Navigating Moral Injury and the Search for Recognition: Dutch Peacekeeper Veterans Return to Lebanon

Abstract

Moral injury (MI) not only impacts individuals but also damages relations between individuals and their communities. While conventional interventions focus on individual healing, veterans organize return trips to former deployment areas to mend these damaged relations. Drawing on fieldwork with Dutch UNIFIL veterans in Lebanon and life story interviews, the study examines how these trips address the relational dimensions of MI and trauma more generally. It employs a theoretical framework synthesizing MI and recognition theories, including an interplay between MI and transformative versus affirmative recognition. The analysis reveals relational breaches at political, societal, and interpersonal levels, both in the Netherlands and Lebanon, which profoundly impact veterans' lives, and motivate them to undertake return trips to Lebanon to mend these breaches. The return trips exhibit a complex dynamic of affirmative and transformative recognition, as well as reification, with both potential for healing and counterproductive effects.

While mental suffering in military veterans has been predominantly examined as an individual trauma-related disorder, it has crucial moral and social aspects, with important implications for both how this suffering is experienced and how veterans attempt to heal (Molendijk, 2019). Today’s soldiers, as enforcers of the state’s monopoly on violence in complex conflict situations, grapple with a myriad of responsibilities, from upholding international law to safeguarding foreign citizens in high-stakes situations. This demanding role places immense responsibilities on them and may confront them with morally challenging situations (Wiinikka-Lydon, 2018). For instance, military personnel regularly encounter moral dilemmas where it is impossible to make a “right” choice (see e.g., Adams, 2020; Komarovskaya et al., 2011; Pollock & Becker, 2005; Rietveld, 2009; Schut & Moelker, 2015). Further complicating matter, these dilemmas are partly the result of political decisions and public demands, thereby subjecting soldiers’ discretionary choices to constant scrutiny and debate (Boon, 2020; Molendijk, 2019; Rietveld, 2010). Accordingly, veterans returning home may find themselves facing a lack of public understanding, and at times, outright vilification for their participation in war, while they themselves may feel betrayed by politics and society (Junger, 2017; Lifton, 1973; Sherman, 2015).

Thus, soldiers may develop what has been referred to as “Moral Injury” (MI), which is caused by “failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations” and “may be deleterious in the long-term, emotionally, psychologically, behaviorally, spiritually, and socially” (Litz et al., 2009, p. 697). The moral suffering one may experience following the violation of one’s moral values is characterized by profound feelings of guilt, shame, betrayal, and anger (Doehring, 2015; Farnsworth et al., 2017).

Despite the evident impact of context, and the recognized relational component of MI (Boudreau, 2011; Gilligan, 2014; Graham, 2017; Yandell, 2019), most studies on MI remain individual-focused and propose only individual treatment (see e.g., Bica, 1999; Farnsworth et al., 2017; Graham, 2017; Litz et al., 2009). These therapeutic approaches involve talking with a health care or spiritual professional within the confines of the individual therapeutic space, often excluding the contextual dimensions of partners, colleagues, and societal and political actors.

Meanwhile, veterans have been undertaking their own practices, which take place outside the office of the therapist as well as outside the military institution (Driessen, 2021; Hetebrij, 2017; Verkamp, 1988). One such initiative involves return trips to the places where they were once deployed, attempting to reconnect with local civilians and sometimes bringing their own families to make them part of a phase of their lives that is often left unspoken. Previous research on return trips has questioned and explored their potential for reconciliation and commemoration (Baines, 2020; Hobbs, 2021). However, it has yet to be explicitly examined how these trips relate to the relational aspect of veterans’ potential traumas and the trips’ success or failure in the relational healing process.

This article aims to answer: To what extent and in what ways do return trips address the relational dimension of trauma? To explore this, we draw on comprehensive fieldwork among Dutch veterans returning to Lebanon. Analytically, this helps us better understand how return trips may help or hinder healing relational breaches following MI and trauma more generally. It also adds to our understanding of the complexity of the psychosocial and political dimensions of such practices. Practically, this question is relevant given the growing number of initiatives outside the medical and psychological context. The Dutch Ministry of Defense funds some return trips, indicating increased interest in their potential benefits for veterans with (moral) trauma (Bijleveld-Schouten, 2021). However, there is limited knowledge about the effectiveness of return trips, and existing research presents mixed results (Baines, 2020; Driessen, 2021; Hobbs, 2021, 2023).

We start with our theoretical framework, which synthesizes theories related to MI and recognition, focusing on the relational dimension of MI and examining the interplay between MI and transformative versus affirmative recognition. Next, discuss our methods, including participant observation during a return trip with Dutch UNIFIL veterans to Lebanon and 15 in-depth life story interviews with veterans who participated in return trips to Lebanon in the past decade. Subsequently, we present our results, showing that return trips tend to alternate between affirmative and transformative recognition. While this is not inherently problematic, some forms of affirmative recognition significantly hinder transformative recognition by affirming damaged relations rather than healing them. Moreover, there are risks of reification, and thus misrecognition, which can have particularly damaging effects.

