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2009-02-17 issue:

Damaged vets need healing

Editorial

by Everett J. Thomas

Print Article

The article “Wounds of War” by Carolyn Holderread Heggen (July 8, 2008) called on Mennonite congregations to “welcome combat veterans … suffering terrors of the soul.”
We received little response to this call, and I have been curious whether any congregations are focusing in new ways on this national shame. When I visited Chicago recently, an article in the Chicago Tribune Magazine reminded me of Heggen’s plea.

The article, entitled “Relief Efforts,” describes the 20-year-old Homeless Sandwich Run coordinated by Vietnam War veterans and other volunteers. They start their run about noon every Sunday and serve 1,300 sandwiches to some 800 homeless people in the center city.

 “It’s getting bigger every year,” said one volunteer, who has been making the run for five years. “Mostly there are a lot of Nam guys out there homeless. But we’re seeing more and more guys from Iraq and Afghanistan. Kids come home. There are no jobs. They’ve been deployed too many times. They’re disenchanted. Messed up in the head. Drug issues. Mental issues. Suicide. It’s a shame.”

Some ambitious and savvy young Mennonites addressed another national shame nearly 60 years ago: the treatment of the mentally ill in asylums and hospital wards. They helped galvanize national interest. It brought a sea change to attitudes about mental illness and treatment.

Where among us now might be another such group of energized young Mennonites ready to spark a similar phenomenon today?

Unlike the 1940s, when most Mennonites lived on farms and in rural areas, we are assimilated into our culture and increasingly comfortable addressing public policy issues. Although only 10 percent of us live in big cities, according to a 2006 profile of Mennonite Church USA, most of us live in small cities and suburbia. This, along with increased levels of education and professionalism, gives us additional resources.

Heggen, a psychotherapist who specializes in trauma recovery, offered to assist Mennonite congregations wishing to help those paralyzed with shame by their combat experiences.

“Our society never successfully addressed the mental health problems of many of our Vietnam veterans,” Heggen wrote in her article. “If you doubt this, visit a homeless shelter or talk to men living on our streets. Some mental health professionals now speak of a ‘tsunami of mental health problems’ facing us as more and more traumatized veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

In this recessionary economy there are needs everywhere. And there are homeless people other than former combat veterans. But as a peace church we are uniquely positioned to address the wounds of war manifest in our midst. Doing so will help us move from “passivism” to a healing pacifism. It would illustrate—to others as well as our children—that peacemaking is action rather than quietude.

Only communities of faith have the language and understandings to address the core spiritual residue of war, Heggen said as she described the spiritual hell into which many veterans believe they have eternally cast themselves. It is the church that understands confession and forgiveness, grace and mercy, transformation and conversion, Heggen said and then asked, “Can we learn how to apply these gospel truths and extend our hands of welcoming compassion to spiritually damaged veterans and their loved ones?”

This call is too important to fade into memories of good ideas. We hear again and again from Mennonite Church USA leaders that a missional church discerns where God is working in the world and then joins in that work.

God is at work through such programs as the Homeless Sandwich Run and countless other efforts with emotionally wounded combat veterans. Those of us who live near such ministries can join in what God is doing. In doing so we incarnate the gospel.

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