1. Post-Deployment Disorientation in Military Memoirs
IMTA Conference, Hamburg, October 2014
Lt-col dr. L.H.E. (Esmeralda) Kleinreesink
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2. Research question Prevalence of PDD in military memoirs
Taboo or ubiquitous?

3. Content Definition PDD Research Methodology Results
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4. Content Definition PDD Research Methodology Results Origins Definition
Make operational
Research Methodology
Results
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5. PDD: Origins Weibull, 2012 Res Militaris Swedish
Low-intensity missions
After return adaptation problems
Interviews

6. PDD: Definition Disorientation that soldiers are often confronted
with on return, expressed in terms of a personal
change, a change of outlook and of perspectives
(Weibull, 2012: 2)

7. PDD: Definition deep-running emotional affectedness
most often less severe than PTSD
confrontations between two contrasting realities, causing a phase of disorientation and a need for re-adjustment
Firstly, it shows that deep-running emotional affectedness is a ubiquitous
experience regardless of mission area. More specifically, it is argued that the phenomenon
of feeling changed and somewhat lost on return may also present itself after a tour of
service that has been, from a military perspective, uneventful
(Weibull, 2012: 2-3)

8. Research question Prevalence of PDD in military memoirs
Taboo or ubiquitous?
Other medium than interviews
Advantage: working with ‘found texts’ such as egodocuments as opposed to ‘created texts’ such as interviews also means working with unobtrusive material as the researcher cannot influence the text produced.
Norwegian autobiography researcher Marianne Gullestad even concludes to her surprise that “[m]any of the written texts offer the reader a rapport and an intimacy of a kind that an anthropological fieldworker develops only after a long period of time with a few people” (Gullestad 1996: 36).

9. Other Authors
Tobey Herzog, concluded from his research into Vietnam war stories that a fourth element can be identified “where soldiers not only continue to reflect on their war experiences but also struggle to adjust to civilian life” (Herzog 1992: 14).
This adaptation problem fits the disillusionment thesis, which often is a victim narrative about trauma. Harari also sees it, and notes that it merges with psychological theories on this subject, particularly on the subject of post-traumatic stress disorder. “The widespread expectation that veterans must suffer at least some degree of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is often just another twist on the basic theme of martial revelation” (Harari 2008: 4).

10. PDD: Operationalisation
Prolonged alienation
DSM-IV definition of PTSD
Avoidance & numbing
Intrusive re-experiencing
Hyperarousal
Difficulty sleeping
Irritable
Exaggerated startle response
At least six symptoms in total from every one of the three criteria have to be present for more than one month for a diagnosis of full PTSD (DSM-IV-TR 2002: ).
Research shows that having partial PTSD, (only having one symptom in each criterion) has considerably fewer consequences than having full PTSD (Breslau, Lucia and Davis 2004: 1211).
For this research, one of these symptoms is seen as an adaptation problem in the PDD sense.

11. Content Definition PDD Research Methodology Results
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12. Research scope 2001-2010 All militairy autobiographies on Afghanistan
Published between
Available on main book website
In 7 different countries
In three languages: Dutch, German, English
Main Dutch partners
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13. Self and traditionally published
One of the variables coded was publisher:
Two different publishers:
-Selfpublishers
-Traditionally published (2/3 of all books)
Photo:

14. 54 books

15. Country # Books The Netherlands 7 Germany United States 22
United Kingdom 15
Canada 3
Total 54
Belgium and Australia are omitted due to lack of books
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16. Mixed method
Both qualitative and quantitative methods used. Quantitative: chi square.

17. Friedman
Friedman very clearly distinguishes 14 different contemporary plots in stories.
Besides the clear plot definitions, there is another feature to Friedman’s plot theory that is specifically interesting with regard to testing whether PDD is only prevalent in disenchantment plots, which are traditionally associated with loss of ideals and PTSD or also in other kind of plots.
Disillusionment: plots “in which a sympathetic protagonist starts out in the full bloom of faith in a certain set of ideals and, after being subjected to some kind of loss, threat or trail, loses that faith entirely” (Friedman, 1955: 252).
Degeneration: when we start with a protagonist who was at one time sympathetic and full of ambition and subject him to some crucial loss which results in his utter disillusionment” (Friedman, 1955: 250)
Based on: Friedman (1955) Forms of the Plot, p
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18. Disillusionment
In his book Operation Dark Heart (Shaffer, 2010) US Major Anthony Shaffer he describes how the Defense Intelligence Agency tried to fire him after he has testified about a secret mission in Afghanistan in front of the 9/11 commission. He is disillusioned, but not by war itself, but by what the cover of his book describes as the “hopelessly flawed” policies of top officials.

19. Degeneration „wie der Krieg die menschliche Seele verletzt“
Dust jacket: Hieke Groos tells in an empathic way how war hurts (‘verletzt’) the human soul (‘Seele’) and she critisizes a system that has not yet found a way to help its veterans.
Heike Groos …. Erzählt auf eindrückliche Weise, wie der Krieg die menschliche Seele verletzt und kritisiert ein System, das noch keine Wege gefunden hat, seinen Veteranen beizustehen.
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20. Friedman revised Growth Rest Disenchantment Disillusionment
Degeneration
Growth
Maturing
Education
Rest
Pathetic
Admiration
Sentimental
Action
Affective
Punitive
Reform
Testing
Revelation
Tragic
Disenchantment
These 14 Friedman plots can in another constellation be used to test hypotheses, by dividing the 14 plots into three main categories: the disenchantment plots, the growth plots and the other plots.

