The Human Cost of War: My Own Failure and our Military’s Mental Health Crisis

Our military culture and expectations justifiably require unrelenting standards and there is very little space for human vulnerability, especially in SOF and those in leadership roles. Without changes to our culture and a new approach to mental health, help will remain out of reach for many. I know because I suffered in the dark and when I could no longer maintain the warrior, leader and family expectations, I made poor choices and failed terribly. I hope my story can add to our understanding and help service-members faced with the same issues make better choices and live a better life.

Col. Owen Ray (Ret), Former Special Forces Officer

COL Owen Ray is a recently retired Army Special Forces Officer who led airborne and Special Operations forces for nearly 25 years with multiple deployments in support of Operations Inherent Resolve, Freedom’s Sentinel, Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan and Philippines, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Joint Task Force – INDOPACOM. COL Ray’s last assignment was as the Chief of Staff for I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE – As I watched our abrupt departure from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover and marked the 20th Anniversary of 9/11, I felt anger and grief. For many veterans of the last 20 years, it is hard to reconcile the sacrifices without the benefit of victory or even progress. For those who have spent their entire career and most of their adult life at war, the personal cost in terms of mental, physical, and family health is neither well understood nor adequately addressed. 

The recent recognition of the military and veteran suicide crisis by the White House and Department of Defense is a welcome start but we need to change how we approach the problem. Recent CDC suicide statistics showed a 3% decline in the overall US suicide rate in 2020, however military rates continue to rise. The 2021 Department of Defense report on suicides reflects a 41% increase in active-duty suicide rates between 2015 and 2020, killing 580 service members in 2020 alone. Most alarming is a recent assessment by Thomas Howard Suitt with Brown University’s “Costs of War” project, that notes since 9/11, we have lost 7,057 to combat but likely an estimated 30,177 to suicide. The crisis is likely to get worse as the wars close and servicemembers struggle to transition to an unknown and sometimes alien civilian life. Too many continue to suffer in silence, compromised by decades in conflict, failing home fronts, hopelessness, guilt and shame that can accompany a warrior life.

The Fall

On December 26, 2020, I stood on my balcony with a pistol to my head, intending to end my life as police surrounded my house. I had a mental and emotional breakdown that would traumatize my entire family, let my friends, teammates and command down and bring dishonor to myself.

I was married with three wonderful kids, a well-respected member of our small suburban community and a highly successful Special Forces Officer of nearly 25 years. My career was marked with resounding achievement and success – early promotions, selected to command at every tactical level in Special Forces, a graduate degree from Harvard and selected to serve as the Military Aide to President Obama – carrying the nuclear football for more than two years.

Behind the public façade I so ardently protected was a dumpster fire of mental, emotional and physical deterioration and a family struggling. I was suffering complete mental exhaustion from the cumulative impact of untreated mental and physical health issues, operational and career stress across a career in SOF, including eight deployments. I was consumed by the war within and completely unaware of my own deterioration.

In the aftermath of that horrible night, I was devastated, confused and struggled to understand what, why and how this happened. I was criminally charged (and still face trial), vilified by the media and lost my freedom, my career, and worst of all, my family. Months later, and after extensive inpatient treatment, I was diagnosed with severe and chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Depression, Insomnia, and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

I struggled through the years, compensating as so many of us do, by compartmentalizing emotions and numbing with alcohol. Work, mission and deployments provided focus, familiarity, comfort and, ultimately success. Home, however, was unfamiliar. I no longer fit in nor had a role, and seemingly always felt failure. My downward spiral accelerated after returning from an extremely difficult deployment directing the fight against ISIS in 2018. I came home different and the life I returned to changed.

This was the second long deployment in two years after spending a tough year in Afghanistan and my marriage was irreparably damaged. Over the next two years, I would deploy two more times and lost four more Soldiers as well as numerous friends and teammates. I became increasingly depressed, negative, guilt ridden, angry and suicidal. My family suffered equally as they endured this difficult life, my worsening health and my inability to connect emotionally. This is a tragic situation but unfortunately not uncommon.

The Human Cost of the Forever War

I joined Army Special Forces right after 9/11 as a team leader and like many of us, started losing friends and teammates early in the war. Then came regular unit memorials and losses of my own in command. Not just from combat but also from cancer, suicide, and training accidents. Trips to Dover Air Force Base to receive remains, consoling and caring for spouses and children, and attending funerals, took a toll.