Theorical Framework

The theoretical framework consists of three elements to understand veteran return trips: the nature of the healing veterans seek and the dynamics influencing this process. To systematically explore the moral and social aspects of both veterans’ suffering and the return trips (which typically remain implicit), this section develops a theoretical framework that integrates theories on MI, its relational dimensions, and the multifaceted role of recognition therein. Through the concept of recognition, this framework bridges the gap between clinical psychological perspectives, which approach return trips in terms of therapy, and social science perspectives, which would approach return trips in terms of restorative justice.

Moral Injury: Beyond the Individual

MI is defined as “perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations,” which has “lasting psychological, biological, spiritual, behavioral, and social impact” (Litz et al., 2009). The impact of MI is profound and marked by feelings of guilt, shame, and anger (Doehring, 2015, p. 636).

MI never occurs in a vacuum, but is always embedded in a broader social, political, and societal context: as deeply held moral beliefs and expectations are fundamentally shared and co-created in connection, morally injurious situations not only affect an individual’s relationship with themselves but also have repercussions within their social environments (Lifton, 1973; Shay, 1995). For military veterans, specifically, political decisions and societal narratives surrounding deployments are inextricably linked to both the occurrence of MI and the challenges veterans face in healing post-MI (Molendijk, 2018).

Thus, MI is a relational injury that extends beyond the individual into the community. The “moral wound” from (having to) betray one’s moral values is grounded in the interaction with one’s surroundings, causing a changed social relation between the person and the moral community, as it also implicates the society in which moral questions on violence and war are posed (Boudreau, 2011; Graham, 2017; Yandell, 2019). Meanwhile, the feeling of guilt, shame, and anger can further deepen the breach with a person’s communities as they tend to isolate people and “cut them off from social and spiritual support” (Doehring, 2015, p. 636).

Mis/Recognition

Recognition plays a critical role in understanding the relational dimension and consequences of MI. To maintain a healthy sense of worth, self-esteem, and identity, recognition is vital, and conversely, experiencing misrecognition can “inflict a grievous wound, saddling its victim with a crippling self-hatred” making recognition “not just a courtesy but vital human need” (Taylor, 1994). Further, recognition is crucial for signifying moral relationships within a community, and its absence or deliberate withholding can severely damage these relationships (Honneth, 1997). As Molendijk (2018) argues, “societal misrecognition—being morally harmful—may directly and indirectly contribute to moral injury” (p. 314). Reification is a particularly harmful case of misrecognition. As reinterpreted by Honneth from Lukács’ concept (Lukács, 1971), reification occurs when social relationships are instrumentalized and humans are treated as objects, thereby stripping them of intrinsic value (Honneth, 2008).

Conversely, recognition can foster healing from moral damage (Shay, 2014). By rebuilding connections with family, community, and friends, as well as with society at large, the relational aspect of MI can be healed, and the “basic capacities for trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity and intimacy” can be regained (Herman, 2002, p. 134). However, seeking recognition is a delicate process, with the potential for both healing or further moral damage, thus requiring courage from the seeker and responsible responsiveness from those asked (Das, 1996).

A useful framework for understanding recognition dynamics involves a distinction between affirmative and transformative (Fraser, 1995). Affirmative recognition not only alters surface-level outcomes but simultaneously reinforces the underlying power structures that initiated the dynamic. Moreover, it often oversimplifies identities, thus leaving little space for multipositionality. An example of affirmative recognition is reinforcing a person’s patient status. While there are certain benefits to such a status, these benefits ultimately hinder recovery. This paradox has been referred to as “secondary gain” (Fishbain et al., 1995). In the case of trauma, which is often coupled with the loss of previous identity, prolonged and excessive focus and recognition of one’s patient status pose a specific risk, potentially trapping a person in “a vicious cycle of victimhood and helplessness” (Molendijk, 2019, p. 137). In the worst case, when a continued search for affirmative recognition is repeatably denied, it can lead to “a Sisyphean struggle for recognition which worsens feelings of misrecognition, a dynamic which ultimately can be characterized as morally injurious in itself” (Gilhuis et al., 2024).

Transformative recognition, in contrast, changes underlying structures, offering deeper transformation. As such, however, it is very challenging to achieve, and often leaves people’s immediate needs unmet, such as the need for recognition as victims of trauma (Fraser, 1995). Therefore, Fraser advocates for a “non-reformist” approach, which involves simultaneously addressing some needs for affirmative recognition within the existing framework while actively deconstructing and restructuring the unjust systems that perpetuate harm (Fraser, 1995).

As will become evident, veterans’ return trips often represent a quest for recognition, though this journey is marked by complex and sometimes counterproductive dynamics.

