Moral Injury: The Invisible Epidemic Affecting American Veterans

On this episode of Our American Stories, Major General "Mook" Mukoyama volunteered and served in both Korea and Vietnam. In 1986, he became the youngest general in the U.S. Army at the time. Soon after, he was promoted to Major General and commanded the 70th Training Division during Desert Storm. Now retired, he devotes his time to serving our veterans.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Major General James Mukayama rose from his blue collar Chicago
neighborhood to become the first Asian American to command a
US Army division. General Mook, as he is well known,

(00:31):
is the author of Faith, Family, and Flag Memoirs of
an Unlikely American Samurai Crusader. Mukayama volunteered and served in
Korea and Vietnam. In nineteen eighty six, he became the
youngest general in the Army. Soon after, he was promoted
to major general, commanding the seventieth Training Division during Desert Storm. Retired,

(00:55):
now he spends his time serving our veterans.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
When I was in the make Gong Delta with the
Hardcore Battalion, an incident occurred where we had just overrun
an enemy position and we had killed numerous enemies, and
in fact, there were three dead bodies at my feet. Now,
the time of unit is most vulnerable is right after

(01:20):
a victory. It's just human nature to kind of let
your guard down and breathe a sigh of relief. Well,
I'm the guy in charge, so I'm on my radio,
barking out orders to my platoon leaders. And then suddenly
I stopped and I looked at the three dead bodies

(01:41):
at my feet. I realized that something had happened to me,
something had hardened my heart. Only moments earlier. These were alive,
human beings, children of God. They had families and loved ones,
and they were fighting for something as a important to
them as I was fighting for. And yet I was

(02:03):
just treating them like they were bumps on a log.
And then I remembered Jesus' Sermon on the Mount where
he told us to pray for our enemies. And so
in the midst of all this stuff going on, I
set a prayer for the three viet column and myself,
I knew I was praying for myself as well. Now,

(02:26):
this all took about thirty seconds in my mind, but
it's something that stuck with me ever since. So the
VA was not in good shape when we came back
from Vietnam, and so I founded a five oh one
c three faith based nonprofit called Military Outreach USA. And

(02:47):
we have two major programs. One is to help homeless
veterans and the other is to reduce the high rate
of suicide because we addressed a sub that is not
really that much known. Everybody knows about PTSD and everybody
knows about the effects of traumatic brain injury. Very few

(03:12):
people know of the concept of moral injury. Now. In
twenty and fifteen, we published a book about this and
the title of the book is they Don't Receive Purple Hearts,
and it's about the invisible wound of war, moral injury.

(03:33):
What is moral injury? From the time you're born until
you're eighteen years old, you develop a personal moral code,
a sense of right or wrong that could come from
your family, your religion, your community, whatever. And then you
join the military and you learn a warrior code that
is superimposed on your personal moral code and in fact

(03:57):
transforms it somewhat. And then you might have to participate
in activities or operations that violate your personal moral code,
such as killing. You don't have to be the person
that pulls the trigger. You could feel you should have
prevented it, or you could follow another unit and you

(04:20):
see that innocent civilians have been killed, or you handle
body parts. At that time, you sustain the so called
invisible wound of war called moral injury. It's not physical,
you can't see it. But in military operations, you're constantly
moving from point A to point B to point C.

(04:40):
You don't have time to stop and reflect on this stuff.
So what do you do. You bury it and it
becomes unmess all guilt and shain. Then you leave the military,
or you come back to the States and something triggers it.
And this could be decades later, you know, because when

(05:03):
you first come back, you kind of get on with life,
you know, if you're single, you get married and you know,
you have a family, you get a job, but then
later something triggers it and it bubbles up to the surface.
PTSD is a situation caused by external forces. With moral injury,

(05:24):
it's an internal situation where you basically feel that you
have participated in such bad things you're no longer worthy
of love, that God doesn't love you. In fact, you
get mad at God. That's okay, he can take it,
and you totally lose your sense of self worth. And

(05:47):
unless you have a strong coping mechanism for that, anger, depression, suicide.
And it's the position of Military Outreach USA that the
main approach for moral injury is not a medical doctor
with prescription drugs. It's the forgiveness and grace of a

(06:09):
moral authority, a loving God, the counseling of clergy and
or sensitive therapists, and the support of a community offering
hope and help. I've often asked myself why haven't I
had the flashbacks, the nightmares, And I always attributed it

(06:31):
to two things. Number one was my faith and number
two was my wonderful wife who has really forgiven me
and put up with me for fifty three years. But
after I started working with veterans and getting involved into
the invisible wounds of war, I realized that that incident

(06:55):
with the three Viet column I realized that I was
one in a million who is able to address my
moral injury at the time it happened.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
And what a story. Major General James Mukayama just told.
Moral injury is what he was talking about. Prescription drugs
won't take care of it. Medicine and doctors won't. It's forgiveness,
grace and mercy that will a beautiful story. Major General
James Mukayama. General Mook here on our American Stories. This

(07:29):
is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories. Every day
we set out to tell the stories of Americans past
and present, from small towns to big cities, and from
all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But we truly
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(07:51):
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