Project Statement
This comes at a time when long-standing Veterans Service Organizations, like the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States of America, are finding the ever-widening generation gap too difficult to cross.9 Younger veterans are not joining the ranks of veterans 30-years their senior for a number of reasons, but central to them is a sense that VSOs are out of touch with the needs and desires of the post-9/11 servicemembers. Despite the foundational goals of these groups, to care for both present and future veterans and their families,10 the older VSOs may be lapsing into irrelevancy as “military personnel have largely been spared from budget cuts … because of the overwhelming public support for the troops.”11
Major issues in the ongoing conversation arise when attempting to interpret the narratives of Veterans History. After each conflict, each generation tends to see the war fighters of their day as the veterans. The culturally normalized image and understanding of the military for each era attaches specific meanings that are hard to shake. In 2012 the Department of Defense confirmed reports that the suicide rates among active duty servicemembers reached a record level, with one member on average committing suicide every 25 hours, totaling more self-inflicted deaths than those killed in combat for the same year.12 With the DoD expressing official concern about this issue, suicide became so linked to the Post-9/11 generation, that those likely well-intentioned individuals quoting the 22-a-day figure ignored the possibility that the bulk of the problem identified by the VA was from veterans of Vietnam, Korea, and World War 2.
Another narrative that confuses the situation relates to this generationally based view of the veteran, in that there is a tendency to conflate veterans' issues with military issues. Support for the troops does not necessarily equate to support for veterans, which is something well-documented by the older VSOs. The duel focus of the VFW of both current and future veterans does entail that they lobby for the very same legislation and encourage the widespread support for the troops that is causing some younger veterans to think them tangential to today's veterans' needs.
This is often true of historians and other academics as well. There is a tendency to conflate Veterans History with Military History and only access this collective in direct reference to their military service. Despite the hundreds of listings associated with “Veterans,” the Library of Congress does not have a distinct Subject Heading for “Veterans' History,” while having a plethora of listings specifically for various permutations of “Military History.”13 While there is a growing scholarly interest in Veterans' History, it is a topic without a proper intellectual home, and is most often either cataloged under a miscellaneous, non-History “Veterans” category, “Military History,” or under the History of a specific conflict.
Notes on Project Statement (continues after footnotes)
1 Val Willingham, “Study: Rates of Many Mental Disorders Much Higher in Soldiers Than in Civilians,” CNN.com, March 4, 2014, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/03/health/jama-military-mental-health/.
2 U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Mental Health Services, Suicide Prevention Program, Suicide Data Report, 2012, by Janet Kemp and Robert Bossarte, (Washington D.C.: Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, Febuary 1, 2013), 52.
3 Michelle Ye Hee Lee, “The Missing Context Behind the Widely Cited Statistic That There Are 22 Veteran Sucides a Day,” The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, (Washington D.C.), February 4, 2015, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/04/the-missing-context-behind-a-widely-cited-statistic-that-there-are-22-veteran-suicides-a-day.
4 Lee. That number seems incredibly low to me, given my personal experiences after eight years of active duty service, and a decade as a veteran. Suicide prevention was a task for all Sailors; I conducted, coordinated, or received regular training often. While I did prevent several people that were showing clear warning signs, most people that I knew tried to keep such events away from the chain of command for fear of perceived reprisals on our friends. For that reason, I think that both the official statistics are low due to under reporting, and the culture of concealing mental health issues likely causes post-service self-reported surveys to likewise be low. During the first five years after I was discharged I received many phone calls from old friends either contemplating suicide or reporting that a friend of theirs had committed suicide. However, I have to concede to the evidence, which does not match my lived experience.
5 Veteran Affairs, 16.
6 Frank Newport, “In U.S., 24% of Men, 2% of Woman are Veterans,” Gallup.com, November 12, 2012, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/158729/men-women-veterans.aspx.
7 Lee.
8 Veterans Affairs, 52-4.
9 Jacqueline Klimas, “Younger Veterans Bypass VFW, American Legion for Service, Fitness Groups,” The Washington Times, washingtontimes.com,(Washington D.C.), October 19, 2014, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/19/younger-veterans-bypass-vfw-american-legion-for-se.
10 Bill Bottoms, The VFW: An Illustrated History of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (Rockville, MD: Woodbine House, 1991), 41.
11 Klimas.
12 “Military Suicide Rate Hit Record High in 2012,” NBCNews.com, January 14, 2013, accessed May 11, 2015, http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/14/16510852-military-suicide-rate-hit-record-high-in-2012.
