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The purpose of this paper is to explain how combat and the effects of war is the major cause for our soldiers having mental and psychological problems today. The mental health impairments experienced by the soldiers who are deployed during the war have received massive attention from the government. War greatly impacts soldiers and civilians alike, both physically and emotionally. Death, injury, sexual violence, malnutrition, illness, and disability are some emotional impacts. The effects of war, torture, and depression greatly impacts a soldier’s life. After returning home, the soldiers may have to cope with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, brain injury and conditions due to the services that they offer during the war. Soldiers who have been working in combat areas tend to be at a higher risk of having a mental health issue. This ethics paper will discuss the root cause of combat and the effects of war that are the major cause for our soldiers having mental and psychological problems today through the three ethical lenses, its impact on the force, and possible solutions to the ethical dilemma.

Root Cause

Combat stress is one of the main causes of mental health issues with soldiers today. The engagement in war, impact tremendously on the mental health of veterans and service members. Soldiers in war-torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, have recorded high levels of mental illness (Joel Young, 2016). The exposure to war combat, anxiety, trouble with supervision, and separation from loved ones causes psychological stress. All these factors ultimately play a role in the rise of mental problems among soldiers. They are exposed to the killing of other people or even their own during war. As Joel Young (2016) describes the effect of having to experience deaths or close to death scenarios always leaves these troops under constant depression. The images and the experiences they encounter during the war have an everlasting impact on their mental health and also impact on their future interaction with members of the society even after they retire. The long term stresses, for instance, the one encountered during long tours, and the receipt of physical combat injuries are one of the main causes of mental health disorders.

The combat stresses may result in one being emotionally and physically exhausted with time, thus changing the way a person reasons and copes with challenges. Additionally, age also plays an essential part in the cognitive and physical health issues in the soldiers. Mental health issues have a possibility of taking place at a later time in life between the age of 40 and 50 due to cumulative impacts. The cumulative impact of war maximizes the risk of mental and physical health conditions. This maximizes the rates of mental health issues as well as other sicknesses (Callahan, 2010). Anxiety also attributes to soldiers having mental health issues. The change in military operations like the deployment to different regions or even change in the working schedules leaves many soldiers uncertain of what the future holds. Increased uncertainty causes some to be in constant worry of their plans, which, according to Joel (2016), plays a significant role in their mental illness. The military often imposes massive control on these soldiers, which requires them to follow orders given to them diligently. The loss of control of their lives sometimes results in soldiers, especially the junior ones, to experience mental breakdown (Joel, 2016).

Generally, during the war, soldiers are exposed to dangerous traumatic experiences. Thus, maximized exposure to such violence should continually foretell negative impacts on their mental health (Pizarro, Silver, & Prause, 2006). Additionally, the disconnection from their families also impacts the mental health of these soldiers. During war or training, soldiers tend to separate from their families for a long time and the separation impacts their lives. According to Joel (2016), the issue has impacted on the figures of mental health among soldiers. The experiences soldiers encounter during the war is the root cause of mental illness. For instance, killings in combat, uncertainty, the detachment from their loved one, and the loss of control often impact on their mental health. These effects have led to increased mental issues and high rates of suicide attempts.

Impacts on the Force

The effects of mental issues, depression and anxiety acquired in war negatively influences the work productivity of soldiers. Soldiers who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experience loss of interest to work, fatigue, and lack of concentration and often have suicidal thoughts. As a result, these soldiers cause the military force to fall into substantial economic consequences that pertain to treating the diseases; they also impact on the decisions made by the military and influence soldiers' turnover in combat. The cost of treating soldiers who have PTSD and other related medical expenses that pertain to suicides has risen to over $3.1 billion annually (Kartavya et al. 2016). The cost has increased the total spending of the government, ultimately impacting several military operations. Moreover, post-traumatic stress disorder soldiers influence the decision making process in the military. As a result of depression, many soldiers fail to concentrate fully and often reduce the rate at which they work. Depression impacts their brain processing speed and negatively affects the decisions they make. It has tremendously changed military operations due to the proliferation of technology, which calls for high vigilance in the battlefield.

Additionally, mental issues has also had an influence on soldiers' absenteeism in the military today. The high rates of drugs and alcohol abuse to reduce mental issues have also served to record a considerable turnover of soldiers for war. With the high rate of soldiers' absenteeism, military operations have been put at risk. Severe symptoms of PTSD among military personnel has impacted the operations of the military. The cost of treating the disease, fatigue, and loss of interest to work as a result of mental issues have impacted on the military spending, the decisions made by the military and the soldiers' turnover in the fighting force. It is therefore crucial that soldiers who have PTSD are cared for before their situation becomes worse.

Once the soldiers return home from war, in the process of recreating a personal identity and developing new values, the soldiers have to address issues related to rejection and criticism from the non-appreciating society. Most soldiers struggle to acquire self-unity which results in mental health issues such as PSTD. The returning soldier requires social support, affection, and a positive welcome from the society so as to work through the war experiences while designing his sense of identity. Since they do not have the ability to share their war experiences with their relatives and close associates, this results in loneliness and separation and at times complete continued hatred of oneself (Hochgesang, Lawyer & Stevenson, 1999).