21. Growth
A typical growth plot would be Charlotte Madison’s maturity plot Dressed to Kill (Madison, 2010). It is the story of a naive young girl, who becomes an Apache pilot and will be the first UK pilot since the Second World War to use all ammunition on board an aircraft during one flight. At fourteen, being on an all-girl boarding school, she first joined the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) because
Kate, one of the coolest and prettiest girls in my class, told me that if I wanted a boyfriend, CCF was the place to be. (Madison, 2010: 4)

22. Rest (Action)
A good example is Fire Strike 7/9 (Grahame & Lewis, 2010), in which a UK forward air controller (a ground based soldier who directs air-to-ground pilots to a target) describes how he saves his team time and again, killing 203 enemy fighters in the process. Both the cover art and the subtitle of this book (One man. 180 days. 203 kills.) give the impression of a first-person-shooter video game, and the plot is just as one-dimensional as the average first-person-shooter. Opening the book on an arbitrary page results in the follow scene:
At 0530 all hell broke loose at Alpha Xray. First came the angry crackle of small arms fire, as the enemy opened up on our version of the Alamo. Then came the swoosh-boom of RPG rounds slamming into the base. (Grahame & Lewis, 2010: 171)

23. Content Definition PDD Research Methodology Results
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24. 44 out of 54 books

25. Publisher influence on after return
Traditional publishers are significantly more likely (X2Fisher (1, N = 54) = 7.43, p = .006) to publish books that do not stop at the end of the deployment, but also describe the period after returning.
Only 8% of the traditionally published books do not describe the period after return, as opposed to 39% of self-published books.

26. Prevalence of PDD
PDD is clearly not a taboo subject, as 22 out of 54 books (41%) of the books describe these kinds of experiences.
When only accounting for books that continue with the story after the deployment itself (44 out of 54 books), this percentage goes up to 50%, which means that describing post deployment disorientation is a normal feature of military memoirs, although not as paradigmatic as Herzog indicated.
The type of plot significantly influences the number of books that describe a PDD experience: disenchantment plots do so more often (57%) than growth plots (44%) and rest plots (18%). X2 (2, N = 54) = 6.16, p =.046

27. Prolonged alienation Back home, it feels like the
other times I’ve returned
from Bastion: very green,
very alien and very
emotionally
uncomfortable. I know it
will take me weeks, even
months , to get used to
being here.
(Madison 2010: 310)

28. Hyper arousal I jumped every time one of our cannons fired, and I
wasn’t the only one
(Mullaney 2009: 335)

29. Hyper arousal Nights were becoming an endless stream of battles.
Time and again I found
myself charging up and
down the drainage ditches
that dissected the
landscape around Garmsir.
As I ran I encountered
countless bodies. Lifeless
and bloody.
(Beattie and Gomm 2008: 294)

30. Avoidance & numbing I couldn’t understand why
after such a short period
of time I wasn’t the same
person I was before the
deployment, and I withdrew
more and more, also because I
felt unrecognized. Friendships
and my relationship with my
partner broke up, as I was no
longer interested in
maintaining them.
(Eckhold 2010: 293)
My translation

31. Country influence Numbers based on the 44 ‘after return’ books.
Whether PDD is discussed in these books, is country-dependent, X2 (4, N = 44) = 13.07, p =.011
In the Netherlands, where positive books seem to be the norm as we have seen before, only one book describes PDD, whereas in Germany, where negative books abound, each of the books that discusses the time after return also describes PDD. The same effect can be observed for the UK, where generally positive plots are written and the US, where the plots are generally negative.
This suggests a link between positive plots, PDD and country. Indeed, there is a statistically significant link between positive plots and the absence of PDD symptoms. X2Fisher (1, N = 54) = 4.13, pone-sided = .040
As the existence of PDD seems to be a normal effect of being deployed, that is described by at least one soldier-author per country, the most logical causal effect seems to be that either the country’s or the publisher’s mores influence whether a book describes PDD or not, which is something that can be tested.

32. Publisher’s mores?
Looking into the book market structure, there is no connection between the kind of publisher and whether a book discusses PDD symptoms (X2Fisher (1, N = 54) = .614, p = .560). This is interesting, as traditional publishers are significantly more likely to publish books that do not stop at the end of the deployment, as we have seen earlier.
Therefore, it seems most likely that the country’s (and not the publisher’s) mores with regard to the kind of military plots written (such as positive or not) influence whether PDD symptoms are discussed or not.
p = .560

33. Conclusion
Q: Prevalence of PDD in military memoirs, taboo or ubiquitous? A: Certainly not a taboo A: In every plot type, but more prevalent in negative plots A: In every country, but more prevalent in ‘negative’ countries

34. Presentation available at

35. My question: where to publish?
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