ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sebastian Junger - Journalist and documentarian
The author of "The Perfect Storm" and the director of the documentaries "Restrepo" and "Korengal," Sebastian Junger tells non-fiction stories with grit and emotion.

Why you should listen

Sebastian Junger thundered onto the media landscape with his non-fiction book, The Perfect Storm. A correspondent for Vanity Fair and ABC News, Junger has covered stories all across the globe, igniting a new interest in non-fiction. One of his main interests: war.

From 2007 to 2008, Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington embedded with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan. They spent intensive time with the soldiers at the Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley, which saw more combat than any other part of Afghanistan. The experience became Junger's book WAR, and the documentary "Restrepo," which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2011.

Junger and Hetherington planned to make a second documentary on the topic, "Korengal," meant to help soldiers and civilians alike understand the fear, courage and complexity involved in combat. It's a project that Junger decided to carry on after Hetherington was killed in Libya while covering the civil war there. Junger self-financed and released the film.

More profile about the speaker
Sebastian Junger | Speaker | TED.com
TEDSalon NY2014

Sebastian Junger: Why veterans miss war

Filmed:
3,922,187 views

Civilians don't miss war. But soldiers often do. Journalist Sebastian Junger shares his experience embedded with American soldiers at Restrepo, an outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley that saw heavy combat. Giving a look at the "altered state of mind" that comes with war, he shows how combat gives soldiers an intense experience of connection. In the end, could it actually be "the opposite of war" that soldiers miss? 
- Journalist and documentarian
The author of "The Perfect Storm" and the director of the documentaries "Restrepo" and "Korengal," Sebastian Junger tells non-fiction stories with grit and emotion. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
I'm going to ask and try to answer,
0
693
2255
00:14
in some ways, kind of an uncomfortable question.
1
2948
4898
00:19
Both civilians, obviously, and soldiers
2
7846
2354
00:22
suffer in war;
3
10200
2086
00:24
I don't think any civilian has ever missed
4
12286
2464
00:26
the war that they were subjected to.
5
14750
3362
00:30
I've been covering wars for almost 20 years,
6
18112
2018
00:32
and one of the remarkable things for me
7
20130
3328
00:35
is how many soldiers find themselves missing it.
8
23458
3884
00:39
How is it someone can go through
9
27342
2305
00:41
the worst experience imaginable,
10
29647
2337
00:43
and come home, back to their home,
11
31984
1976
00:45
and their family, their country, and miss the war?
12
33960
3461
00:49
How does that work? What does it mean?
13
37421
3571
00:52
We have to answer that question,
14
40992
3458
00:56
because if we don't, it'll be impossible
15
44450
2867
00:59
to bring soldiers back
16
47317
1268
01:00
to a place in society where they belong,
17
48585
4055
01:04
and I think it'll also be impossible to stop war,
18
52640
2253
01:06
if we don't understand how that mechanism works.
19
54893
3018
01:09
The problem is that war
20
57911
3262
01:13
does not have a simple, neat truth,
21
61173
3837
01:17
one simple, neat truth.
22
65010
2699
01:19
Any sane person hates war,
23
67709
2261
01:21
hates the idea of war,
24
69970
1855
01:23
wouldn't want to have anything to do with it,
25
71825
2577
01:26
doesn't want to be near it,
doesn't want to know about it.
26
74402
3116
01:29
That's a sane response to war.
27
77518
2684
01:32
But if I asked all of you in this room,