Losses extended beyond close friends and included our partner nation forces, civilian casualties and the moral injury that comes from devastating campaigns. As a Green Beret, we train, live and fight alongside our foreign partners, which we watched from a distance as they were abandoned, hunted down and killed if they were not lucky enough to get out of Afghanistan in the final days. These high costs without clear benefit will undoubtedly impact this generation’s veterans and fan the flames of an existing mental health crisis.

PTSD, depression, TBI, chronic pain and physical injury, relationship issues from long absences and substance abuse are hallmark results of enduring wars. Fueled by a culture of unrelenting standards and perfection as well as an overall lack of awareness of mental, emotional and spiritual health, we face continued risks of human deterioration and failure.

A tragic example is the loss of an exceptional Army Officer and friend, COL Scott Green who took his life this past June. A beloved and accomplished leader within Ranger and Airborne forces as well as a husband and father, it was a devastating loss that left many shaken and asking “why”. Accomplishments and career success do not prevent mental compromise. Unless you walked in Scott’s boots, it is hard to understand what he was carrying but I know it became too much and he felt he had nowhere to turn. There are others like Scott out there right now.  As a military and society, we oew them more.

Doing the Same yet Expecting Different Results – Time to Change

As a society, we react to mental health, shifting our finite resources from one crisis to another. We put vast resources toward physical health yet resilience classes or a mental health awareness month are shallow offerings toward proactive mental health. With all my education and training, I could not understand or recognize my own deterioration – I did not have the tools, nor would I have admitted I had a problem. I now routinely visit the behavioral health clinic, which I never stepped foot in throughout my 25 years of service until I hit the wall. The stigma is still there. I feel shame in the room.  There is no eye contact, no talking, no leadership when it’s needed. This is in stark contrast to the physical therapy clinic where focusing on rehabilitating an injury is just a part of getting healthy and improving performance.

The military’s purpose remains to fight and win our nation’s wars but investing in mental health will not lead to reducing combat effectiveness or standards. Personal responsibility and making better choices are the key to making a difference in this crisis but we need to improve mental health awareness and foster a climate and culture where our servicemembers feel they can ask for help.

Reducing shame and hopelessness are critical in this effort to save lives, and we cannot continue to provide a false choice between health and mission or career. This starts with leader vulnerability, authenticity, and compassion. We all are susceptible to relationship issues, substance abuse problems, mental health needs.  It’s time to drop the judgement and show up for someone. A friend showed up for me in my darkest hour and saved my life. Mental health is health and should be prioritized across the military, and if needed, directed by Congress through the National Defense Authorization Act.

We have lost too many of this nation’s best to this conflict and we’re losing more everyday here at home.  We stand to lose many more as the wars close and service members transition to civilian life.

I am now reconciling my life and my accountability but also my responsibility to recover and live better for my family and friends. For some time, I felt I was on a collision course but powerless to stop it. With help and a lot of work, I am learning to walk a better path, but it came at too high of a cost. 

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How to Avoid Cold War with China

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — A meeting – albeit virtual – between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping finally happened.  It was a cordial and reportedly candid exchange that hopefully cooled some of the tension between the U.S. and China.

President Biden captured the essence of the meeting with his concern that this tension “does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended.”  President Xi said, “China and the U.S. need to increase communications and cooperation” and “respect each other and coexist in peace.”

It’s hard to believe that in 1979, when formal U.S. – China diplomatic relations were established, Chinese President Deng Xiaoping looked to the U.S. as the country that would provide the investment, technology, and unlimited access to our best universities.  And the U.S. didn’t disappoint.  Investment and sophisticated technology flowed to China, with hundreds of thousands of Chinese students enrolling in our universities.  Strategic bilateral cooperation initially contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, with joint efforts to address international terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

So, during the span of forty-two years, relations have gone from close economic and strategic cooperation to a concern about conflict, intended or unintended.  Understandably, scholars will spend considerable time analyzing what went wrong. 