Return Trips

Veterans have been going on return trips since the 19th century (Gatewood & Cameron, 2004). The focus and aims of these trips are diverse and dynamic. Hobbs (2023), for instance, shows how the narrative of U.S. veterans returning to Vietnam changed in the context of broader societal and political discussions on war and trauma. Initially, returnees were driven by antiwar sentiments. They aimed to heal by restoring US-inflicted harm and fostering reconciliation with local communities. As therapy culture grew, subsequent trips became therapeutic exercises, resulting in a “depoliticized narrative of healing,” privileging individual healing journey over relational accountability and restitution, circumventing moral responsibility and emphasizing veteran victimhood (Hobbs, 2023, p. 82).

Moreover, Baines (2020) shows that return trips can risk glorifying war experiences. These trips may be framed as exercises in reconciliation, celebrating camaraderie among former enemies, while feelings of guilt and culpability are left unaddressed and true reconciliation is not achieved. (p. 7). Driessen et al. (2024), similarly, argue that while return trips hold the potential for recognition and relationship renewal, they often reinforce rather than challenge dominant perspectives. Hetebrij (2021) takes a more optimistic view, describing the rituals of commemoration in Srebrenica as opportunities for veterans to reflect. At the same time, he acknowledges that these events can be a catalyst for emotions of guilt, shame, fear, and anger.

So, the design and subjective experience of return trips are inherently shaped by broader social and political factors, such as diplomatic relations and trauma narratives. However, the implications for healing are still unclear. The literature remains ambivalent about the therapeutic benefits of return trips and their potential to aid reconciliation processes.

Method

This article is based on a case study of return trips to Lebanon by Dutch Lebanon veterans. Before detailing the methods of the case study, some background information of the case might be helpful.

Between 1979 and 1985, Dutch soldiers and conscripts were sent to Lebanon as part of the international peacekeeping operation UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon). In Lebanon, the young conscripts were confronted with complex and dangerous situations, while back in the Netherlands, many veterans experienced difficulties reintegrating into a society that knew little of the situation in Lebanon. Most veterans felt like they could not share their stories, and some of the veterans developed trauma-related difficulties in the years that followed (Mouthaan et al., 2005). Meanwhile, there was little psychological aftercare from the Dutch military (Mouthaan et al., 2005; van den Doel, 2022). By the time the mental health questionnaires came in the mail, many veterans did not want to participate anymore. Decades later, some veterans started organizing return trips to Lebanon, and in general, the phenomenon of return trips began to gain traction also among Bosnia veterans (Hetebrij, 2019). The Dutch military started to consider that return trips might be a valuable aspect of aftercare and started funding some of the trips with the thought that these trips helped veterans process their trauma, while also giving them the recognition that they yearned for (Ministry of Defense, 2021).

The fieldwork for this case study was conducted with the objective to explore the stories and experiences of veterans. She combined participant observation in one return trip spanning 10 days and 15 life story interviews with veterans who have participated in return trips to Lebanon within the last decade. The combination of participant observation and life story interviews was chosen to provide a nuanced understanding of both the consistency and contradictions in participants’ narratives and actions (Gauntlett, 2008; Ryan, 1970). This made it possible to gain an understanding of how participants viewed themselves within these practices, their relation with the community, and their perspective on issues of recognition.

The interviewed veterans were found through the network of the veterans that organize the return trip, as well as snowball sampling (Penrod et al., 2003). The life story interviews focused on the veterans’ experience during deployment preparation, the deployment itself, their return to the Netherlands, their motivations for undertaking return trips, and their experiences during the return trips. The interviews were preceded by an informed consent procedure. ¹

The participant observation of a return trip involved joining a group of nine veterans, with five accompanied by their spouses and one by his sons, during a return trip to Lebanon. Before joining, I introduced myself and explained the research and the participant observation process, which involved actively engaging in group activities while predominantly observing. Most time was spent in the South of Lebanon visiting the posts of the veterans, traveling by bus, which allowed the writing of field notes and chatting with the veterans and their families. The daily activities always ended with a shared dinner in the hotel, after which there was time to talk about the day in the “bunker,” a room that was specially reserved for the group where smoking and drinking were allowed.

Grounded theory methodology guided the research process, emphasizing an iterative approach between theory and observations, allowing for an integration of deductive and inductive elements in data collection and analysis (Charmaz, 2000; Glaser & Strauss, 2012; Straus & Corbin, 1998). The interviews and fieldwork notes were transcribed, coded, and analyzed. Throughout both the coding process and the fieldwork, there was an ongoing reflection on how the researcher’s positionality and moral emotions influenced both the data collection and analysis (Gilhuis & Molendijk, 2022). The initial codes were guided by both the theoretical framework and exploratory conversations (Charmaz, 2000). Once the fieldwork was done, the concepts were fine-tuned and made more precise by iterating between theory and data (Glaser & Strauss, 2012). The process of iteration continued to the point of saturation (Beuving & de Vries, 2014).

Results

From the data, four recurring themes emerged, compromising relational breaches on political, societal, and interpersonal levels in the Netherlands, as well as with the local population in Lebanon, respectively. These breaches continue to impact most veterans’ lives, and motivated them to undertake return trips to Lebanon in an attempt to mend these breaches. The results section has two parts: the first discusses how these breaches manifested during and after deployment, and the second shows how veterans attempted to mend them during the return trip.

