that command more often than not.\u00a0 However, there are times when like that first patrol I feel guilty that I did not do enough.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Perhaps this is where forgiveness is particularly important.\u00a0 Glen, in the Christian gospels “forgiveness” means release or liberation.\u00a0 To experience forgiveness is to be released from whatever has been binding us, burdening us, distorting our being.\u00a0 I am interested in where and how you are experiencing release.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>For me, the door is opened in sharing.\u00a0 I have opened that door with many partners; the most influential is you, my friend.\u00a0 Perhaps together we move forward searching for the bridge between a whole soul and a fragmented identity.\u00a0 Scott, you are not innocent!\u00a0 You, dear peacemaker, are part of a nation that frequently declares war but rarely munches on the pain begotten by its actions.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Amen!–to the part about me and the part about the nation!\u00a0 That journey toward wholeness and the healing of fragmented identity is a shared one.\u00a0 You and I have a shared story, whether we have recognized it before or not.\u00a0 You are giving expression to a key truth about forgiveness: that it is always deeply interactive; an acknowledgement that all of life is lived in relationship.\u00a0 In my faith tradition, the territory of forgiveness is where God’s story intersects with our stories, and with the stories of our neighbors and our enemies.\u00a0 When the streams unite we have the\u00a0 makings of a “whole” story!<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0 <\/strong>Can you connect that even more with what we have been discussing?<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0 <\/strong>The biblical terminology is rich and illuminating.\u00a0 The healing power of forgiveness is about restoring sight when it comes to perceiving the full humanity of others, and of ourselves.\u00a0 \u00a0Accepting forgiveness is being able to claim our relationship with people we have hurt or failed to protect, or with people who have hurt us.\u00a0 That is what you are doing right now.\u00a0 Honestly.\u00a0 Courageously.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 But wait–I thought you received forgiveness from God only if you confessed your sins.\u00a0 I already told you I am reluctant.\u00a0 And yet you are telling me that I am already experiencing forgiveness?\u00a0 On top of that, I don’t really want to forgive others until after they have acknowledged\u00a0 their wrong and repented–if then. So how does this work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>It’s already working in you!\u00a0 Let’s get specific.\u00a0 The COMPASS Circle you and I take part in is full of the power of forgiveness, the power for liberation.\u00a0 It is in the sacred space that we create with one another, it is in the deep listening, and the accountability that does not condemn.\u00a0 Forgiveness is made real in the articulation of truths that are difficult, and painful, and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful.\u00a0 It is in community where the integrity of each story, and the pain within it, is honored.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0 <\/strong>So in the Circle, we not only receive forgiveness but we are also agents of it?<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yes.\u00a0 Glen, think about how telling your truth has loosened the bonds that were strangling you; how the sharing of your truth has encouraged and helped other vets, and now civilians who were disconnected before.\u00a0 Forgiveness removes obstacles.\u00a0 In our Circle, we have been committed to the renunciation of bullshit. That is incredibly liberating!\u00a0 And we have discovered that the gift of someone else’s story–their truth–can unlock something deep within us.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0<\/strong>So, to experience forgiveness is to realize the place where our stories, and each of us, can belong?<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Yes!\u00a0 Where it becomes real.\u00a0 It seems to me that the Circle has become a forgiving place for a gathered people with an abundance of truth in their guts;\u00a0 people who, even when hurting and bewildered, have already begun an inner journey committed to authenticity and accountability.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0<\/strong>So our deepening relationships become outward expressions of at-one-ment, even as they help us to reconstruct a more whole and healthy personal narrative.\u00a0 I have sought kindred spirits in my life, but haven’t always been able to find them.\u00a0 Immediately after my tour I would open up to friends.\u00a0 Most–actually all–turned away from the deeper secrets of war.\u00a0 When they asked me about my war experience and I answered honestly, they quickly needed to excuse themselves to go to the bathroom or to get a drink or take care of something they just remembered.\u00a0 \u00a0I felt very isolated from my community.\u00a0 The way you are describing atonement is that I am no longer isolated from my growing community.\u00a0 I’m at-one with others who actually know most of me, including my most violent and compassionate self.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>I think of this as holy ground that we sanctify with our trustworthiness and our entrusting.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>And with protection.\u00a0 In this case it is not protection\u00a0from\u00a0<\/em>the truth, but protection that\u00a0enables truth to be told.\u00a0<\/em>I feel safe in the Circle.\u00a0 The security comes from it being in a sacred place.\u00a0 Security and protection of truth-tellers comes from a common bond.\u00a0 We are authentic together.\u00a0 I have looked for that ever since I fought and survived with a bunch of men that I did not know until I went on patrol.\u00a0 Good soldiers are authentic:\u00a0 they show fear but do their best for all, including themselves.\u00a0 Bullets fired in your direction are very real.\u00a0 The bullet’s intent is not confused; enemies aim to kill.\u00a0 How one responds is the essence of authenticity.\u00a0 The question, “Who am I as a soldier?,” is answered the very first time someone really tries to kill you.\u00a0 You either fight or you don’t; that is who you are plain and simple.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0 <\/strong>Isn’t your authenticity an expression of your deeper humanity?\u00a0 You once told me, “I learned in Vietnam that I am a warrior and enjoy that role.”\u00a0 That is both a statement of acceptance and a declaration!\u00a0 A primary self-understanding, even vocation, is realized.\u00a0 And there is a paradox interwoven with it.\u00a0 Even as you have described so vividly an environment where moral rules were officially suspended and where it was kill or be killed, you also discovered the freedom to flesh out that warrior identity in much fuller and deeply human terms, with each decision you made, some of them unpopular with your men.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0<\/strong> Morality is tested every day in a war zone.\u00a0 In Vietnam mountain people were basically caught in the middle.\u00a0 As a Ranger our war zone often included where mountain people lived.\u00a0 My orders were to gather intelligence and kill anyone in the “free fire zone.”\u00a0 I just could not obey those orders.\u00a0 One time three woman, and older man and one child walked out in front of my Ranger team.\u00a0 Being in charge, I was in a moral dilemma.\u00a0 Let them go, call in a helicopter to extract them, or kill them.\u00a0 I let them go and the mountain people were later pressured by Viet Cong to describe our whereabouts.\u00a0 At dusk mortars fired into our position where we saw the mountain people.\u00a0 Fortunately I had moved the team onto the other side of high ground.\u00a0 \u00a0 No injuries or death but the story illustrates the challenges to morality.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>And in the release you are now experiencing, four decades later, you are able to claim that even then you functioned as a moral agent!\u00a0 So you are able to teach me about integrity.\u00a0 And as you continue to embrace this “letting,”\u00a0 this permission to reconstruct and reinterpret your story, I would call it accepting for-giveness; engaging your role as a valued teacher, a person of wisdom.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0 <\/strong>I think I have been working on telling my story for many years.\u00a0 I survived combat.\u00a0 I learned a lot about myself and the world because of that year in combat.\u00a0 I instinctively know that my combat experience was blood real.\u00a0 As I accept what I did and what I learned, I want others to learn form me.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0 <\/strong>Accepting your experience is a move toward wholeness.\u00a0 Also, it frees you to seek justice and peace because you know the disruption and pain of war.<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yes, I think anyone who has fought to the death has experienced that reality as transformative.\u00a0 I am in fact different than I was before I fought in combat.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0 <\/strong>Our colleague Roger Brooke says that as a warrior you have learned lessons: about the nature of evil; about politics, about duplicity; about life; about the human condition.\u00a0 “There are lessons learned and it is difficult to find peace ultimately . . . until you’ve taken up those lessons and somehow carried them back into the culture that could surely do with those lessons.” (1)<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0<\/strong> That is what is I have started to do over the last couple of years. Back in 2003, I was furious when the commander-in-chief stated “mission accomplished.”\u00a0 I had no idea what to do with my rage at the time.\u00a0 Now I am speaking out so that others may learn the realities of war.\u00a0 It is not glorious.\u00a0 It is never over.<\/p>\n