28
80202
2767
01:34
who here has paid money
29
82969
3358
01:38
to go to a cinema
30
86327
1986
01:40
and be entertained by a Hollywood war movie,
31
88313
3390
01:43
most of you would probably raise your hands.
32
91703
3558
01:47
That's what's so complicated about war.
33
95261
2596
01:49
And trust me, if a room full of peace-loving people
34
97857
3540
01:53
finds something compelling about war,
35
101397
3239
01:56
so do 20-year-old soldiers
36
104636
2743
01:59
who have been trained in it, I promise you.
37
107379
3262
02:02
That's the thing that has to be understood.
38
110641
3304
02:05
I've covered war for about 20 years, as I said,
39
113945
2822
02:08
but my most intense experiences in combat
40
116767
2626
02:11
were with American soldiers in Afghanistan.
41
119393
4232
02:15
I've been in Africa, the Middle East,
42
123625
1315
02:16
Afghanistan in the '90s,
43
124940
1750
02:18
but it was with American soldiers in 2007, 2008,
44
126690
3847
02:22
that I was confronted with
45
130537
2633
02:25
very intense combat.
46
133170
1520
02:26
I was in a small valley called the Korengal Valley
47
134690
2040
02:28
in eastern Afghanistan.
48
136730
2833
02:31
It was six miles long.
49
139563
1786
02:33
There were 150 men of
Battle Company in that valley,
50
141349
3142
02:36
and for a while, while I was there,
51
144491
3534
02:40
almost 20 percent of all the combat
52
148025
2276
02:42
in all of Afghanistan was happening
53
150301
1796
02:44
in those six miles.
54
152097
1833
02:45
A hundred and fifty men were absorbing
55
153930
2551
02:48
almost a fifth of the combat for all of NATO forces
56
156481
3152
02:51
in the country, for a couple months.
57
159633
2526
02:54
It was very intense.
58
162159
2137
02:56
I spent most of my time at a small outpost
59
164296
2069
02:58
called Restrepo.
60
166365
1574
02:59
It was named after the platoon medic
61
167939
1560
03:01
that had been killed about two
months into the deployment.
62
169499
2854
03:04
It was a few plywood B-huts
63
172353
3940
03:08
clinging to a side of a ridge,
64
176293
3809
03:12
and sandbags, bunkers, gun positions,
65
180102
4777
03:16
and there were 20 men up there
66
184879
1811
03:18
of Second Platoon, Battle Company.
67
186690
2085
03:20
I spent most of my time up there.
68
188775
1600
03:22
There was no running water.
69
190375
1615
03:23
There was no way to bathe.
70
191990
1011
03:25
The guys were up there for a month at a time.
71
193001
2439
03:27
They never even got out of their clothes.
72
195440
2524
03:29
They fought. The worked.
73
197964
1150
03:31
They slept in the same clothes.
74
199114
2746
03:33
They never took them off,
and at the end of the month,
75
201860
1479
03:35
they went back down to the company headquarters,
76
203339
2311
03:37
and by then, their clothes were unwearable.
77
205650
2067
03:39
They burned them and got a new set.
78
207717
2293
03:42
There was no Internet. There was no phone.
79
210010
1710
03:43
There was no communication
with the outside world up there.
80
211730
3899
03:47
There was no cooked food.
81
215629
2830
03:50
There was nothing up there
82
218459
2571
03:53
that young men typically like:
83
221030
1900
03:54
no cars, no girls, no television, nothing
84
222930
3281
03:58
except combat.
85
226211
1864
04:00
Combat they did learn to like.
86
228075
3961
04:04
I remember one day, it was a very hot day
87
232036
2451
04:06
in the spring,
88
234487
1766
04:08
and we hadn't been in a fight
89
236253
2381
04:10
in a couple of weeks, maybe.
90
238634
2446
04:13
Usually, the outpost was attacked,
91
241080
2564
04:15
and we hadn't seen any
combat in a couple of weeks,
92
243644
2863
04:18
and everyone was just stunned
93
246507
2603
04:21
with boredom and heat.
94
249110
2157
04:23
And I remember the lieutenant walking past me
95
251267