13 “Library of Congress Subject Headings PDF Files,” Library of Congress, loc.gov (Washington D.C.), accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCSH/freelcsh.html#About. I have been told that there is a LOC Subject Heading of "Veterans -- History," but I have yet to find it in the LOC's records. The one book that was pointed out was under "HISTORY / Military / Veteran," which is not a standard category, nor is it used often. The University of Arizona's card catalog has only one entry under it and "Veterans -- History," Stephen McVeigh's, Men After War, 2013. There are thousands of specific categories under "Military -- History". There is scholarly works done about veterans including a rise in Veteran Studies, but it seems that Veterans' History will not likely be its own field any time soon.
Project Proposal
While the topic of veteran suicide is one of great concern, this project is not explicitly about that question. Rather, the conversations about that issue demonstrate an overlooked segment of History, Veterans. The political actions of VSOs make them a highly-visible part of the legislative process, and their testimonies are often found in U.S. House and Senate records. They provide a rich source of documents to study the changing landscape of veterans' affairs. With 44 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans reporting that the Department of Veterans Affairs puts too little attention on meeting their needs, and 58 percent saying that the VA is doing a fair to poor job overall,14 it is not likely that those veterans are utilizing, or will continue to use the services offered by the VA.
Nonetheless, this generation's veterans have access to a much more generous package of benefits than any other in the history of the VA. As of 2013 the VA was spending more annually than it did in World War 2 or Vietnam, when adjusted for inflation.15 There are more than 20 million veterans in the United States,16 but the highest single program participation rate, Insurance, was under 7 million (even if it is assumed that each benefit is claimed by one unique person, which is unlikely, the total number of veterans assisted by the VA is only 13 million).17 There are 6-13 million veterans that do not receive any assistance from the VA, and whose story can not be told by a VA narrative.
There are seeming contradictions: a high public concern over the suicide risk and mental health of young veterans, while the bulk of events is mainly found in retirement-aged veterans; the abundance of lines of study on the History of War, but an absence of History of Veterans; and the wide-spread dissatisfaction with the VA from young veterans during a time of significant departmental spending. This research project aims at unpacking some of these issues by using Oral History methods to access the collective memories of veterans from the Korean War until today. This will create a valuable set of evidence on the impact VA policy changes have had on veterans. The veteran's perspective, not on the wars that they have fought, but on the effects those wars have had in their post-service lives, and lived experience of transitioning back to civilian life, can provide evidence to answer a many questions. Chief among those is, what effect do shifting cultural and systemic factors across generations have on veterans that transition from the military into civilian life?
Notes on Project Proposal (continues after footnotes)
14 “After the Wars – Post-Kaiser Survey of Afghanistan and Iraq War Veterans,” The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, (Washington D.C.), November 12, 2014, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/polling/wars-postkaiser-survey-afghanistan-iraq-war/2014/11/12/3e8f2380-b7a6-11e3-9eb3-c254bdb4414d_page.html.
15 “VA Budget Skyrockets Despite Federal Spending Cuts,” Dayton Daily News via Military.com, September 9, 2013, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/09/09/va-budget-skyrockets-despite-federal-spending-cuts.html.
16 U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics, “Projected Veteran Population 2013 to 2043,” VA.gov, (Washington D.C.), accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/quickfacts/Population_slideshow.pdf.
17 U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Veterans Benefits Administration, “Annual Benefits Report, Fiscal Year 2013,” Benefits.VA.gov, (Washington D.C.), September 26, 2014, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.benefits.va.gov/REPORTS/abr/ABR-IntroAppendix-FY13-09262014.pdf, 7.
Anticipated Results
By changing the focus away from the soldier aspect of the veteran, this study will shed light on their post-service lives, show how they have adapted both with and without the VA's assistance, and uncover the long-term impact war has had on veterans. By examining the issues framed with an eye to generational differences both in terms of cultural reception of veterans, and the shifting regulations that govern programs intended to assist them, this project will give depth to issues. Popular and governmental conversations often seem flattened these by decontextualization of data, and oversimplifying the multi-generational community of former servicemembers into an abstract concept of the veteran. This will allow veterans, in their own voices, to recover their own identities and help establish a reason to consider Veterans History as its own Subject Heading.