Scott:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Early on you said, “Helping build a school in Vietnam seems like the right thing for me to do.”\u00a0 That is also a clear assertion full of heart and vision!\u00a0 How do you get from here to there?<\/p>\n

Glen:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>By continuing to step into that path that enacts healing.\u00a0 For example, I now look forward to Veterans Day.\u00a0 I never celebrated or acknowledged that holiday until a couple of years ago, when we started witnessing to the high suicide rate among veterans and active duty military.\u00a0 Now from November 1st until Veterans Day I am getting up every morning to gather with others to bear witness to the soul pain that ends up in suicide.\u00a0 We hang sets of dog tags on a tree in a public place,\u00a0 one set for each warrior that has taken their life, over a period of eleven days.\u00a0 Publicly witnessing, bowing our heads and praying and caring about the fallen is conscious action to bring attention to a wrong.<\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0 Brooke, R.\u00a0 (2015).\u00a0 Project 22 Interview. At: rogerbrookephd.com<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This dialogue is the second of a series originally published in 2017 at\u00a0http:\/\/www.breathingforgiveness.net) As a combat veteran, I have killed others.\u00a0 In war those killed on the ground, up close and personal, are called enemies.\u00a0 Later on in a veteran’s life he or she becomes more conscious of a nagging feeling, uncertainty or doubt that[…] <\/p>\n

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