What is important now is that U.S. – China relations move in a more positive direction.  That tension over China’s aggression against Taiwan, the militarization of islands and reefs in the South China Sea, internment camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the national security law in Hong Kong that suppresses democratic protests and the theft of intellectual property all must be candidly discussed by our diplomats and leaders to avoid misunderstanding and accidental conflict.

President Biden said Washington continues to have a “one China” policy and “opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo.”  President Xi reportedly said, “Beijing will take decisive measures if the pro-Taiwan independence movement crosses a red line.”

The three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 specifically states that, inter alia, “the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means; to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, is a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”

The challenge for the U.S. and China is to address Taiwan and a myriad of other irritants in the bilateral relationship to ensure that no one issue, or series of issues leads to conflict.  Toning down the rhetoric and pursuing a policy of substantive and sustained communications, especially by our diplomats, would be a necessary first step.

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The annual Economic and Strategic Dialogue with China, led by the heads of State Department and Treasury and their counterparts in Beijing was established to oversee progress in addressing these and other challenging issues.  A forum of this type, with announcements to ensure that the public is kept apprised of the issues and the work being done to resolve these issues, is of value, only if this dialogue is substantive and not just ceremonial.

This virtual presidential summit can be transformative if, in addition to addressing these and other irritants, it also addresses the opportunity to cooperate on a multitude of geopolitical issues that affect the security of the U.S. and China – and the world.

I’ll start with the nuclear issue and the fact that there’s minimal dialogue with China on its nuclear program.  And given recent reporting on the three sites in China with the construction of hundreds of missile silos and the recent DIA report that China, by 2030, will have a nuclear arsenal of 1000 nuclear warheads is of concern.  Ideally, China should be part of New Start arms control negotiations with the U.S. and Russia.  But they previously refused to join in this or any other arms control dialogue.  At a minimum, China should be responsive to a dialogue with the U.S. on nuclear-related issues, to include their recent test of two hypersonic missiles.

A separate but equally important dialogue with China is on cyber, to ensure that the cyber domain is not weaponized and used against our private sector for economic advantage.  Also, to ensure that outer space is used exclusively for peaceful purposes.

There are a multitude of global issues requiring bilateral cooperation.  We recently saw some U.S. – China cooperation on climate change at the Glasgow COPS 26 UN Climate Change Conference.  Obviously, more must be done, but this is a positive first step.

Other issues, like North Korea can and should be addressed now.  China has unique leverage with a North Korea that relies on China for its economic survival.  China can use that leverage to get North Korea to return to negotiations and to convince the North that complete and verifiable denuclearization, in return for significant deliverables, is in North Korea’s interest.

With over five million global casualties and over 760,000 deaths in the U.S. due to COVID-19, it should be obvious that greater bilateral cooperation on this and future pandemics is necessary.

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Bilateral cooperation on nuclear proliferation, countering international terrorism, the trafficking of narcotics and confronting international organized crime are just some of the global issues that affect the security of the U.S. and China and the global community.  Failure to cooperate on these and other international issues is not only a security imperative, but a moral responsibility of all great powers.

Finally, with the Taliban back in control in Afghanistan, the U.S. and China have a shared goal: ensuring that the Taliban does not permit Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to once again use Afghanistan as a base for its international terrorist operations. China has engaged this Taliban government and should use its significant financial leverage to ensure that all terrorist groups are permanently removed from Afghanistan.

Xi Jinping was just anointed by the Chinese Communist Party as one of its revered leaders, with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.  The Party congress next year will likely give Xi a third five-year term as the Party’s Secretary General.  There are a multitude of domestic issues requiring Xi’s and the Party’s attention, to include a campaign of “common prosperity” – addressing the disparity of wealth in a China governed by a capitalist system with Chinese characteristics.

Hopefully, President Xi Jinping will work with President Joe Biden to ensure that the two great powers, consumed with domestic issues, will also address the myriad of international issues requiring immediate and long-term attention and avoid a cold war that could veer into conflict.

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What Stands Between the Taliban and Recognition

This piece was first published by RUSI in London.  The views do not represent those of RUSI.

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE –The international community is coming under increasing pressure to recognise the Taliban and to unfreeze Afghan funds held by the IMF or to risk a humanitarian crisis over the winter and a resurgence of international terrorism.

