On May 5, U.S. Navy Seal Kyle Milliken, age 38, was killed in a raid on a suspected terrorist facility in Somalia, the first U.S. military death in that country since the famed 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident.
Reports of service personnel killed in action remain all too common, owing to the widespread deployments of United States forces in hotspots around the world. So common, in fact, that many people may be tempted to simply note the sad news and move on.
But remember that behind each headline is a family struggling with a deep and painful loss. For these Gold Star families—those who have lost a loved one in military service—to simply “move on” is not an option. (The “Gold Star” refers to the lapel button issued to family survivors by the Department of Defense).
As an Afghanistan veteran and advocate for veterans’ issues, I’ve had countless conversations with these survivors over the last decade. To spend time with a Gold Star mother or father who’s lost a child, or a spouse who’s lost their closest partner, is humbling. The scope of that loss is unknowable if you haven’t experienced it directly.
The pain is only made more acute by the fact that military service is so unevenly distributed among the American population. It’s estimated that only about 0.4 percent of the population are currently serving in uniform; smaller still is the number of those who will face combat. Even if we account for all living veterans, only about 7 percent of the American population has seen military service.
For many Gold Star survivors, those lopsided numbers create a sense of invisibility, due to the hard fact that the burden of service is carried by a relatively small number of families.
This was not the case in past conflicts like World War II, when that burden was borne across families, neighborhoods, and social classes, touching virtually every community. Today’s civilian-military divide means there is less opportunity for communal grief, shared by all. Too often, civilians without military experience have difficulty grasping the realities of that service.
I don’t mean that as a political point or policy critique of our all-volunteer military. There are significant benefits to an all-volunteer military, which boasts higher levels of efficiency, greater professionalism and enhanced performance.
But we can’t overlook the costs of that personnel decision, which include less sense of shared sacrifice, a weakening of community, and even a loss of empathy in times of grief and trial.
In spite of those facts, I’ve found that civilians do care, and want to understand more—but they’re unsure of how to proceed, and may fear saying the wrong thing. Meanwhile, too many veterans and their families hesitate to open up to civilians to explain how service has affected them. They assume people who haven’t shared their experience can’t understand, which only heightens the sense of cultural division.
Which is why I find it heartening when I see military veterans and families working to bridge that division.
My friends Karen and Billy Vaughn are among those. In 2011, their son Aaron, a Navy SEAL, was one of 30 men killed in Afghanistan when their chopper was shot down by Taliban fire.
The Vaughns met with terrible grief, but they have worked hard to invest that loss with meaning, in part by telling their story and refusing to be invisible. That compelling story is detailed in this video, which I helped produce as part my work with the American Warrior Initiative:
Karen Vaughn has also authored a book about her experience as a Gold Star mother, World Changer: A Mother’s Story, which will be published on May 29. (Full disclosure: Karen Vaughn and I have worked together on veterans’ advocacy issues, and my branding company helped to publish the electronic version of her book.)
I point to the Vaughn’s experience not just because they’re my friends and colleagues, but more importantly, because they set an outstanding example for all of us who have served, or for families with loved ones in the military. They have suffered greatly in losing their son, yet they’ve found within that loss a sense of purpose and strength by sharing their story.
To bridge the divide and help our fellow citizens better understand our service and sacrifice, we have to tell our stories openly and let them hear our voices.
It’s no secret that this is a time of stark division in American life, but the divide between civilian and military families can be crossed with communication and understanding. But that understanding doesn’t just happen. It must be nurtured into existence and allowed to grow, which means it’s time for veterans and civilians to have a real conversation about the real costs of war, and to begin bridging the gap that separates us.
Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellUSA) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a retired U.S. Army infantry Captain who served in Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division. He is CEO of Branding Freedom, co-founder of the American Warrior Initiative, and author of the critically-acclaimed, national bestseller “Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan.”
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