For a veteran returning home from Afghanistan or Iraq, the mental trauma of having killed someone can be just as devastating as physical injury. The Department of Veteran Affairs has called this problem "moral injury," but some veterans think this phrase minimizes the horror of killing. In 2013, Timothy Kudo, a former Marine captain, wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post about grappling with moral injury. In this text, he shares his experience with NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin
Pair these two texts that deal with mental injury, whether it’s the “moral injury” caused by the trauma and tragedy of war or paranoid schizophrenia and the inanity defense. Discuss how something mental can have devastating and real physical effects on people’s lives. What do students think the relationship between these two groups of people might be, people pleading insanity like Eric and people returning from war like Kudo? Or, how are their places in society different?