The Veteran-Civilian Dialogue

Philosophy

War touches the lives of all people.  Perhaps more than any single social enterprise, war shapes the character of individuals, families, cultures and nations.  Yet, war’s mythic role in national life often hides the wounds it exacts on all members and dimensions of our society.

Those who fight often face or participate in brutal and traumatic events, which will remain with them forever.   They form loyalties and social bonds, forged by the rigors of combat that others cannot easily understand.  And, when their tour of duty is complete, they return changed to a society where every day life goes on much as before.  The dissonance between their inner and outer worlds can be profoundly painful and debilitating unless they find ways to meaningfully share their experiences with the civilian public on whose behalf they fought.  Veterans carry a piece of our social history and memory without which we cannot make responsible decisions about the value and costs of war, or learn to heal the wounds which, left invisible,  tear the social fabric with devastating consequences.  

What we don’t know can and does hurt us.   

Civilians have their own relationship to war.   They suffer the loss of loved ones or find themselves struggling to support the return of a veteran whose experiences may always remain private memories.  Some civilians touch war, not through personal loss or relationship, but as a matter of passionate political positions that can often complicate the way veterans perceive their own mission and its social value and distort our moral obligation to those who do the fighting.   

To the extent that veterans or their families carry hidden wounds in isolation, our entire community and nation will suffer --   a fact readily evidenced by our past failures to support, listen to and learn from returning veterans and their families.  This failure remains a shadow within our national consciousness – a shadow that obscures the most painful truths about the real-life consequences of war and at the same time undermines one of our greatest strengths --  the capacity for compassion and care which affirms and enlarges our common humanity. 

It is this strength of heart which we stand to gain by establishing a caring covenant between veterans and civilians.  Through deep listening, dialogue and creative communal activities we can heal the wounds of war and learn the lessons it can and must teach us in order to grow as individuals, communities and as a nation.