WRAL
Article, and accompanying video interview with Alan Felton, by David Crabtree of WRAL broadcast on November 9, 2011.
Duke divinity school explores ministering to veterans
Many veterans are haunted by the horrors of war as they try to return to life at home. Duke Divinity School is hosting a two-day forum, called After the Yellow Ribbon, to help address those veterans' needs.
DURHAM, N.C. — Many veterans are haunted by the horrors of war as they try to return to life at home.
Starting Friday, Duke Divinity School is hosting a two-day forum, called After the Yellow Ribbon, to help address those veterans' needs.
Logan Mehl-Laituri, an Iraq war veteran and Duke divinity student, said he organized the conference to help others deal with the moral questions that struck him after combat.
"What do I do as a Christian? And there's also a number of questions that surround what do I do as a human being who has had to think and consider killing another human being," Mehl-Laituri said.
"The Christian tradition simply is non-retaliation," said divinity student Rev. Alan Felton, who served with the National Guard in Germany in the 1908s.
"No matter how justified that killing might seem in the moment, in the heat of the moment, it will never undo the evil that was done," he said.
Organizers said the After the Yellow Ribbon forum will help pastors explore how to minister to a nation at war and to the problems of service members and veterans. The forum runs Friday and Saturday in the Goodson Chapel at Duke University.
AI-Generated Transcript
thanks for taking the time to talk first off tell me about after the yellow ribbon how this came about why the name and what it means start um well I think it it kind of began as as this secondary thought um um there was a small group that uh convened an anti-torture conference and I was involved very early on in the planning and that I realized quickly I just couldn't do it while I was in school and um it just gave me this idea that that these things can happen um and I wanted to bring to light some of the uh particular struggles of veterans um and in particular veterans who have seen combat um but not exclusively so um because of of an experience I had coming to do du Divinity School um in the fall of 2020 um I I come from my undergrad I just finished and I got into Duke I I came out here really enthusiastic and during orientation student orientation um there was a psychiatrist who was there as a part of Cs um campus I don't know what the a is but basically the campus Psychiatry service Counseling Service um and he was he was talking about doctor patient confidentiality and uh he went on to say um you can tell us anything you can tell us you you kick your dog you cheat on your spouse you cheat on your tests and he went on and on he he wrapped up by saying you can even tell us that you've killed someone at which point the entire entering class my my own cohort burst out laughing and I can't blame them I mean he was kind of making it light and you know he's he was uh trying to kind of enrich his presentation um but from where I was sitting uh it was it wasn't something I could laugh at in fact I after having spent 14 months in Iraq in 2004 and knowing that that was the very thing that I would go see the counseling service for um it it felt very clearly it was this moment of estrangement where I I have certain experiences that that weigh heavily on me and to see my classmates not understand the significance of that um really set me back it took me a number of weeks before I really felt like I could get into classes um out of that experience um I learned and I think this is to the credit of the Divinity community at Duke um that they didn't that response was not born out of um lack of care it was it was a lack of of understanding that significance that a lot of veterans student veterans are bringing particularly toies and um uh they're bringing into churches that they attend um and so I thought that having a conference to um just begin conversations and there's certainly places in which those convers a have already begun occurring um they're often kind of difficult to find um and I think that the The Wider Community Duke sits in a very um unique position it's in North Carolina which is a state that has one in every 10 residents or veterans um it has a major military installation at Fort Brag and Duke University is a major research institution so these these spheres of military academy and church um uh the church being the the div Community for me at du and being one of the top ranked um Divinity schools in the in in the world I thought that intersection was was too important to pass up and so it that's kind of where it came from what are you hearing so far from veterans um well I'm I've placed myself in a position to mostly be able to hear people who are speaking from a theological perspective so I for a a number of of years I still am a member in Iraq veterans against the war um my vocation my identity my my history is is more concretely uh in the in the location of the church than it is you know some political you know identity um and so a lot of the soldiers I speak to and are in touch with struggle particularly with what do I do as a Christian um and there's also a number of questions that surround what do I do as a human being who has had to think and consider killing another human being um How do you you deal with that me personally you personally or some of the Vets you've spoken with uh I think it comes in a variety of ways um so I became a Christian in 2006 in the mid just after or in the midst of learning the a postraumatic