Political Breach: Under What Pretenses Was I Sent to Lebanon?

All veterans spoke about the inadequate preparation for their deployment, both in terms of training and materials. Also, they expressed discrepancies between the Ministry of Defense’s description of the deployment to Lebanon and the reality on the ground. One veteran talked about the expectations that the recruitment video created.

It had this vacation like music, and it was all sunshine, beaches, and surfing. I think a lot of guys responded to that video. It was all fun and games, but it was far from the reality, and I think many, not all, but many guys had a lot of problems after. They went in there because of the pretty image, the nice music and that video . . .

The reality was starkly different. Another veteran recounted his experience where his unit was required to join the force mobile reserve due to escalating conflicts in the UNIFIL area. He described how their mortar platoon, with its “big mortars,,” was chosen for these situations because they were “quite intimidating,” He expressed his discomfort with the aggressive actions of some allied forces, who were “much rougher in their military actions.”

While the mission in Lebanon had been presented as a peacebuilding mission, many veterans left Lebanon with the feeling that they were “used as a walking target,” and “completely unable to actually help or protect the local population.”

Societal Breach: Do I Still Belong Here?

In addition to this sense of organizational and political deceit, the Lebanon mission created estrangement toward Dutch society at large. Many veterans had trouble adapting to the circumstances in the Netherlands when they came back. This partly had to do with the societal narrative as portrayed in the recruitment video on the Lebanon deployment, one veteran said: “Everyone thought we had been on vacation.” While their families and peers still saw and treated them as the teenagers they were when they left, the veterans saw themselves and felt distinctly different. One veteran explained:

There were many small things that I couldn’t do anymore. In Lebanon we were walking patrols, when we were being shot at we had to make a plan and deal with it. When you come back home, everything is strange. I was driving on the wrong side of the road, I was driving on the emergency lane and the verge along the road to avoid mines, because in Lebanon I was driving the way that I saw fit. When I came back there were so many little rules that I had to adhere to all of the sudden, which was very difficult for me.

The unease between the veterans and society also took on more serious forms in some cases. One veteran explained that he got fired from his job as a mechanic when he came back from deployment, his boss told him “we don’t want those mentally unstable weirdos from Lebanon.” Another veteran explained that he tried to work for another branch of the military upon coming back, but was told that “You don’t seriously think that we want those Lebanon weirdos back?”

Interpersonal Breach: Did I Lose Myself to War?

Next to the challenge of reintegrating into society, many veterans had experiences in Lebanon they could not explain to friends and family, leading to a sense of distance and misunderstanding. One veteran related about an encounter during his deployment:

When toddlers were sitting on my lap I thought, what a shame. By the time that they are ten, there is already so much vengeance in some of them. I knew one of them really well, he was shooting something and I called him to ask what he was doing. He had nailed a dead bird with spread wings to a wooden board, and he was shooting it until there was nothing left. He was crying, and said: “Later, when I am just as big as you are, I am going to kill them all.” That was it. I am going to kill them all.

Experiences like these, veterans-related, are hard to explain to friends and family, but they can influence their response to situations in impactful ways. As another veteran explained:

I also almost lunged at my son, luckily my girlfriend was there to pull my arm. I just got startled, the little one, he was just playing cowboy. We were at a shooting range and he pointed his gun to me and said “bang bang.” My heart was in my throat, I could have kicked him in that moment. That is the instant reaction that you have. Those are the things that I am encountering, that happened to me there. From zero till hundred. Sometimes it still scares me.

Breach Local Population: Did It Matter That We Went?

Fourth, the veterans struggled with the uncertainty of not knowing what ultimately happened to the local population they connected with during their deployment. This uncertainty reinforced questions about whether they did enough to protect them, in some cases leading to feelings of guilt and shame. One veteran said:

The reason that I want to go back is to see if we have been able to help the people there at all, I think about that a lot, because that something you never hear.

Thus, veterans wanted to return to Lebanon to temporarily get away from the societal misunderstanding of their mission, and instead reestablish the connections they felt with other veterans during their deployment. They wanted to introduce Lebanon to their families and try to explain the experiences encountered during their deployment. Also, they aimed to reconnect with the local population. Furthermore, they sought to experience the support and care they missed during their deployment through what can be termed a ritual expression, including a proper beginning and “closure” to the trip.

Mending the Breach: Affirming or Transforming Relations?

The previous section discussed the various “breaches” experienced by veterans both during and after their deployment, revealing their enduring impact and showing how a return trip to Lebanon with their families was an effort to reconcile these breaches. The following section draws from the interviews and fieldwork conducted during this return trip and delves into the veterans’ attempts to “reconnect” on the four aforementioned levels (political, societal, social, and local population). It explores when and why these attempts are successful in transforming and healing these relationships, while also considering when and why these attempts fail to “work” and instead confirm the injurious status quo.