Methodology: Oral History as a Method
There are many different methodologies and Historiographies that could be applied to this study. Oral History is somewhat unique in that the historian creates the documents under study by having personal interactions with the subjects, it captures the recollections of narrators, and records the interpretations and personal meanings of those narratives.18 Although, in many ways it is still a developing methodology, Oral History helps avoid some of the “elitist and contextual dangers” of other methods because of the direct interaction with subjects, and it swings “the flashlight of history into a significant, much neglected, and previously unknowable corner of the attic” by providing historians access to another set of primary sources with their own insights as to the meanings of past events.19 However, historians should not be blinded by the new method, thinking it “self-evident,” as the significance of Oral History still comes from the “insights and questions the historian brings,” as is true of all documents and relics that might be studied.20 Like any other methodology, if Oral History is to be useful, the collection of testimonies must be done transparently and systematically, and the product of interviews must be interpreted, analyzed, and set into appropriate rhetoric to form a coherent argument.21 The goal of Oral History is the same as all other methodologies: to produce knowledge about History by examining the relics of the past, and building from them an understanding of the meaning cultures, societies, and individuals have placed upon them. The interviews allow the historian to do something that no other method can do, ask direct questions, and help shape the nature of the evidence produced.
That does not mean that eye-witness accounts are a more “pure experience” of the past that can be used to “reclaim” it from historical interpretation.22 Had Alessandro Portelli accepted that the narratives of the death of Luigi Trastulli in the small Italian town of Terni, he would have been left believing that Trastulli died at least four years after his death in 1949.23 However, the widespread shifting of the death from an anti-NATO rally to a more emotionally significant (for the interviewees) layoff of 2,000 workers in 1953, becomes the value of the narratives. While not factually true, the meaning of the death was found in the “errors, inventions, and myths.”24 Hard facts are best found from other sources that are less prone to narrative building and anecdotes, often aimed at provoking smiles and laughs.25
By mixing those hard facts gathered from sources, like official documents and social science reports, with the narrative told by eye-witnesses, the historian can restore the “personal flavor” and “color” back into the histories produced.26 The processes of memory itself tends to access and serve as part of self-identity, and provides a potential for the interviewer to explore the seemingly most clear memories, which are often remembered because the interviewee finds them most important.27 “Identity is the name we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves in narratives of the past.”28 Despite the fact that the townspeople of Terni did not remember the exact events, even though they were convinced of the truth of their statements, from a psychological standpoint, their statements are creditable because the meanings they communicated in the departure from events are their “truths.”29 What we see in their testimony is not only how they misrecall events, but how they view themselves as individuals, and as a town. The formation and transmission of memories creates community; oral historians create documents that serve the function of memories for entire societies.30 They do this by listening, recording, and transmitting the individual memory to the greater world.
The historian acts as an audience to the narrator's lived story. The oral testimony is an act, like any other speech act, that is inherently social, requiring both the narrative speaker, and the listener.31 As such, they take on many of the aspects of a culture's tradition of storytelling. Exaggeration serves a literary function of either adding extra emphasis to something speaker finds important, or by hiding some aspect from the audience.32 By understanding that self-narratives are tend to adapt to the same cultural expectations as other storytelling, like “folktales, fictional models, proverbs, and stereotypes,” the historian that is adequately familiar with the culture can use those tropes as an interpretive framework.33
While it is important to receive the narratives in the manner they are told, it does not mean that historians ought to be unduly swayed by a testimony. Like all documents, a critical eye must be turned to the content of the interviewee's communicated “truths.” All documents are created by people with psychological tendencies, and even the most well-intentioned ones might contain significant errors.35 Beyond the usual analytical scrutiny necessitated by the content of any document, accessing the memories requires that historians keep in mind that “memory is not a passive depository of facts, but an active process of creation of meanings.”36 In this creation, the dead are made to live again, to die a different day in a more significant way, to walk along with the survivors in story, at least, and to speak truths that are too uncomfortable or seemingly too profound to come from the lips of the narrator.
These speech acts, memory acts, and meaning acts, demand that they be recorded faithfully, but not be taken as literal truth, in a factual sense. The narrator exposes a self-identity that is built from past events, but has changed from what it was in the past through further lived experiences. Part of those experiences include the cultural influences on the individual, including an ordering of the narrative into a socially acceptable form of stories, personal folktales, with a purpose. Some are meant to draw smiles. Others are meant to say difficult truths. All of these stories require interpretation in order to find the meaning.
Notes on Methodology (continues after footnotes)
18 The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, (New York: Routledge, 1998), ix.
19 Michael Frisch, “Oral History and Hard Times: A Review Essay,” The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, (New York: Routledge, 1998), 32-3.
