I’m doing a bit of research for a colleague I met at Synod this last week. He’s interested in making some connections between faith and community among Australian veterans of the wars in Vietnam and Borneo.
First port of call was Bill Mahedy, author of “Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Veterans”. Originally published in 1997, it was republished with a foreword for the Iraq war by a small publishing house, Radix Press.
On his own site, “Out of the Night” Bill has published an article, “Spiritual Recovery for Combat Veterans: The Spiritual Boot Camp”. It’s in the form of twelve steps of spiritual recovery from combat related stress and is the first page of a 28-page booklet of exercies and reflections.
Bill also recommends:
Delores Kuenning, “Life After Vietnam: How Veterans and their Loved Ones Heal Psychological Wounds of War“, Marlowe & Paragon, 1991.
Jonathan Shay, “Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character“, Scribner, 1995 and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming, Scribner, 2003
Uwe Siemon-Netto, “The Acquittal of God: A Theology for Vietnam Veterans“, Pilgrim Press, 1990
Bill’s Twelve Steps to Spiritual Recovery
(Twelve Activities of the Spiritual Boot Camp)
- We admitted that we were powerless over the memories, emotions, attitudes, thoughts, bodily reactions and spiritual pain resulting from combat.
- Having undergone a conversion experience into a world of violence, we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to peace of soul, peace with others and peace with God as I understand him.
- We made a decision to turn our anger, guilt, resentments, shame and fear over to God and to commit ourselves entirely to God’s loving care.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, including all we had done in combat, leaving out nothing we had done personally but not accepting responsibility for what we did not do personally.
- Admitted to ourselves and to one other person the exact nature of our past wrongs and our present tendencies to do evil, asking God to forgive our past sins and remove our defects of character.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all either directly or indirectly, insofar as this is possible without harming others or ourselves.
- Having admitted our tendency to play God in our judgments of others and of ourselves, and now submitting our judgments to those of God, we now forgive all others any offenses they may have committed against us, we forgive ourselves and accept God’s forgiveness of us.
- Having entered into a deeper spiritual state, we surrendered ourselves completely to God, letting go of our hidden hatreds and desires for revenge and also of our guilt over the unintended consequences of acts we performed in good faith or in ignorance.
- We began to exercise a specific and detailed discipline of trust, whereby we gradually came to trust ourselves, trust others and to trust that God would restore to us our power to rejoice, to give thanks, to praise and to enjoy.
- We began to enter into the silence and the still waters of our souls in peace rather than in the isolation and loneliness of fear, spending time in quiet prayer and in sharing what we have discovered within ourselves in prayer and worship together with others.
- We committed ourselves to completing the final mission of a combat soldier: becoming bearers of peace, prayerfulness, happiness and rejoicing , resolving to go behind the enemy lines of fear, mistrust, selfishness, greed, hatreds which surround us in our culture, confident that, as warriors of peace, we will overcome these barriers using the weapons of peace, mercy and kindness which we have been given.
- Where before we were infected with the contagion of violence, we will now spread to others the contagion of peace which we have received, planning our mission carefully, including all those within the ambit of our lives.