Political: Emancipation Versus Co-optation

Regarding the political level, these trips emerged as a form of emancipation from the military as veterans organized them independently. At the same time, there was the threat of military co-optation that undermined these emancipatory effects.

Emancipatory

The return trip is organized by veterans, and for veterans. Veterans organize the return trips independently through the foundation “Weerzien met Libanon” (We Meet Again Lebanon), a group founded by a few veterans nearly two decades ago. The foundation has sought steady subsidies from the Ministry of Defense to fund these trips, leading to a complex relationship marked by volatile negotiations over autonomy and dependence. Accepting subsidies would involve military involvement in trip planning and reporting, described in interviews as tense, leaving foundation members feeling unappreciated and overlooked in their efforts. One veteran explains what happened when the military was involved in organizing a reunion after the trip:

During one of the reunions it was organized in one of the military facilities for veterans. Some of guys just arrived, and immediately decided to leave when they saw the bedrooms. In the entire length of the room there were red ropes that could be used to get help when in distress. This was not wat most veterans were looking for at all. There was so much forced reflection, we had to make a collage, most people were not into it at all.

Such experiences underscored a clash between veterans’ desire for meaningful, informal gatherings and the institutional, even clinical settings imposed by military involvement in the organization.

Maintaining independence while ensuring financial stability was a recurring concern among board members. Operating autonomously allowed veterans to take pride in organizing trips aligned with their values and priorities, offering meaningful experiences for their peers, and maintaining control over the trip’s purpose and format. Thus, the veterans cherish their autonomy.

Co-optation

An important moment in Lebanon was the remembrance of fallen Dutch UNIFIL veterans and those who struggled upon returning to Dutch society, held next to the UNFIL monument in Tire. Below is a shortened fragment of the field notes:

The night before the remembrance, a Dutch military attaché delegation visited our hotel to finalize details. As we finished dinner, the board of our foundation was conspicuously absent. After dinner, we gathered outside in a large circle with the veterans and the delegation. The board arrived late, making the delegation wait. The head of the delegation then briefed us on the remembrance, but mispronounced some names, causing irritation. Also, he announced an unexpected Dutch UNFIL veteran would speak, along with mentioning food to prevent us from starving before the ceremony. After a long silence, one of the veterans who organized the trip asked exasperatedly why we hadn’t been consulted about attendees.

Later, the veteran organizing the trip would relate:

The military is constantly taking over parts of the trip . . . I think they want to have a finger in every pie, they want to regulate these trips, with money money money . . .

Over the years, the board has sensed that the delegation has “co-opted” the remembrance, transforming it into a symbolic gesture of their care for veterans. They have assumed control of the ceremony planning, leaving veterans feeling like mere accessories rather than the reason that there is a remembrance in the first place.

Societal: Redeployment Versus Transformative Journey

Regarding the societal breach veterans experienced, it became clear that the veterans inadvertently reinforced a military/society breach, while also trying to heal it in some ways. Specifically, the trip turned out to serve as both a revisiting of the veterans’ original deployment and an effort to reshape their Lebanese experience, among other things by incorporating elements of care that were lacking during their initial deployment.

Redeployment

The trip mirrored their initial deployment in several ways. For instance:

The planning was strict and focused on time, every small detail was planned and communicated. During the trip we were all expected to wear the same blue T-shirt, our “uniform,” and everyone was expected to participate in all expeditions of the trip; which was referred to as “leaving no man behind.” Next to the strict planning, uniforms and “militarized language,” the within group hierarchy between the veterans also resembled the hierarchy of their initial deployment.

Further:

Distinctions in rank among the veterans quickly became apparent, influencing how seriously individuals were taken. Higher-ranked veterans assumed familiar leadership roles, leading salutes at official ceremonies and dominating discussions in our “bunker.” They also occasionally corrected lower-ranked veterans when they felt their stories about the deployment did not accurately reflect reality.

Thus, the trip had elements of redeployment, strongly mimicking their initial deployment.

Transformative Journey

There were also moments that contrasted with the veterans’ deployment, providing new experiences they had missed initially. One such moment was the farewell ritual at the airport and their reception back in the Netherlands. In interviews, almost all veterans expressed how they had miss a formal goodbye from the military leading up to their deployment, as well as a welcome ritual. Instead, they had received a brief speech urging them not to speak too much about their experiences. One veteran described their return as follows:

When we were at the airport we had to salute one last time, and there was one of these guys with a tie and a big mustache that said some words, and he ended with: ‘And we don’t have to talk about it anymore.’ I believe we did get a train ticket to make it home. It was just over and done, everyone home and let’s get it over with.

Years after their return home from deployment, veterans had received mental health questionnaires by mail, which many had found belated and disrespectful, discarding them without completion. Yet, during this return trip, gestures of care that had been lacking were reintroduced.