stress disorder um I just come back from my 14 months in Iraq and um I I think the first time I actually knew that I had something like post-traumatic stress was the first the the the second day we were in Iraq we were convoying up and we hit an IED and you know nobody was hurt but that evening I had my first nightmare um and coming home uh I I would have night sweats it would be difficult for me to stay asleep um hypervigilance was a big big part of it I remember on the bus from Hickam airfield on on aahu uh we passed a car pulled over on the side of the the freeway and I noticed myself instinctively scooting away from the window and I thought to myself IM like that's that's what that must be something like PTSD um and so it's one of the things that's been really helpful for me um before I kind of fell into the church was uh was music um I I was on aahu and I was surfing a lot so I was in the water which was always really important to me but uh I was listening to like Jack Johnson Matt Costa um Eddie veter um and then as I just then as I became a Christian I think I began listening to bands um that could uh speak more specific specifically that like Dereck web cadman's call uh Thrice um Orange County super tones and that's just one of the particularities of my story I I really like music um in fact we've got Derek Webb uh coming to do a Q&A at after the ribbon as well as do the benefit concert in evening so that's that's what it's been for me but it's different for each individual Alam will get you just short um when you have related your story to others of dealing with the tensions of War dealing with the tensions that you may be talking with veterans who uh in the Rules of Engagement of War killed other human beings and they are now coming to grips with this struggling with this is there a central message of listening that you give these people um yeah I think that's the first thing that we can do um the first we can the first thing that we can do is be prepared to receive the stories that they that they carry um and so many times is just simply having to be heard that I think a lot of veterans I've been in touch with Express did it change you when you were heard when I oh When I Was Heard um yeah I think so I think I made myself heard I I began blogging um and then I made this curious decision to write a book about my journey out of the military um but I'm also surrounded by a circle of friends who who were able to hear the stories I had to share um and they also were very ingrained in the church and and educated and formed in the practices that constitute the church like confession uh like repentance reconciliation and so I think that's why for me my identity is so much more wrapped up in what it means to be a Christian Soldier as opposed to merely just what does it mean to be a human being who's trying to serve a nation state that's has me to do things that deeply conflict with what I believe or what I know is killing justified in war I don't think it is um I thought a lot about that when I was in Iraq actually um and I the what got me about the question of justifiability is that it's a you never have time for it um one one of the one of my platoon mates um we are going we're on a convoy which are always very high stress because of IEDs um you're going 50 60 miles hour in a Humvee that shouldn't be going more than 45 miles hour usually at night with not with night vision goggles on that you can see about you know that much of the road and he expressed to me that um they weren't taking fire or anything just some kid in the middle of the night walked into the road and uh he he literally didn't have time to Swerve out of the way and he hit him he didn't think he killed him but that was that was an act that occurred in war and yet it had nothing to do with what we associate with war and so I think part of the question is war encompasses so much particularly contemporary Warfare um where we have failed in large part to protect the protect non-combatants I mean that the number of civilians who have died in combat have gone up exponentially since World War II and and slightly before and so our understanding of war is very different from some of the church fathers and early political thinkers who understood War as very different you know often hand-to-hand combat and so that's a different question to as to well a woman that I saw had a grenade in her hand I had to shoot her and now I have to figure like was it a grenade was it something else maybe it was but I still can't wrestle with it so I think the question is is diluted uh to an extent that that without people having experience it's difficult to put words to how complex and chaot chaotic war is we do tend to want to make things pretty black and white though out we do and it's much more complex than that um when you ask about is it it's killing Justified it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of somebody like Logan or other other soldiers but from a Christian perspective I'm not sure we can ever justify killing in the midst of a war yeah we find ourselves in nationalism sometimes those who are believers those who are Christians all caught up in FL flag waving yes and saying let's just go kick their asses yeah and meaning it sure sure how do you justify that it's very easy to fall into that uh that sort of Temptation to to retaliate especially in a world that uh was changed so significantly by an event like September 11th but the Christian tradition simply is non- retaliation and no matter how Justified that killing might seem in the Moment In the Heat of the Moment it will never undo the