In addition, soldiers tend to react to the traumas of battles and these reactions are referred to as shell shock. These reactions can be caused by the intensity of the bombardment and long days of the war. Similarly, the consistent sounds of war are enough to haunt someone. Due to long periods in the battlefield, they may experience chronic stress, which may result in long term cardiovascular activation that results in hypertension and atherosclerotic growth (Pizarro, Silver, & Prause, 2006). Long term transitions in the structure and function of the stress regulatory systems may possibly result in mental health issues.

Soldiers tend to suffer from combat stress reaction with acute behavioral disorientation which is caused by the trauma of war. This is mostly related to shell shock and post-traumatic stress disorder since they have little difference. They all have the same symptoms and it's difficult to differentiate them. These psychological disorders are not very chronic but they still impact mental health negatively. If the person does not get medical assistance the condition may develop to a chronic disorder such as depression, insomnia, and many others. The soldiers with these condition tend to display horror in their eyes. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental disorder that can develop in a soldier that has been exposed to traumatic incidents during the war. The things that the soldiers do for their nation don't only take physical strength but they require to be mentally strong as well. They tend to sacrifice than they can imagine. These facts transform them in a way that no person wants to feel or see (Kumar, 2016).

Recommendations

First, I would recommend that the soldiers should use the three ethical lenses. This model will guide the soldiers on the course that represents the soldier's values positively. Applying the model in various ethical dilemmas that the soldiers face in the battlefield and evaluating the models against the dilemmas will enable them to make effective decisions. The course of action that needs to be taken should be evaluated based on three different approaches for ethical decision making. These approaches include: rules, consequences, and virtues. Based on the rule-based approach a soldier should act based on the agreed values and principles. The moral effect of an action does not depend on the impact which is thought from it that has to borrow its intention from the expected impact. Despite the impact of an action, the soldiers should behave as if the maxim of his/her action was to be a global law of nature.

Based on the consequences based ethics, the decisions made based on this are made on the possible results of the actions. Soldiers should always learn to choose decisions that increase security, happiness, pleasure, and dignity. How an action produces happiness is the immediate appeal of all ethical questions that are established on long term interests of man. When considering the ethical dilemmas of a soldier based on the consequences based ethics, considerations have to be put in place for the individuals who win or lose. Thus, they should never give up when fighting for their country since they are expected to do that which produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Thus, when fighting they should continue since this is for the security of the whole nation.

Base on the virtue-based ethics insists that a soldier should learn from other soldiers on how to be good and patriotic to his or her nation. This ethic insists that a person should learn from others instead of learning from your experience on that which is ethical. The nature of the virtues has to be implemented in a judicious way. When deciding on the course of actions to be undertaken, considerations have to be made for what a virtuous individual should undertake. The golden rule that is applied in this scenario is doing to others what you would want them to do to you. Thus, a soldier should protect his country as he would like the country to protect them (Kem, 2004).

Apart from the three ethical lenses, I would recommend that the soldiers who are about to go to war should be taken through the resiliency training. This is a training that offers one the skills that are required to adapt and adjust to traumatic war experience without being in need of long term and short term medication. Once they undergo this training, most of them return from war without any mental health and psychological issue. This training mainly results in increases sense of self-worth thus teaching resiliency skills is a valuable component aimed at preventing combat-related mental health issues.

The soldiers should as well undergo the stress inoculation training. It is a cognitive behavioral therapy that involves exposing a patient to a little quantity of stress in treatment or educational context. Through this, an individual develops the ability to get ready for any stressful event and heightened resilience. This strategy improves attitudinal inoculation with every exposure and triggers the coping ability that safeguards individuals in stressful contexts. Stress inoculation is carried out in three overlapping levels education; skills acquisition and consolidation and last application and follow through. The elements of stress inoculation training can assist service the participants to understand that stress is not abnormal instead one should make them see that is a way of coping with abnormal events. The normal coping strategies that should be taught include intrusive thoughts of denial, which are basically partitioned into small portions of stresses which makes them easy to solve. This training provides the participant with the ability to minimize the unintentional implementation of unproductive coping strategies. It as well provides one with the capability to use coping strategies for various stressful occasions. Therefore, stress inoculation training strategies can be used to handle several mental conditions (Callahan, 2010). Most types of mental health issues can be controls by this strategy for military and community use.

Conclusion

Combat and the effects of war is the major cause for our soldiers having mental and psychological problems today. There are increased cases of psychological and mental health disorders from soldiers who have been in the war, this condition has been triggered by some of the experiences from the battlefield. These experiences include: viewing dead bodies, killing civilians, engaging in hand to hand battles, being attacked, drug abuse, lack of privacy, being wounded and many others. These events make these soldiers be mentally disturbed which results in mental health disorders. However, this condition can be reduced if the soldiers implement the three ethical lenses. These ethical laws will ensure that they undertake the most effective course of action. Additionally, through this, the soldiers will have the ability to minimize the guilt that they feel when they kill an enemy. This is because they will understand that, this action was the best for most people and that it would help win the war. Additionally, the soldiers should as well undertake the stress inoculation training which will enable them to cope with the events that they will experience on the battlefield.

References

Callahan Daryl. (2010, September). Combat-Related Mental Health Disorders: The Case for Resiliency in the Long Way. The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 110, pp. 520-527