20 Frisch, 36.
21 Mary Maynes, Jennifer Pierce and Barbara Laslett, Telling Stories: The Use of Personal Narrative in The Social Sciences and History, (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 142.
22 Frisch, 32-33.
23 Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories, (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991), 1-2.
24 Portelli, 2.
25 Donald Ritchie, Doing Oral History, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 95.
26 Ritchie, 95-6.
27 Ritchie, 11-2.
28 Naomi Rosh White, “Marking Absences: Holocaust Testimony and History,” The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, (New York: Routledge, 1998), 180.
29 Portelli, 50-1.
30 White, 180-1.
31 Portelli, 130.
32 Maynes, 72.
33 Maynes, 72.
34 Jen Dunnaway, “Approaching a Truer Form of Truth: The Appropriation of the Oral Narrative Form in Vietnam War Literature,” Soldier Talk: The Vietnam War in Oral Narrative, edited by Paul Budra and Michael Zeitlin, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004), 39-40.
35 Portelli, 51.
36 Portelli, 52.
Compliance With Federal Regulations
If Oral History is taken as a type of “systematic research” that aims at contributing “to generalizable knowledge” by gathering data through interactions with individuals that might include “identifiable private information,” it falls under the jurisdiction of Federal Regulations governing Human Subject Research (45 CFR 46), known as the Common Rule.37 Biographical and Oral History may not be considered Human Research because the information may not be generalizable beyond the individual, but this is a matter that is open to interpretation by individual Institutional Review Boards (IRB).38 The University of Arizona's Office for the Responsible Conduct of Research has ruled that oral histories do not, in most cases, constitute Human Subjects Research as they “are not designed to contribute to generalizable knowledge.”39 The delimiting factor in their determination is that historical research does not produce a predictive hypothesis; however, if the research was intended to study a specific phenomenon, and not just the meaning and historical significance of lived-experiences, then it might require IRB review. Interestingly, the examples intended to illustrate the difference between projects that do and do not require IRB review are “Veterans Oral History Project,” and “Long-term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Vietnam War Veterans.”40 The former uses veteran testimony as a means of accessing the history of the war, while the latter intends to develop a predictive model of PTSD-causing situations in war.
This project's goal is to develop an historical understanding of the changes over time in the collective experiences of veterans transitioning into civilian life, but does not intend to develop a predictive hypothesis that might be generalized beyond those experiences. It would not likely require University IRB review, but before taking any actions, this conclusion should be confirmed with the Office for the Responsible Conduct of Research.
While this does remove the requirement for IRB oversight (if correct), it does not free the project from all legal, and ethical considerations. The legal owner and copyright holder of any “words or ideas … recorded in any tangible form” is the speaker.41 The duration of this copyright is 70 years after the death of the author, 70 years after the death of the last surviving author if a joint work, 95 years from first publication or 120 years after creation if the author is anonymous, a pseudonym was used, or the work was made for hire.42 This entails that the copyright for all oral history interviews belong jointly to the interviewee, and the interviewer (or employer if done for hire). In order to release any major portion of the interview (“fair use” does allow a fairly small amount of the interview, but not likely enough for most types of historical analysis), a deed of gift or contract must be secured from all copyright holders.43 Interviewees do have joint-legal rights to the content of the interviews, and may desire first use or specify that it be closed to research. Legal responsibility for the content of an interview is shared among all people connected with the creation, storage, and distribution of an interview, including slanderous comments turned libelous if recorded or transcribed. A release form that specifies the use rights and intended repositories should be signed at the end of each interview or after the last session.44
Notes on Compliance With Federal Regulations (continues after footnotes)
37 Lorna Hicks, “The Federal Regulations – SBE,” Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative at the University of Miami, last updated April 2015, accessed January 30, 2015, . This information is also available from Protection of Human Subjects, 45 CFR § 46 (2009), and can be downloaded from www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.html.
38 Jackie Galvez, et. al., “Students in Research,” Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative at the University of Miami, last updated April 2014, accessed January 23, 2015.
39 The University of Arizona, Investigator Manual, Version 4.2, (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona, June 2014), available from http://orcr.arizona.edu/hspp/manual, 51-3.
40 University of Arizona, 52-3.
41 Ritchie, 51.
42 U.S. Copyright Office, “Copyright Laws of the United States,” Copyright.gov, 2011, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.copyright.gov/title17/, Chapter 3 § 302.
43 Ritchie, 51-4.
44 Oral History Association, “Principles and Best Practices,” OralHistory.org, 2009, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices/, “Interview” No. 5.