At departure, veterans had a dedicated room at the airport where a BNMO official emphasized the trip’s significance and increasing political awareness of mental health issues related to deployment. The airport chaplain engaged veterans during luggage check-in about their feelings. Upon their return at Schiphol, a board member not on the trip welcomed them back. A post-trip day allowed veterans to reunite, share photos, and reflect. During the trip, veterans reconnected with locals from their deployment, sharing photos and memories. On the trip’s final day, veterans presented their partners with a brooch as a symbol of appreciation for their support, particularly significant for partners of veterans with PTSD.

An important theme during these interactions is that the veterans leave feeling their presence in Lebanon mattered and had been seen, and that their families by experiencing this trip with them became part of a time in their life which most of them have experienced as formative for their current identity.

Local Population: Connecting Versus Instrumentalizing

In relation to the local population, there were moments of genuine connection and reciprocity, but also instances where the local population was instrumentalized for the veteran’s interest.

Connecting

Many veterans went to Lebanon with the wish to reconnect with specific people that they met during their deployment. Many members of the local population always stayed in their minds, and they often wondered (anxiously) what had happened to them, most veterans brought photos from their deployment that they wanted to share.

One of the veterans who was travelling with his sons brought a small cross to Lebanon, with the intention to give it to one of the women who did the laundry for the veterans during the deployment. The veteran explained that this cross had special meaning to him, as had been was gifted to him by a friend as protection during his deployment with UNIFIL. During one of the patrols he had lost the cross, which made him nervous. The day after, he had picked up his laundry, and found a small, but different cross between his clothes. He did not ask the woman if she put the cross there, as relationships with the local women were a sensitive topic, as well as religion, but he always suspected that she gave him this cross. With the help of local contacts the family of the woman was found, and the veteran and his sons spent the evening and had dinner with the family. Unfortunately the woman was not in Lebanon, but she joined the gathering on Facetime, and the veteran left the cross with the woman’s family.

For most of the veterans, contact with the local population and reconnecting with the people they met during their deployment is very important. One veteran explains:

I thought about it a lot, the people that life there . . . they have experienced what we experienced. They will also have problems, but they are there, and they stay there, and they talk with each other. We went there with each other, and when were transported back to the Netherlands, we were separated, and no one understands you there. But when I am in Lebanon and I say “remember when . . ..this and that happened?” They all say, “yes we know.” They completely understand. When you have been there and you come back to the Netherlands, there is no one who understands.

Instrumentalizing

In addition to efforts aimed at reciprocity, there were instances in which veterans engaged in more transactional behaviors. In these instances, their sense of connectedness with Lebanon took the form of taking rather than giving back. During the trip, we visited the posts where the veterans were stationed during their deployment. Most posts turned into abandoned buildings without windows and broken walls, piles of stones, and in some cases, people were living in the old posts.

One day we arrived at a post that was now inhabited by Syrian refugees.

The bus stopped near the building and the group walked towards it, drawing the attention from the inhabitants who walked out to see what was happening. We walked to the inhabitants explaining with the help of the photographer who translated, why we were there. After some time one of the veterans joined the group, enthusiastically stating that he went into the house after he told the inhabitants that this was his old post, and that he took photos from the roof of the house from the surroundings. He later said that this was not his old post, and that he only said it to make it easier to enter the house to take the photos, even though we were specifically asked not to photograph in that specific direction due to sensitivities with Hezbollah presence in that area. On another occasion a veteran also entered a house of members of the local population after asking if he could enter, which started a discussion when other group members tried to explain that saying “no” can be difficult due to cultural differences, meaning that the Dutch directness and logic of “I will just ask and if they do not want it they will say no” does not apply.

Interpersonal: Destigmatization Versus Zero-Sum Understanding of Recognition

Recognition and destigmatization of trauma were pivotal aspects of the prelude to the Lebanon journey. However, as such, the trip also risked over-focusing on trauma, leading to resistance and a zero-sum recognition dynamic within the group.

Destigmatization

During the trip, there were several moments where it was emphasized that the deployment to Lebanon has been experienced as damaging to some veterans, and that not all veterans have been able to continue their civilian lives upon arrival back in the Netherlands.

Before departing from the airport there was a speech by a BNMO member, who emphasized the importance of the trip, and mentioned that not everyone managed to continue their civilian lives after coming back from deployment. The veterans were accompanied by a chaplain during the trip, who was available at all times for conversations and who also helped the veterans to organize rituals around remembrance if they wished to. During the remembrance ceremony on May 4^th not only the veterans who died during deployment were remembered, but also the veterans who committed suicide in the wake of deployment, and the veterans (and their families) who are fighting mental health problems till this day.

The integration of trauma as a possibility in the conversations made it easier for veterans to speak about difficult encounters and normalized the idea that for some veterans the experiences in Lebanon still affect them till this day.

