What Have We Done: Moral Injury in America’s Long Wars

In the wake of America’s long wars against terrorism, Americans have become familiar with PTSD, yet the far more pervasive experience of moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong, has not entered the public consciousness. In today’s wars, with their moral dilemmas, moral injury has become common. In What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars, David Wood examines this oft-ignored issue through portraits of combat veterans, mental health researchers, and his personal observation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and their impact on the young Americans deployed to them.

David Wood is a Future of War fellow with New America and the author of What Have We Done. A staff correspondent for The Huffington Post, he won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series on the severely wounded of those wars. He is a former conscientious objector who has covered the military and wars since 1977 as a staff correspondent for TIME magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Newhouse News Service, and other publications.

Follow the discussion online using #MoralInjury and following @NewAmericaISP.

Participant:

David Wood @woodwriter
Future of War Fellow, New America Author, What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars

Moderator:

Douglas Ollivant @DouglasOllivant
Senior Future of War Fellow, New America