Speaker says gov't, media make virtual war sensible

Those who join the military are not told about the psychological and emotional trauma they will endure years after war. They aren't informed of all the repercussions of enrolling that will affect the lives of their families either, one university professor says.

University of Richmond students and faculty members from diverse fields attended the hour-long discussion -- "Managing Decent: Rhetoric and the Unruly Veteran of War" -- hosted in the Tyler Haynes Commons Think Tank on Feb. 6 by Paul Achter, assistant professor of Rhetoric and Communication Studies.

Achter presented his findings of how the government and media "make a virtual war sensible."

The government and media have disassociated war veterans, who have been left with prosthetics for the rest of their lives by war itself, he said.

The government and media, he said, present injured war veterans separately to the images of war that they would like the public to see. War veterans, left with prosthetics for the rest of their lives, are ironically disassociated from the very war that they fought for in the first place. The government, he said, suppressed images of veteran injuries that would shock the public, only allowing images to circulate that expressed veterans overcoming their injuries and moving on with their lives.

While technological and medical advancements have limited the number of deaths in war during the last decade he said, there are still many people who return home from wars facing psychological repercussions. The victims of emotional trauma, who may have returned with one less limb are, "victims of their institutions," he said.

Achter also discussed the ongoing tug of war between the dominant happy perceptions of war and the "domesticated or tamed" perceptions of veteran bodies. He said that political figures portray war as a positive experience by encouraging the circulation of advertisements and rhetoric that assert qualities of strength, power and mobility. Achter said that the sale of action and military figures of young men and women in combat was an example of this -- figures he said that enforce the social normative of the war

The veteran images were tainted, failing to show the psychological trauma that resulted from war wounds, including amputations. Instead, the images captured the, "ordinary essences" of war, such as the comradeship and friendships of veterans, he said.

For every death in Iraq, 16 soldiers are injured, with as many as 20 percent of veterans returning with some kind of psychological problem, he said.

Statistics should speak for themselves, he said, but political propaganda prevents shocking images from being taken -- whether it be caskets returning from Iraq or veterans who are left physically or emotionally injured by the war, fatcs that ultimately make war appear advantageous.

Contact reporter Dani Pycroft at dani.pycroft@richmond.edu