4534
04:27
sort of stripped to the waist.
96
255801
1473
04:29
It was incredibly hot.
97
257274
2402
04:31
Stripped to the waist, walked past me muttering,
98
259676
2364
04:34
"Oh God, please someone attack us today."
99
262040
2752
04:36
That's how bored they were.
100
264792
2350
04:39
That's war too, is a lieutenant saying,
101
267142
3066
04:42
"Please make something happen
102
270208
2660
04:44
because we're going crazy."
103
272868
2043
04:46
To understand that,
104
274911
2348
04:49
you have to, for a moment,
105
277259
1910
04:51
think about combat not morally --
106
279169
2401
04:53
that's an important job to do —
107
281570
1885
04:55
but for a moment, don't think about it morally,
108
283455
1893
04:57
think about it neurologically.
109
285348
2871
05:00
Let's think about what happens in your brain
110
288219
2212
05:02
when you're in combat.
111
290431
2373
05:04
First of all, the experience
112
292804
2352
05:07
is very bizarre, it's a very bizarre one.
113
295156
4614
05:11
It's not what I had expected.
114
299770
2990
05:14
Usually, you're not scared.
115
302760
1730
05:16
I've been very scared in combat,
116
304490
2120
05:18
but most of the time when I was out there,
117
306610
2102
05:20
I wasn't scared.
118
308712
1127
05:21
I was very scared beforehand
119
309839
1527
05:23
and incredibly scared afterwards,
120
311366
1915
05:25
and that fear that comes afterwards can last years.
121
313281
2602
05:27
I haven't been shot at in six years,
122
315883
1952
05:29
and I was woken up very abruptly this morning
123
317835
2353
05:32
by a nightmare that I was being strafed by aircraft,
124
320188
3245
05:35
six years later.
125
323433
1207
05:36
I've never even been strafed by aircraft,
126
324640
1734
05:38
and I was having nightmares about it.
127
326374
3376
05:41
Time slows down.
128
329750
1373
05:43
You get this weird tunnel vision.
129
331123
2224
05:45
You notice some details very, very, very accurately
130
333347
3661
05:49
and other things drop out.
131
337008
2187
05:51
It's almost a slightly altered state of mind.
132
339195
2963
05:54
What's happening in your brain
133
342158
1471
05:55
is you're getting an enormous amount of adrenaline
134
343629
2717
05:58
pumped through your system.
135
346346
1820
06:00
Young men will go to great lengths
136
348166
2594
06:02
to have that experience.
137
350760
2336
06:05
It's wired into us.
138
353096
2922
06:08
It's hormonally supported.
139
356018
3842
06:11
The mortality rate for young men in society
140
359860
3885
06:15
is six times what it is for young women
141
363745
2420
06:18
from violence and from accidents,
142
366165
1805
06:19
just the stupid stuff that young men do:
143
367970
2189
06:22
jumping off of things they shouldn't jump off of,
144
370159
2302
06:24
lighting things on fire they shouldn't light on fire,
145
372461
2419
06:26
I mean, you know what I'm talking about.
146
374880
2238
06:29
They die at six times the rate
147
377118
2041
06:31
that young women do.
148
379159
1440
06:32
Statistically, you are safer as a teenage boy,
149
380599
3904
06:36
you would be safer in the fire department
150
384503
2643
06:39
or the police department in most American cities
151
387146
2564
06:41
than just walking around the
streets of your hometown
152
389710
2522
06:44
looking for something to do,
153
392232
2358
06:46
statistically.
154
394590
3050
06:49
You can imagine how that plays out in combat.
155
397650
3238
06:52
At Restrepo, every guy up there was almost killed,
156
400888
3062
06:55
including me,
157
403950
1694
06:57
including my good friend Tim Hetherington,
158
405644
2060
06:59
who was later killed in Libya.
159
407704
2422
07:02
There were guys walking around
160
410126
1676
07:03
with bullet holes in their uniforms,
161
411802
1821
07:05
rounds that had cut through the fabric