evil that was done and that is not to excuse the evil of a Act of September 11th that's not to excuse the evil of an authoritarian regime or a dictator who might be doing horrible things but it is not a call to kill to resolve those awful issues yeah I want to get back to the conference in just a moment but you know people are going to watch this people who live in this area particularly who serve in the military or a veterans I'm not saying all but many I think many it's fair to say and are going to say you guys are wrong sure almost to say you guys are traitors how can you say this and traitor is not the right word that's too strong from my standpoint but for someone who believes so differently how do you respond to that simply to say I'm a veteran too I served uh and you serve I served in the United States Army in the mid1 1980s in Germany and uh my experience was not in an active shooting War but under the the stress of 18 months where we could be at War at any moment at a Frontline unit that would be assigned to the East German border to roll up and that changes you and so to see the fallacy of this yes we need National Defense we need to protect ourselves and some will make that argument to say well war is Justified for that reason but what I think we're calling attention to is the effects that that has on those who do the defense and when I came home in 1987 there was no one to talk to it was a non-shooting war but some of the significant mental and and health impact was the same as what Logan's experienced you know going through several years of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and trying dreams about possibility of dying and when you're 18 19 20 years old these things are form ative and I don't know that we understand that and given the fact that our society is so removed from the military now so few people serve uh so few people have someone they know who served their their grandparents maybe in World War II is some distant memory I don't think we acknowledge the impact that these things have we have so many people serving them it's all volunteer and if people are on the third fourth fifth maybe even more deployment either to Iraq or Afghanistan we have a crew in Afghanistan just on our way home tomorrow um are are those with multiple deployments do you think more prone to have issues struggling issues once they return um I think it's mixed um it'd be hard to find hard data that would refute it but it also seems as though it's it's um anecdotal the more often you go more likely it is that you're going to experience the kind of effects that um would lead to something like um you know moral fragmentation or postraumatic stress um but that does that should not imply that with one deployment or a marine which is a six-month deployment is not just as likely to have experienced the same kind of um you know effects that someone who's gone repeatedly um I think I do however think that the the more frequently and the more uh accumulated total time you have in combat I think there is I mean you're just more and more likely to have the kind of experiences that lead to the kind of moral fragmentation that um that that PSD I think points to um so here's where I was goinging next outside or in addition to a safe space at this conference and a place to be listened to what else might a person find there in a safe space or I mean if a person chooses to come to this comp what what will be waiting for them oh man I hope hope uh one thing that we've been able to do is we've been able to get people across the ideological divide um we've got a a an ethicist from West Point given the keynote and also breakout session I wanted to comment just briefly about the nationalism piece because I think it that objection comes from a sense of something like camaraderie uh Americans have this unique history that binds us together in a certain way um the the problem comes in I think is when we we fear that dissent can can lead to the dissolution of all that we know and love but I think our country besides being formed on a kind of descent and a kind of um uh a hopeful expectation of of the the commonality of man um I think the the other thing that that I think should be articulated is that what just war is and justifying War does is it attempts to provide a kind of formation a kind of framework around which when someone experiences something like having to shoot a non-combatant who may be or having to shoot someone in war who may or may not be armed it it tries to provide the moral framework around which they can cling when that that digestion comes later um so the the right answer is not to say that that war can never be justified but I think the right answer is to say that that just war is uh an ambitious attempt to uh prevent things like PTSD before they form um but the problem I think when we rely too much on our ideologies and too much on our own our own doctrines I mean just war is is a uh is a concrete Doctrine in Roman Catholic Church a number of different Christian Traditions but when we don't take it seriously enough to that to the point where we're actually able to um live it out and and be able to say this war is just which Afghanistan by and large is as was declared just by a number of traditions the Iraq War wasn't and so what do we do as as an as a religious body when we've said something but then it comes time to make concrete movements uh to to actually uh abide by that that finding so what I'm really saying is that for example in in Iraq if if someone is really committed to just war and for example the Roman Catholic Church declared it unjust how