Ethics of Accessing Potentially Traumatic Memories
In a previous essay, Survivor'sGuilt: Problems of Oral Histories of Veterans, I expressed deep concern over the ethics of interviewing veterans that likely have experienced psychological trauma. At the time I realized that I had extreme apprehensions given that accessing traumatic memories can cause the individual to re-experience the event, and can lead to dire consequences. Even though I have continued researching the recording of traumatic memories via Holocaust literature, these appreciations have not fully abated. I will not rehash that material here. I will only add to that paper, “[t]o bear witness is to bear the solitude of a responsibility, and to bear the responsibility, precisely, of that solitude.”45 This particular phrase from Shoshana Felman's exploration of teaching the Holocaust caught my attention primarily because it purports to be an obligation of the witness. On many levels I desire this to be a false statement, because if it is true, it is a duty to all that witness. Let me set this into the framework of a philosophical analysis of this duty.
For the sake of investigating this notion, assume that the German philosopher Immanuel Kant was correct when he claimed that rationality was an end in itself and of great intrinsic value that he called dignity, which was only enabled by autonomy.46 An adequate summary of the implications can be stated:
Since (1) our rational natures make us ends in ourselves, and (2) we have this state because we possess autonomy, it follows that (3) our nature as autonomous agents makes us ends in ourselves. (4) Anything with the status of an end in itself has unconditional value, and so (5) our autonomous rational natures have unconditional value. (6) If something has unconditional value, then there is an unconditional requirement to respect it. (7) Thus, there is a basic unconditional requirement to respect the autonomy of agents.47
This provides a means of grounding the “unconditional” respecting of the “autonomy of agents” to rationality itself. Given that the Belmont Report, “the foundational document of the current system of U.S. human subjects protections,” used a Kantian vocabulary, speaking of “[r]espect for persons” and treating individuals as “autonomous agents,” then where it obligates providing “persons with diminished autonomy” with protections,48 it can be read as mandating additional safeguards for those whose ability to reason is compromised. This creates no conflict with Kant's grounding of respect to rationality, as an individual with compromised autonomy is not likely able to act in the fullness of rationality; the additional protections can be taken as a maxim. Simply restated: I will provide additional safeguards when conducting human research involving persons with diminished autonomy in order to respect their person and whatever autonomy they do possess. A universalization of this maxim would be: All people ought to provide additional safeguards whenever they are conducting human research involving anyone with diminished autonomy in order to respect their persons and whatever autonomy they do possess.
An action can be obligatory, wrong, or optional. According to Kant, if the omission of the maxim can not be consistently willed,49 then the maxim is a moral obligation.50 This is because it has been demonstrated not doing the action expressed by the maxim is irrational, and rationality is the basis for Kantian Ethics. If a maxim can not be consistently willed, which is to say that the outcome of the maxim aims at logically inconsistent or self-contradictory ends, then the maxim is morally wrong. An action is optional if and only if both the maxim and its omission can be consistently willed.
In the case of the Belmont Report's maxim, the universalization does not create any logical inconsistencies and can be consistently willed. The omission, “No one ought to provide additional safeguards whenever they are conducting human research involving anyone with diminished autonomy in order to respect their persons and whatever autonomy they do posses,” on the other hand, creates a logical inconsistency with (7), the “basic unconditional requirement to respect the autonomy of agents.” In Kantian Ethics, this maxim is obligatory.
To go back to the responsibility of solitude, and a bit further still to the inspiration for Felman's quote, Paul Celan wrote, “No one bears witness for the witness.”51 Here Celan does not speak of the willing witness that steps forward and volunteers to see, but the witness that is compelled by circumstances to not only witness, but to be wounded by the act of witnessing. No one witnesses the wounding of the witness, which creates the distance and solitude. If it is the responsibility of the witness to bear that solitude, which creates the responsibility, but the witnessing was involuntary, then the agency of the witness is permanently compromised by the act of witnessing. And yet the solitude/responsibility is broken by Felman's own lived-experience of watching a class witnessing a testimony intended to be “the very eloquence of life, with a striking, vivid and extreme real example of the liberating, vital function of the testimony.”52 During a class, she had graduate students watch a video testimony of a survivor, which led to unintended consequences. During the screening the class falls into the testimony, being absorbed by it, and they became witnesses in their own right, of the witness. Likewise, Felman became a witness of their wounds. All of them showed signs of great distress, which Felman described as “crisis,” and by the end of the semester she recognized as “trauma.”53 Trauma can be passed on.
