Warriors, Not Killers: The Impact of Framing on Mental Health

Some people feel the U.S. armed forces glorify a culture of killing. Media personalities and even a presidential candidate have suggested the purpose of the military is “to kill people and break things.”¹ Yet nothing could be further from the truth, and few ideas have the potential to cause more harm to military members and the service.

The military does not exist to kill people. It is a force that seeks to maintain peace and ensure security through deterrence, peacekeeping operations, or, if necessary, armed conflict. Opposing an adversary’s threats or aggressions might lead to violent armed conflict, but the violence is intended to restore peace. Within the officer’s oath is the foundational mission of the military: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic.” Service members may be required to kill to protect U.S. interests, but that is not the job itself.

In reality, few service members will ever be directly involved in taking a life. In a joint doctrine note in 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) describes the force’s operating environment as a continuum, “conducted through a mixture of cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict.”² This continuum emphasizes that the services do more than conduct armed conflict. In Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday’s 15-page CNO NAVPLAN for 2021, the word “kill” appears just once.³ Killing is a means to achieve military objectives when other options have been exhausted.

While the prospect of killing must be acknowledged and discussed as part of military service, the notion that service members are killers debases the profession. Service members are called to embody the highest American ideals, and reducing them to killers undermines public faith in the military.

Even trained professionals, over the course of a deployment, can lose sight of their purpose. For the operators of one drone strike cell in Syria, for example, the daily demand of coordinating strikes against suspected terrorists “seemed to erode [their] perspective and fray their humanity.”⁴ These operators began using self-defense to justify strikes that clearly were not defensive. The consequence was more frequent strikes and more civilian deaths—the tragic result of service members neglecting the military’s purpose and forgetting that their job ultimately is to ensure security and peace.

A drone strike imagery analyst who spoke anonymously with the New York Times detailed how superior officers directed the analyst to turn cameras away from the scenes of strikes that hit unintended targets.⁵ This behavior suggests an erosion of the members’ ability to morally justify their actions in lawful armed conflict. Rather than face the reality of their actions, they turn the camera away.

When service members are asked to kill—an action that goes against their moral beliefs—they face an intense emotional struggle. This “moral injury” can have serious repercussions for their mental health. Research has shown that feelings of guilt after injuring or killing another individual are associated with diminished mental health.⁶ While traditional views hold that fear is the core emotion that causes post-traumatic stress (PTS), PTS can encompass other emotions, such as guilt and shame. And the characteristics of a person killed in combat can increase the likelihood of PTS. Service members were 4.6 times more likely to develop severe PTS in cases where women, children, or the elderly were killed.⁷

Telling service members their job is fundamentally “to kill people and break things” might be intended to increase camaraderie and the ability to perform tough jobs, but the mental health drawbacks can outweigh these benefits. Service members must look themselves in the mirror and answer to their own moral code, and no amount of camaraderie or performance can change this. When veterans leave the military, they should be proud of the work they did. If they feel shame instead, that is an institutional failure, not a personal one.

Violence committed in war must be framed differently. If service members know their actions are performed in the service of national security and the highest military values, they will be better able to reframe their careers in a positive way. Yes, service members may be asked to kill on behalf of their nation, but that is their most solemn duty. It should be treated with somber reverence. Warriors kill with sadness in their hearts, not out of rage or the pursuit of glory.

Historically, military leaders make the enemy out to be less than human. But, in fact, research on PTS suggests that dehumanizing the enemy makes it more difficult for service members to face their actions in war when the dust settles and they are back home with their families. The military should seek to develop moral members, and moral warriors will always see their enemy as a human.

The military also must address the pervasiveness of mental health problems. Conventional wisdom holds that only a few service members who have been in combat will subsequently display symptoms of PTS. This increases feelings of exclusion or weakness in members who do develop symptoms. A lower diagnosis threshold would capture individuals who have experienced moderate symptoms.

It is a mistake to believe most veterans are emotionally resilient and desensitized to the act of killing. Having emotional struggles should be considered the norm. Teams should come together and talk about how their missions are affecting them. Acknowledging that these symptoms and reactions are common would create an environment more conducive to healing.

Programs that alert members to common emotional issues arising from combat would provide early support. In 2012, DoD committed $100 million for Department of Veterans Affairs research on PTS and traumatic brain injury, but the funding focused primarily on understanding and treating PTS.⁸ DoD should implement more preventative measures to address the causes of PTS as well. When service members are left to their own devices, it is easy for them to miss or ignore the warning signs and spiral into malign mental states. This can lead to mental health outcomes far worse than if treatment and support had been received early.

Admiral Arleigh Burke once said, “For in this modern world, the instruments of warfare are not solely for waging war. Far more importantly, they are the means for controlling peace.”⁹ The military employs tactics short of armed conflict more often than armed conflict itself. It should never be defined by one act that service members are asked to carry out in extremis.

Killing and being a party to killing harms everyone involved. The responsibility for maintaining the moral and mental health of service members falls squarely on the services. Members of the U.S. military forces need to know they are moral warriors. Leaders would do well to remember that sentiment and live by it, too.