As Afghanistan heads deeper into winter the desperate need is to avoid a humanitarian crisis. The World Food Programme has launched an appeal to feed up to 23 million people and Médecins sans Frontières have followed suit in the healthcare field. Fortunately, the distribution mechanisms are in place inside Afghanistan; what is needed is for the international community to ensure that UN humanitarian programmes are fully funded. This will require Western capitals to get over the shock of their recent defeat. It goes without saying that hunger and health should not be used as instruments of political leverage.

Meanwhile, it is becoming ever more apparent that the Taliban do not have the skills to administer a country which is far more complex than the Afghanistan of 1996 – when they began their previous and disastrous spell in office. They will need international assistance to stabilise the economy, get people back to work and, in time, continue the gradual infrastructure improvements which have been underway since 2002. China will doubtless be willing to assist in some areas but Beijing has already made clear that it is adopting a cautious, gradualist approach. However, there are emerging indications that the Taliban’s intransigent views are beginning to relax; such as their approval of the polio vaccination scheme and their willingness to work with UN humanitarian agencies.

The Taliban will also need outside help in defeating the threat from the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISK). Already the Taliban are finding it difficult to counter similar asymmetric tactics which they used so successfully against Western forces. This is likely one of the subjects which CIA Director William Burns discussed with the Taliban during his visit on 24 August and where there is a mutual interest.

What can the international community (not just the West) realistically expect from the Taliban, following the militant group’s stunning victory? Maximalist demands will inevitably get short shrift.

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First, the Taliban should form a more inclusive government. According to multiple sources, the Taliban were intending to form such an administration had Ashraf Ghani not fled the country on 15 August. I am sceptical that this was ever their intention but former president Hamid Karzai and former reconciliation chief Abdullah Abdullah may have remained in Kabul on this understanding and Fatima Gailani, a former negotiator, insists this was the Taliban’s intention.

An inclusive government would need to include women and non-Taliban representatives from the Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik communities. It need not comprise the failed politicians and bloodstained warlords of the past, least of all Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rashid Dostum. It is surely time for a new generation of more technocratic Afghans to become involved in government. Some may be persuaded to return from abroad but they will need assurances for their safety.

Second, the international community should insist on female education at all levels be restored and for women to play a fuller role in society. The Taliban will baulk at this but they only need to look at Pakistan where women play an important role in an avowedly Islamic, if not Islamist, society.

Third, all neighbouring countries, as well as the wider world, want Afghanistan to commit to removing all terrorist bases and terrorists from its soil; not just ISK and Al-Qa’ida but also the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), anti-Iranian and anti-Indian groups, and Central Asian militant movements including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Fourth, the Taliban should commit to allow people to join their families in exile if they wish and also cease the continuing search for and punishment of those Afghans who served the Afghan government and Western allies since 2001.

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In an ideal world there would also be a fifth request: to remove Haqqani network members from the Taliban administration. However, that pass was sold when the US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad engaged with the Haqqanis in Doha – another result of that calamitous dialogue. Furthermore, the current reality is that the Haqqanis control both Kabul and its airport and Sirajuddin Haqqani holds the key position of interior minister.

Instead, the Haqqanis need to be persuaded to prevent Al-Qa’ida regrouping in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin’s father was close to Osama bin Laden and the group retains its Al-Qa’ida connections. Pakistan is already using the Haqqanis to bring the TTP to the negotiating table. It remains to be seen how successful this will be. It is doubtful that the Haqqanis would be willing to take military action against a group from a similar area in the tribal borderlands. However, the Haqqanis could be useful as intermediaries, if not as enforcers.

Meanwhile, the wider Taliban, usually referred to as the ‘Kandaharis’, are increasingly exasperated by the entryist Haqqanis. Although they have worked together, there was never much love lost between the two. The Kandaharis have always distrusted the Haqqanis’ proximity to the Pakistani military. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul-Ghani Baradar, whose willingness to negotiate with the Kabul government in 2008 and 2010 earned him eight years in a Pakistani prison, has been sidelined. There will doubtless be a reckoning

A lasting regret of the US’s careless withdrawal is that Washington did not conclude a broader settlement for Afghanistan involving China, Iran, Russia, India and the Central Asian Republics. From now on it is essential to include all the neighbours in the discussion of recognition and the conditions required. But first the Afghans must be helped to survive the winter.

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