Many servicemen choose not to share the reality of combat with their civilian friends and families, what about their rights?
Do they not get some say in this? what do they say to their wives, going off on a second tour after lurid headlines and bodies scattered across the front pages?
This is very true and the pressure on loved ones is incredibly intense when an individual deploys to a conflict zone. However, being in a state of denial, fueled by the excessive sanitisation of information, hinders rather than helps IMO. It is important for everyone to have a good idea what they are getting themselves into, both for soldiers, their families and society as a whole. This is the real moral issue as far as I am concerned. Both societies and individuals react particularly badly when they feel they have been deceived or manipulated based on the control of information and rightly so. All deaths and injuries are a shock, but none more than those which emerge in the absence of known risk.
I am fully in support of more complete disclosure. As a former serviceman and someone who has spent the last decade in conflict zones, I believe that effective leadership is the key to managing that information and reactions to it. If, as a commander, you cannot manage your soldiers heading into a dangerous environment then either you have the wrong soldiers or you are not up to your job. This is not to say it is easy, but it is the inescapable challenge of command and leadership responsibility.
It may seem contrary to common sense, but an understanding of what actually happened to loved ones can act as a real comfort to those left behind. The sanitary nature of a military funeral, followed by the absence of any real information as to
what - actually - happened can cause more distress than relief, so it is overly simplistic to assume that graphic images only do harm. Some people need to be able to picture what happened to their loved ones, or at least be able to come up with some visual possibilities, to achieve any kind of closure. They know their son or daughter did not float away (after being hit by an IED), so there is no point in trying to pretend otherwise.
The pictures in question are nowhere near as graphic as those associated with Vietnam and some other conflicts and while I respect the wishes of the family, there is another perspective: Armed forces belong to us collectively. They are our soldiers who do the bidding of the government we elected. They are responsible for our safety and national integrity and we in turn are responsible for looking after them. Every soldier who falls, is not only a loss to the family, but a loss to us all and I do not believe that anyone has the right to hide that reality from us. While the family would undoubtedly rather their son's image was not in the papers, I suspect they are affected by the controversy as much as the publishing of the image itself. Were the issue less contentious, I very much doubt that the effect would be as great.
Rather than feeling a sense of guilt or disgust, I would hope that people seeing such an image would be moved by a sense of compassion and pride as well as empathy for the family and everyone else affected by similar circumstances, unseen and unknown to us. There is nothing to be ashamed of here. The photograph is not degrading. It does not humiliate. I feel the word is grossly overused, but the image honors the man, the family and those who have made sacrifices for us, whether we agree with the war or not. That sense of connection and collective responsibility then allows us to decide what it means to us going forwards, how it will affect our votes and ultimately the conduct of our nation when future young men and women are to be put in harms way. Only then can we take true, informed responsibility for the consequences of our actions as citizens.