If an oral historian is to set as a volition the recording of such wounds, then the maxim might be: I will bear witness to the wounds of another person in order to record their testimony, produce it into a document, and use my insights to interpret it in an historically relevant way. Here we might find a conundrum. The commission of the universalized maxim, “Everyone ought to bear witness to the wounds of others in order to record their testimony, produce it into a document, and use their insights to interpret it in an historically relevant way,” can not be consistently willed if trauma can be passed along, because it fails to respect the autonomy, rationality, and dignity of the would-be interviewers. There is a risk that they will be wounded in the process, and their autonomy compromised as the witness' autonomy was compromised. This would be prima facie ethically wrong. The omission (“No one ought to ...”) can not be consistently willed because it does not respect the autonomy of individuals that wish to either witness or testify. The omission makes the solitude final.
Unfortunately, I know of no method the resolve this problem, other than assuming, until I'm proven wrong, that there is an undetected error in this argument, or Kantian Ethics. I must resolve this by concluding that it seems that the only way, in the case of risk of personal trauma resulting from the exposure to the traumatic testimony of another, is to ensure that participation is voluntary and informed for both interviewer and interviewee.54 The same safeguards that are deemed necessary for persons of diminished autonomy may become necessary for any interviewer that becomes traumatized by bearing witness for the witness.
Notes on Ethics (continues after footnotes)
45 Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, (New York: Routledge,1992), 3. Emphasis in the original.
46 Mark Timmons, Moral Theory: An Introduction, (Oxford, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002),156.
47 Timmons, 157.
48 Lisa Robinson Bailey, “History and Ethical Principles – SBE,” Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative at the University of Miami, last updated November 2014, accessed January 30, 2015, .
49 By this I mean changing the maxim from “I will do...” to “I will omit to do...” with the universalized forms being “Everyone ought to ...” changed to either “No one ought to ...” or “Everyone ought not to...”
50 Timmons, 165-6.
51 As qtd. in Felman, 3.
52 Felman, 47-9. Emphasis in the original.
53 Felman, 47 and 52.
54 If my analysis is correct, this is still an irrational action on the part of the interviewer, and ethically wrong, regardless of how well-informed the parties may be. Nonetheless, this does seem to conflict with the basic notion of autonomy.
Proposed Safeguards55
The first safeguard can be built directly into the process of finding interviewees. Coordinating with local VSOs and veterans groups, like local VFW and American Legion posts as well as the University's Student Veterans Association, may provide an opportunity to advertise the project to potential interviewees. Any fliers or announcements ought to be purely informational, promise nothing in return for participation, nor imply any kind of requirement, implicit or explicit. The first level of protection will be to respect the autonomy of the individuals that come forward. By not setting up or encouraging any form of social pressure to participate, veterans that may know themselves to suffer from mental health issues may not choose to participate.
Any advertisement should include contact information, likely limited to a phone number and/or email address. If initial contact is made by phone, and the veteran is willing to answer a few questions at that time, then the interviewer should ask a series of short, biographical questions that would not be uncommon to be asked in a normal conversation. Examples of these types of questions would include what branch of the military where they in, when and where did they serve, were they deployed, if so, did they ever deploy under combat conditions. The purpose of the questions is to establish that they are veterans, but also to assess their psychological state. Listening for signs of stress, like long silences, or difficulty answering questions likely to involve trauma (combat, for example), can help select veterans that are less likely to have psychological events, or may indicate that a specific action plan for that interviewee is needed.56
The third round of contact should be through mail or email, and include a cover letter that clearly explains the purpose and nature of the study, the nature of the questions likely to be asked, the possible risks of being involved in the study (admittedly a low-risk endeavor, if the veteran does not have any mental health issues), the expected archives that transcripts and copies of the interview will be released to, and the intent to publish the final product. It is essential that all participants be fully informed about the project before they consent. Additionally, a list of mental health resources available to veterans can be included at this stage of contact. Certainly, having a list of resources during and after an interview is a must, but spreading awareness of them even before can not hurt.
Interviews should be scheduled in a location where both the interviewer and interviewee are comfortable being. The potential for unexpected distress can only be exacerbated by being in an uncomfortable or stressful environment. Before any interview begins, all of the same details about the project that were mailed out should be communicated orally to the interviewee to ensure they understand, and written copies should be available. Any questions the interviewee has should be answered before proceeding. It should be emphasized that participation is strictly voluntary, and that the interview can be stopped at any time by anyone. The potential of triggering a mental health event should be discussed, and the interviewee should be informed that they can choose to not answer any question that they wish. A consent form authorizing the recording should be reviewed and signed before the interview.
