Policy Changes to Relieve Stress on the Force and Families

On 15 November 2017, the Global SOF Foundation (GSF), the University of Texas (UT), Arizona State University (ASU) and New America hosted the first SOF Policy Forum in Washington, DC. The half-day forum brought in senior representatives from the Senate and House Armed Service committees, the Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, as well as senior leaders from UT, ASU and New America to talk about SOF. Many are asking why the Chief Executive of Afghanistan would be interested in talking about SOF but Afghanistan is doubling the size of their special operations forces (SOF) in three years and the challenges of growing that much so quickly are significant.

A few themes were constant throughout the forum. The stress on the force was of major concern to all of the senior leaders present. It is not just about the length and frequency of deployments but the impact and effect of constant and continuous combat operations on the force and their families. The health issues resulting from these deployments manifest themselves emotionally and physiologically; they are complex and little understood. The last four U.S .SOCOM commanders – going back more than a decade – have made the stress on the force and their families an important topic of their annual hearings with Congressional leadership. And over the last decade the operational requirements for SOF have only increased. Listening to the senior representatives on the House and Senate Armed Services Committee, there is a collective sense that the stress on the SOF force is resulting in a degradation of the force and its readiness as well as complex emotional, social, and physiological issues with the force and their families that are little understood and are currently not under broad investigation. The Department of Defense, as well as the think-tanks that inform it, have largely approbated chronic stresses on the force to a pathological condition that they refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Shortly after the start of World War II, the US War Department set out to conduct broad surveys of hundreds of thousands of service members. The effort was later written up and published as The American Soldier  and contained four volumes. The staff director, Samuel A. Stouffer, said the purpose of the project was “to provide the army command quickly and accurately with facts about the attitudes of soldiers which…might be helpful in policy formation.” The reason for the need for the surveys was because the U.S. had never sent such a large military well beyond the U.S. borders. WWI was big but the deployment of U.S. Service members during WWII dwarfed previous deployments.

By the time they finished they had interviewed over 500,000 service members on topics like;

• their feelings toward the army
• their living conditions and morale
• their attitudes toward the enemy and the war
• their mental health
• their actual combat experiences and the aftermath of those experiences
• adjustment of civilian soldiers to Army life

 The surveys generated over 200 reports that provided a trove of useful data for researchers to better understand and gain insights on many of the issues of the time and uncover some they had never considered such as relative deprivation (a concept that was developed and largely known by many as a result of the study).

A lot of studies have been done since The American Soldier study of WWII, but nothing that we know of that is focused on the impact of constant combat using precision weapons in some of the most remote locations on earth. The symptoms of constant and frequent deployments in combat over the last 15 years have been witnessed and experienced by many but we really do not understand the issues well nor can we adequately define them beyond simple emotional conditions that are typically treated with expensive antidepressants. If we cannot adequately define or understand the problems we will never develop adequate and effective solutions. Many of the solutions necessary will require policy changes at the national level and it might be past time to look more closely and think more deeply beyond simple physiology.  

I am not talking about some basic survey like those issued to determine Overseas Housing Allowances. The type of research and study that would advance our understanding of the stresses of the current conflicts should seek to get a large sample from active duty and retired SOF personnel.

We all see things happening in the SOF community that leave us perplexed and questioning as to what we are seeing and hearing. There is also a lot that we do not see and hear about but deep down we know is happening inside the force and families. It is time to conduct a study to help leaders better formulate the policy needed to relieve the stress on the force and family.

If you want to see the video from the SOF Policy Forum you can go to https://bit.ly/17SOFpolicyVID and hear and see the concern of policy makers.