Survivor's Guilt in the Veteran Community

“It should have been me. I shouldn't be here”. That's the conversation that many veterans suffering from survivor's guilt have with themselves yearly. Veterans of all eras have lost friends in combat zones all over the world. As a result, survivor's guilt is a contributor to their PTSD. The guilt comes from surviving a traumatic event while fellow veterans did not.

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In Iraq, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS) caused mass casualties. Some service members were killed, and others survived (with injuries of their own). While the veterans healed from their injuries, many thought about those they lost on the battlefield. These thoughts, and the associated guilt, often follows the veteran home, contributing to PTSD that makes it almost impossible to live a normal, healthy life.

We build close relationships with each other in combat, sometimes closer bonds than with our family and lifelong friends. After living through an IED attack, some veterans aren’t comfortable driving ever again. The trauma of hitting an IED while driving combined with the loss of their brothers in combat can follow that veteran around for the rest of their life.

Driving in the car with their family may even seem daunting for some. This is because in Iraq such veterans were driving with people who were close to them when they felt the explosion of an IED. It may be hard for that veteran to differentiate between the two: driving in Iraq and driving your family down the street. A standard symptom of PTSD is the avoidance of situations and scenarios that mimic one's traumatic event. For Operation Iraqi Freedom era veterans, this could be as simple as driving down the street.

The day after I was shot in Iraq, my best friend and roommate (Eric Snell) was shot and killed. It destroyed me. He had children and I didn't. I cried and just couldn't understand why he was killed and I wasn't. At the end of my unit’s deployment, I felt ashamed to meet his family. I didn't know why I felt this way at the time, but later learned more about PTSD. A 2016 paper from the European Journal of Psychotraumatology explains, “As expected, global guilt and its components, as well as pathological shame, were shown to be highly correlated with PTSD symptom severity indicating the maladaptive effects of trauma-related guilt and shame.” I felt embarrassed to meet with them because I thought they would blame me for his death. Even though they didn't, that was a very uncomfortable moment for me.

I was (and still am) dealing with my own PTSD symptoms while at the same time mourning the fact that I didn't die in Iraq. Veterans of all eras deal with nightmares where they relive the traumatic event that resulted in their fellow service members losing their lives. In my case, the dreams are of a sniper killing my best friend. For a Vietnam-era veteran, they may dream of an ambush in the jungle that resulted in fellow service members losing their lives. The Vietnam War was over 40 years ago. For those veterans that may have survived a traumatic event, that is 40 years of survivor's guilt they may have had to deal with.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., lists more than 58,300 names of members of the U.S. armed forces who were killed or went missing in action. Speaking from experience, for every casualty in Vietnam, there is one person that wishes it would have been him instead of the person on that memorial. We wish there was something we could have done differently. However, instead of focusing on what shoulda, coulda, woulda been, we need to focus on what is right now.

When you talk to veterans of previous wars, you will find that they carry the lives of other soldiers with them. You may hear her tell you a story about the day a fellow soldier lost his life in an attack. Some soldiers have a feeling of guilt because they couldn’t save a soldier in combat. This compounds the depression that the veteran is already dealing with because now they feel responsible for the death of their fellow soldier. When I was shot in Iraq, a member of my platoon placed three tourniquets on my legs, saving my life in the process. When I saw him back in the United States he said “David, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if you would have died on me.”

The bonds that we build on the battlefield last forever. It’s where the term “band of brothers” comes from. Losing a fellow soldier is like losing a brother. Many veterans live with the guilt of surviving a traumatic event while others didn’t. A coping method that has helped me is remembering the great memories that I have with my friends that I’ve lost in combat. We all took an oath to put our lives on the line to protect this great country. The serenity prayer has brought me a long way when it comes to survivor's guilt. I ask all my fellow veterans to have the wisdom to know the difference between the things we can and cannot control.