During the interview, all parties should be mindful of stress indicators, as previously mentioned (with the addition of body language and non-verbal cues). Any signs of stress ought to be taken seriously, and either redirect the conversation to a different topic, or terminate the interview. Questions intended to access memories that are likely to be stressful should be worked into slowly. The interview should be kept to an agreed upon time limit, two hours maximum is recommended.57
After the interview, a final release form transferring the copyright of the content of the interview should be signed by both the interviewee and the interviewer.58 This provides the opportunity for an interviewee that has said something that they assess to be damaging to themselves or others to withhold their consent. Given that some memories of events may be “held hostage by time,” it is unlikely that an interviewee with such memories can predict what might be said during an interview.59 A person suffering from a traumatic memory may, in the moment, say something they did not intend to say. An alternative to completely withholding consent to publish is to offer to hold or close the interview to research for an amount time.60 Authorized release dates should be recorded on the consent form.
Both interviewer and interviewee should be provided with information on where they can seek help after the interview, if needed. The Veteran Crisis Line contact information should be provided as primary emergency counseling.61 Information about the National Center for PTSD, and the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System's Mental Health Services should also be provided.62 While there are many other potential sources for emergency mental health support, it would be difficult to evaluate each as to their capacity to deal with veteran-specific issues. As such, it may be best to limit suggestions to those services provided by the VA. It is important to keep in mind that the interviewer is “not a psychiatrist offering free and unlimited therapy sessions.”63 There are much better qualified people than an oral history interviewer that can assist with mental health issues.
The interviewees should be provided good contact information for the research project, and any problems that arise because of interview should be reported back to the project. If one does occur, it is an indication that these procedures are inadequate, and interviews should terminate until such time as a proper evaluation can be preformed, and new procedures drafted. Any mental health event that results should also be reported to the University of Arizona's IRB, for their consideration. Even though the Office for the Responsible Conduct of Research has ruled that Oral History is not Human Subjects Research, they already have the organizational infrastructure to properly evaluate the risks to interviewees, and may provide significant feedback on how to improve protections. In addition to that, an internal advisory committee should be selected for the project for a number of pragmatic reasons, depending on the composition of the committee.64
While the purpose of this project is to collect and analyze oral histories of veterans that have transitioned back into civilian life, a paramount concern is placed on the safety and well-being of all participants, in compliance to the letter and spirit of the Belmont Report. As such, all reasonable safeguards to that end are a basic ethical duty for participants in this research project. The proposed tiered recruitment strategy for interviewees uses the autonomy of the well-informed individual to select former servicemembers that are willing to share their self-identity in the form of their recollections with the project, and future researchers via repositories. By evaluating their mental state with questions no more sensitive than those they may be asked on a day-to-day basis, the project can identify veterans that may be suffering from mental health issues, a well-documented problem in the military and veteran community, and provide them with information about resources that might help them. Those that are selected to be interviewed, as with any Oral History project, should be treated with respect through all steps of the process.
Notes on Safeguards (continues after footnotes)
55 Many of the procedures have been drawn from suggestions made in Ritchie, and are modeled on the CITI Program's training “Assessing Risk – SBE,” “Informed Consent – SBE,” “Research With Prisoners – SBE,” “Research With Children – SBE,” “International Research – SBE,” and “Vulnerable Subjects – Research Involving Workers/Employees.” For those modules, see:Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative at the University of Miami.
56 Megan Hutching, “After Action: Oral History and War,” The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, edited by Donald Ritchie, (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2011), available online from OxfordHandbooksOnline.com, September 2012, accessed May 12, 2015.
57 Ritchie, 61.
58 Oral History Association.
59 Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 42.
60 Ritchie, 52-4.
61 U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, “Veteran Crisis Line,” VeteransCrisisLine.net, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.veteranscrisisline.net/.
62 For PTSD, see: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “PTSD: National Center for PTSD,” PTSD.VA.com, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.ptsd.va.gov/. For general mental health, see: “Mental Health Services,” Tucson.VA.gov, accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.tucson.va.gov/services/Mental_Health_Services.asp.
