Narratives of Trauma and Moral Agency among Christian Post-9/11 Veterans

Suitt's research explores how religious resources and potentially traumatic events affect the lives of post-9/11 veterans who once or currently identified as Christian, altering their moral lives through military chaplains, ethics education, just war theory rhetoric, and formal religious practice.

Format: Hardback
Length: 270 pages
Publication date: 24 May 2023
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG

Serving in the military is a significant and often disruptive event in the lives of those who join, leading to a reassessment of their ethical sensibilities and potentially resulting in lasting moral injury and trauma. The military experience compels individuals to navigate multiple identities, from citizen to warrior and back, and can alter their religious identity, which may be rooted in a civilian religious community. Suitt's research explores how varied religious resources and potentially traumatic events affect the lives of post-9/11 veterans who once or currently identified as Christian. Through in-depth qualitative interviews, Suitt traces how military chaplains, ethics education, just war theory rhetoric, and formal religious practice supplied by the military alter the course of service members' moral lives. These narrative trajectories reveal how veterans use Christian faith or other systems of meaning-making to understand war and their identities as service members and veterans.

Dimension: 210 x 148 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783031310812
Edition number: 1st ed. 2023