Zero Sum

Before our departure from the airport in the Netherlands, everyone in the group received a lanyard with sunflowers with a card with their personal information attached to it. The sunflowers are a symbol for people with invisible disabilities, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention deficit hypertension disorder (ADHD), or autism, signifying that they might need special care or extra time. The lanyard does not give access to special privileges over other passengers, but is mostly to foster “understanding and recognition.” The responses about the lanyard were mixed, some veterans really appreciated the gesture, while others were a bit on the fence; “why do I have to wear a lanyard if I don’t have a disability at all?.” Within the group several conversations occurred around the discussion who “gets” to call themselves traumatized. During one night in “the bunker” when the veterans were sharing their deployment experiences a discussion started about who had access to good and fresh food during their deployment, and who had to eat out of cans for months, but also about who had experienced “real” danger, and who had the “boring deployment” experience. The discussion turned a bit tense when it became a “contest” of “who had it worse,” and about who “had the right” to still be affected by these experiences today. The discussion did not turn hostile toward the specific veterans in the group, but remained on the level of ‘I know this veteran who says he has PTSD, but I know for sure that he experienced nothing during his deployment . . . he can’t have PTSD.’ Some veterans in the group got very quiet.

Analysis

The previous section showed that on all four levels—political, interpersonal, societal, and with the local population—veterans engage in attempts to mend the breaches at each level. Further, they reveal a tension at each level between transformative and affirmative recognition.

On the political level, this tension manifests itself as a contradiction between emancipation from the military, and co-optation by the military. The way in which parts of the trip are organized has the potential to foster a emancipatory dynamic. According to the veterans, the Dutch military has failed them in organizing a proper preparation for the deployment, as well as aftercare (Visser, 2014). Precisely the lack of aftercare and recognition for their sometimes troubling experience is what veterans are now organizing for themselves, by themselves, in a way reclaiming agency and forgoing the process of waiting for the aftercare to still come. Part of the experience of the veterans that the trip has “healing” properties might be precisely because the trip is explicitly not organized by the military, but by veterans themselves, going back and remembering on their own terms. A new pattern in which the military and veterans relate to each other is created, leaving room for reinterpretation of existing identities (Fraser, 1995). Furthermore, the familiar dynamic of requesting and expecting care and recognition, not being satisfied or feeling further disrespected in being denied this recognition is bypassed, hereby stepping out of the Sisyphean relation with the military which is suggested to be harmful in the long term (Gilhuis et al., 2024).

On the contrary, there were also affirmative elements in the relation with the military, for instance when the military seeks to take on a bigger role in organizing these trips, offering bigger financial assistance and logistical help, but in turn, also expecting to have a bigger say in the trip. Next to causing frustration among veterans, this created a dynamic where the veterans are more dependent on the military for creating these trips, in a way that repeats the initial relation veterans had with the military during their first deployment. While the surface-level outcome of financial and logistical assistance of the military in itself is experienced as a form of recognition, it seems to be recognition that affirms existing ways of relating to the military, thereby possibly hindering the latter process of emancipation (Fraser, 1995). Furthermore, some veterans felt like they were reified by the military, for instance during the remembrance ceremony where they felt like the military was using the veterans to flaunt how well they were helping them (Lukács, 1971). Hence, rather than genuine recognition, the social relation between the military and the veterans was instrumentalized by the military, stripping the initial gesture of recognition from its potential value (Honneth, 2008).

On the societal level, the contradiction between affirmation and transformation shows as the alternation between elements of redeployment, versus a “new trip.” On the contrary, the deployment of the veterans is being redone in a way in which rituals and recognition are added which they missed during their initial deployment, allowing the veterans to transform and reinterpret their sometimes negative experiences of the trip, hereby also receiving recognition from family, transforming the memory and its meaning (Driessen, 2021; Hobbs, 2023). This is vital because recognition and rebuilding connections help to heal the relational breach in the wake of MI, as not only the individual, but also the moral community are implicated (Boudreau, 2011; Graham, 2017; Shay, 1995; Yandell, 2019). At the same time, there are strong elements of redeployment, where the within-group relations such as hierarchy and social status of their initial deployment are being affirmed and repeated (Baines, 2020; Driessen et al., 2024; Hobbs, 2021). This could stand in the way of reinterpreting and transforming relationships (Fraser, 1995).

In relation to the local population, there is a tension between connecting with the local population, while in other instances instrumentalizing them in the pursuit of healing (Baines, 2020; Hobbs, 2021). There were many moments where the interaction between the veterans and the local population held space for both their wishes. During the many conversations (part of) the hierarchy that was present during deployment disappeared in the contact, making it easier to connect and to for instance laugh about how old both the veterans and the local population have gotten old compared to the pictures many of the veterans brought with them, as well as to share memories of the period where both the veterans the local population have experienced loss. These interactions aid the process of bridging the relational gap (Hetebrij, 2021).

On other moments, there was an affirmation of the relationship between veterans and the local population, in that the return trip resembles the relation between the veterans and the local population during their deployment when there was an (implicit) hierarchy between the veterans and the local population. This takes on different forms, which have in common that the veterans are in some interactions primarily focused on what they can “get” from the trip, instead of wondering in what ways their presence might be perceived by the local population, thereby both privileging their individual healing journey and (subconsciously) reifying the local population (Hobbs, 2023; Honneth, 2008; Lukács, 1971).