do we provide the space for them to respond in faith to to the dictates of of their conscience and we we haven't done that um right now the military is either um Universal objection or Universal pacifism and I think that that further divides Us in ways that we really don't need to be divided I think the vast majority of people are rable rational reasonable adults that want to do good but also need to know that when they are faced with being being asked to do bad they can back away and say I have to obey my conscience or in in in the Christian tradition we've said that we have to obey God rather than man in Acts 5:29 um but but I think that the nationalism peace comes from a deep sense of wanting to be part of larger community and I think that's good like I don't want everybody to throw their convictions aside and forget about about them but I want the doesn't also come out of fear it does but I mean pacifists are are certainly afraid too we don't want our children suffering for our belief much more than we want other children suffering for their beliefs but it's it's that willingness to face our own convictions and say this is what I believe and this is what I'll stand by um but when we either don't allow ourselves or when we don't allow others to abide by those convictions that's when things like moral fragmentation really occur and that's that's when I've I've been asked to do something that I find wrong or that my religious or or moral Community tells me is wrong and I do it anyway and then we have to then I have to suffer the consequences and go through whatever practice it is that my community has dictated I'm supposed to go through do you have regrets that you served in your military no I wouldn't be the man I am today if I didn't um it's a complicated question I regret some of the things I did there I don't regret the service I'm proud to have served the country I believe I serve it now in my pastoral role and so I I am thankful for the service but I do regret some of the experiences and uh because of how they shaped me and and what they did to my own moral framework is that what brings you to where you are today to be a part of this conference absolutely I think the when you asked what do we hope to come out of this I think uh building on that dialogue uh when I've got out of the military there was no dialogue there was no space to talk about some of the things that were seen and done and uh that was a very lonely space and uh going into college at that time uh and as an undergraduate no one there had the same experience and uh the only military people at the uh College I went to were the Roc and so they saw it from a very different perspective not actually having served so it does bring me there uh today but to have that dialogue to be provide a safe space if you will to talk about these issues it's not necessarily to convert people to pacifism I mean certainly as a pastor that that is my position but it is to have the dialogue and to acknowledge that these things do have an impact it's November 11th and 12th it'll be held at the Divinity Y where where is the school uh most of most of it will be in Goodson Chapel uh the new Chapel we I think finished in 2005 um it's actually uh just outside the chapel entrance way there's actually our our war memorial which was Commissioned I think in uh 2004 2003 maybe a little bit later um and not a whole lot of people know that between the two chapels between Goodson and Duke we actually have a war memorial that hold the name of the the people who served and and paid the ultimate price in defense of their country um I think that's that's indicative of something I think that something about war is is so close to our heart and yet we we often will try and push it away and that's the danger we run into when we we don't allow the dialogue to occur um we either are afraid of its outcome or or we're too bought into trying trying to convince people when I think we really just need to trust in individuals and their consciences um to make decisions that are going to um that they can live with the rest of their lives um and and one thing that I have learned in talking with pacifists over the years is that U you are not anti- troops you are not anti- people who have chosen to serve no your focus is on the outcome of military engagement right not the people who choose to be a part right of the service that's really the the origin the name after the yellow ribbon was that that kind of knee-jerk reaction of we want to support our troops we'll buy this $150 magnet put on our car and that'll solve my you know my moral misgivings as a civilian we're trying to say after that that's not bad it you know not everybody agrees with what the the yellow ribbon signifies but we're trying to say after that occurs then what do we do after the troops are coming home after troops have left after they've left their families what do we do after those momentary um um you know indications of of patriotism what is what is really supporting the troops look like and and that's also very patriotic yeah we think it is absolutely uh I mean we we're going to face years and years of cost and support for people who've come back with physical and mental injuries and we're just becoming knowledgeable about what some of that looks like nothing could be more patriotic than supporting people who serve and harm and deserve the country's support and we have an obligation not to just make it an empty veneration of veterans but to support them and their families for the Long Haul because it's going to be a long haul my thanks to both of you thank you very much