63 Ritchie, 61.
64 Ritchie, 30.
Appendix: Questions
There is no particular optimal style to conducting an interview. The main objective is to put the interviewee at ease so that they can “become as comfortable, forthcoming, and accurate as possible.”65 Questions should be primarily aimed at keeping the dialog going in a directed and meaningful way, and as such, open ended questions with sufficient time allowed for a complete answer are preferred.66 A mix of open ended and specific questions can allow interviewees to communicate what they feel is the most important information to them first, before narrowing the topics toward the interviewer's main objectives.67
Much like the biographical questions of the pre-interview, opening questions should start with some general topics establishing original home towns, dates of service, military branch, place of out-processing and discharge, and careers or types of jobs held after the military. When opportunities arise, more specific questions can be intermixed. As the interview progresses, follow up questions can focus on the transitional phases of the veteran's life, and coping mechanisms and strategies that were developed.
Skipping any questions already answered, a line of questions might look like this:
Tell me about your childhood. Where were you born? How long did you live there? Is that where you lived when you joined the military?
Tell me about your basic training. Where did you attend boot camp? What was it like at (specific training location) during the (season)?68 Was it difficult? Was there anything from your childhood that prepared you for (specific training)?
After boot camp where did you go? Tell me about (duty station). Was that during (conflict)? What was your role there? Were you deployed?69 Did you see any action?70 Can you/are you able to talk about it?71
What did you miss about civilian life? Tell me about (place discharged). What did it feel like to walk out of the gate for the last time? Do you think you where the same person as the kid that walked into (boot camp location)? Was anyone waiting for you? Did you go home?
What did you do after the military? Tell me about (whatever job mentioned). Did you have any problems fitting in? (If a member of a VSO) When did you join (specific VSO)? Tell me about (VSO).
By this point in the conversation most of the rehearsed stories should be completely exhausted. This is the best point to ask questions that directly access self-identify, like “why did you join the military?” if the interviewee served post-Vietnam. The main line of questioning for this study is related to the meaning of transitioning from one culture to another. Following the pattern already established, questions tailored to each interviewee in respect to the era the veteran out-processed, can be developed to explore that person's experiences during that period. In order to tailor these questions properly, an understanding of the main national and local events will be helpful. It will also be necessary to understand the changes to the Department of Veterans Affairs that were in place at that time, the laws governing veterans benefits then, and an overview of any mass media conversations about veteran affairs. In my own experience, returning to the states after being in the military is as big a culture shock as being in a foreign country.
It is necessary to have a decent cultural picture of what the veteran was returning to, in order to understand any issues culture-shock might have caused. A majority of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans feel that the VA is not doing enough for them, in part because of the 22-a-day campaign, and in part because of their own lived experience with one in two having known someone that attempted or committed suicide. However, the VA is already aware that their group is a lower risk than Vietnam, Korea and World War 2 veterans.
Notes on Appendix
65 Ritchie, 57.
66 Ritchie, 57.
67 Ritchie, 66.
68 These details are almost always included in the litany of military service, and often form a launching point for a host of recited “Boot Camp” stories that set the tone for a large part of the rehearsed stories. Engaging with this line shows at least a basic understanding of military life, and helps establish a rapport via shared hardships. Boot camp is a miserable experience for most, made worse by location and season.
69 This is somewhat service-specific as deployment of Sailors is a regularly scheduled event, but deployment of Marines or the Army is unusually in response to world events.
70 This question might reveal ignorance on the part of the interviewer. Asking someone that was at Guadalcanal during World War 2, for instance, if they saw any action would likely lock out an interviewer from the non-rehearsed stories. However, being stationed at Pearl Harbor might indicate the narrator was there during the Japanese attack, or afterward, which have radically different meanings. The pre-interview responses should be used as a guide for researching the individual, the units mentioned, and the conflicts in which the interviewee might have been involved. Special attention should be paid to operation names, associated battles, and time lines. Someone that was in Fallujah until early March, 2004, will have had significantly different experience than someone that participated in Vigilant Resolve (April-May). Not recognizing the operation name might be as bad as asking someone that said they were in Guadalcanal if they saw action. It is also necessary to be familiar with the command structure and key personnel. Chains of command are memorized, and troops tend to place a high amount of emphasis on some personalities. Not knowing James Mattis, aka “Chaos,” “Mad Dog,” and “Warrior Monk,” is a “Guadalcanal” response to Marines.
71 If combat experiences are being accessed, this can be a high risk line of questions. Military Oral Historians don't seem to be as sensitive to this line, as most of the interviews I have read directly, and often only address this question. For the purposes of this study, this line should not be lingered on too long. After a sufficient amount of information about any war-time experience that might have impacted the transition process has been identified, the interview should depart from this line.
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