On the within-group interpersonal level, there is a contradictory dynamic of simultaneous affirmative as well as transformative recognition, which manifested itself as de-stigmatization versus a zero-sum understanding of recognition for trauma. On one hand, there is a transformation of their view of mental health issues in the wake of deployment, making space for the possibility that some veterans are still affected by the experiences during their deployment, especially making space for the idea that different experiences can cause trauma, and that not only life-threatening experiences give the “right” to experience problems, and thereby access to care (Molendijk, 2019). On the other hand, there is the dynamic of affirmatively recognizing veterans as individual with trauma and an identity as an individual in need of help. This carries the risk of secondary gain, which could paradoxically hinder the healing process. (Fishbain et al., 1995; Molendijk, 2019). Furthermore, the emphasis and more rigid view on mental health issues in the wake of deployment seems to foster a within-group dynamic of comparison and a zero-sum view of trauma, where the recognition of one veteran’s PTSD, “takes away” from the value of the recognition that another veteran might get. Hence, there is an emphasis on who “has the right” to be traumatized, and therefore “deserves” recognition.

Conclusion and Discussion

This article has attempted to bridge the gap between a clinical psychological approach of return trips as an individual process with the possibility of aiding healing in the wake of trauma, and a social sciences approach where return trips might be seen as a political process of restorative justice. This article’s vantage point was that MI is a relational injury, which creates breaches between individual and community. While most interventions focus on the individual, psychological aspect, initiatives such as return trips seem to address relational components by attempting to mend breached relations. Drawing from the literature on MI and recognition, as well as interviews and fieldwork, this article has specified four different areas in which the veterans have experienced a breach with community post deployment, namely: estrangement from friends and family in the Netherlands, sense of betrayal politically, sense of guilt toward local population in Lebanon, and stigmatization among peers.

During the return trips, there unfolds a contradictory dynamic on the axes of these four breaches between affirmative and transformative recognition. In relation to the local population, there are instances where a new type of equal contact is (re)established, while there were also moments where the local population was “instrumentalized” for the veteran’s experience, which points toward a repetition and affirmation of existing relations, rather than transformation. In relation among peers, there is on one hand de-stigmatization and recognition of mental health issues, while there is also comparison among veteran’s respective diagnosis, leading to a zero-sum understanding of who “get’s” to call themselves traumatized. In relation with the military, there is an interchange between emancipatory independence from the military and co-optation of the initiative by the military. In relation to the societal dimension, there is an affirmative mimic of the initial deployment, while there are also elements that point toward redoing the trip in a way that fosters connection with friends and family.

Hence, it seems that the return trip has a double logic with regard to recognition, being both transformative and affirmative. This duality is not inherently problematic, as most issues require both affirmative and transformative recognition and benefit from a nonreformist approach where both surface level outcomes and restructuring of identities and relations are alternated (Fraser, 1995). However, in some cases, affirmative recognition seems to be irreconcilable with, and thus hindering transformative recognition, by affirming damaged relations rather than transforming/healing them.

There are two particular dynamics that could be counterproductive. First, there can be reification, which involves superficial, ostensible recognition that fails to be genuine, treating local populations or veterans as mere resources or instruments for imposed healing. Such misrecognition is inherently destined to fail in achieving its aim of genuine healing.

Second, there is counterproductive affirmative recognition. This involves well-intentioned recognition that, while genuine, impedes transformation by reinforcing veterans’ sense of victimhood and patient status without adequately addressing the needs of the local population, thereby hindering both individual healing and the restoration of social relationships. This risk seems to be particularly pronounced when the armed forces co-opt return trips as a therapeutic intervention for their veterans. Despite being well-intentioned and commendable, this approach may exacerbate issues of instrumentalizing veterans and counterproductive affirmative recognition, fostering secondary gain and perpetuating dependency dynamics between veterans and their organizations.

These findings highlight practical implications, particularly in preventing deployment and postdeployment challenges. Forgoing unrealistic recruitment tools could help manage expectations, reducing feelings of powerlessness in conflict zones and difficulties in engaging with local populations. The defense sector should focus on three key risks in peace missions and the engagement with return trips that follow: managing expectations, understanding the psychological impact of these return trips, and ensuring that their institutionalization does not undermine their emancipatory purpose. By implementing effective mitigation strategies in these areas, risks can be reduced and the relational healing potential of return trips can be enhanced.

To better understand the relational damage caused by MI and the role of contextual factors, future research should focus on systematically comparing return experiences after voluntary versus conscripted service, across different types of missions, and in relation to varying public perceptions—both domestically and locally. Exploring how these factors influence the prevalence of MI and the effectiveness of healing strategies would provide valuable insights for both preventing and treating MI.

To conclude, while return trips offer significant opportunities for addressing the relational dimension of MI, careful consideration must be given to ensuring that these trips facilitate genuine recognition and transformation to avoid reinforcing detrimental patterns.