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Moral injury [means] things you had to do that were legal, but you did 'em in combat to survive.

Eddie Hoffman (US Marine Corps, 2001 – 2010) describes what moral injury means to him.

Transcript

Moral injury to me.

Are those
things that you had to do

that were technically legal,
but you did them in combat.

Like to survive,

you had to shut down kind of
your own morals, your own values

just to go out there and

do what you had to do
to keep yourself

and the person to the left
and the right of you alive.

And instead obedience to orders.

We don't always have time
to think about it,

but later
you're thinking about it

and you're dealing with it
and you're feeling that

self-hatred
and you're questioning yourself

or whatever it might be.

So to me, that's moral injury.

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