Abstract
The adjustment and reintegration of military veterans following deployment has proven challenging since the wartime founding of the United States. Those challenges differ in their nature and intensity depending on social role. Veterans, family, support networks, and members of social institutions and society at large have very different experiences of, and perspectives on, deployment and its aftermath. This paper presents reasons the perspectives of veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom are frequently unvoiced or unheard as they reintegrate following deployment. These muted voices permit others to consolidate and condense veterans’ perspectives and interests on their behalf. Buber’s I-it relationship serves as a framework for exploring this process of discursively rendering veterans as non-agentive political objects, as when recent opponents of Syrian immigration invoked neglect of veterans’ resources to argue against providing assistance to refugees. The paper concludes with recommendations to counter the monologic nature of these rhetorical efforts and to enhance dialog with veterans.
Highlights
The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates approximately 40% of combat veterans returning from deployment for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF), “perceived some to extreme overall difficulty in readjusting to civilian life within the past 30 days” (Sayer et al, 2010, p. 593)
The purpose of this article is to explore why and how veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are objectified through cultural discourses and to offer recommendations for countering the process and restoring their subjectivity
Online retailer Amazon offers dozens of patriot-themed items on its Veterans Day page, where it declares, “We look forward to helping you celebrate the service of U.S military veterans”
Summary
Veterans unable to successfully transition to a civilian code of communication following deployment will suffer interpersonal loss, and identity loss. The cultural directive to “thank a veteran” is emblematic of a dominant social discourse, which idealizes veteran identities while marginalizing veterans’ individual voices. The purpose of this article is to explore why and how veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are objectified through cultural discourses and to offer recommendations for countering the process and restoring their subjectivity. To explain why veterans struggle to engage actively in interpersonal expression, the individual and relational barriers to post-deployment reintegration are considered, with muted group theory used to describe how society silences veterans. Recommendations are offered for cultivating an I-thou relationship between veterans and civilians
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