162
413623
1887
07:07
and didn't touch their bodies.
163
415510
3382
07:10
I was leaning against some sandbags one morning,
164
418892
3082
07:13
not much going on, sort of spacing out,
165
421974
2997
07:16
and some sand was kicked into the side of,
166
424971
3507
07:20
sort of hit the side of my face.
167
428478
2670
07:23
Something hit the side of my face,
and I didn't know what it was.
168
431148
2213
07:25
You have to understand about bullets
169
433361
1539
07:26
that they go a lot faster than sound,
170
434900
1898
07:28
so if someone shoots at you
171
436798
1413
07:30
from a few hundred meters,
172
438211
2057
07:32
the bullet goes by you, or hits you obviously,
173
440268
3143
07:35
half a second or so before
the sound catches up to it.
174
443411
2652
07:38
So I had some sand sprayed in the side of my face.
175
446063
2887
07:40
Half a second later, I heard dut-dut-dut-dut-duh.
176
448950
2000
07:42
It was machine gun fire.
177
450950
1014
07:43
It was the first round, the first burst
178
451964
2346
07:46
of an hour-long firefight.
179
454310
2863
07:49
What had happened was the bullet hit,
180
457173
3065
07:52
a bullet hit three or four inches
from the side of my head.
181
460238
3743
07:55
Imagine, just think about it, because I certainly did,
182
463981
4649
08:00
think about the angle of deviation that saved my life.
183
468630
1880
08:02
At 400 meters, it missed me by three inches.
184
470510
2462
08:04
Just think about the math on that.
185
472972
4296
08:09
Every guy up there
186
477268
1784
08:11
had some experience like that,
187
479052
1922
08:12
at least once, if not many times.
188
480974
3528
08:16
The boys are up there for a year.
189
484502
2480
08:18
They got back.
190
486982
1769
08:20
Some of them got out of the Army
191
488751
1359
08:22
and had tremendous psychological
problems when they got home.
192
490110
2594
08:24
Some of them stayed in the Army
193
492704
1535
08:26
and were more or less okay, psychologically.
194
494239
3623
08:29
I was particularly close to a
guy named Brendan O'Byrne.
195
497862
3077
08:32
I'm still very good friends with him.
196
500939
1888
08:34
He came back to the States. He got out of the Army.
197
502827
3056
08:37
I had a dinner party one night.
198
505883
1968
08:39
I invited him,
199
507851
1794
08:41
and he started talking with a woman,
200
509645
3435
08:45
one of my friends,
201
513080
1237
08:46
and she knew how bad it had been out there,
202
514317
3052
08:49
and she said, "Brendan,
203
517369
1749
08:51
is there anything at all that you miss about
204
519118
3328
08:54
being out in Afghanistan, about the war?"
205
522446
3554
08:58
And he thought about it quite a long time,
206
526000
3169
09:01
and finally he said, "Ma'am, I miss almost all of it."
207
529169
5383
09:06
And he's one of the most traumatized people
208
534552
3442
09:09
I've seen from that war.
209
537994
3089
09:13
"Ma'am, I miss almost all of it."
210
541083
2011
09:15
What is he talking about?
211
543094
3085
09:18
He's not a psychopath.
212
546179
3442
09:21
He doesn't miss killing people.
213
549621
1659
09:23
He's not crazy. He doesn't miss getting shot at
214
551280
2280
09:25
and seeing his friends get killed.
215
553560
1702
09:27
What is it that he misses? We have to answer that.
216
555262
3828
09:31
If we're going to stop war, we
have to answer that question.
217
559090
6726
09:37
I think what he missed is brotherhood.
218
565816
5178
09:42
He missed, in some ways,
219
570994
1756
09:44
the opposite of killing.
220
572750
1396
09:46
What he missed was connection
221
574146
2332
09:48
to the other men he was with.
222
576478
2348
09:50
Now, brotherhood is different from friendship.
223
578826
2516
09:53
Friendship happens in society, obviously.
224
581342
3754
09:57
The more you like someone,
225
585096
1538
09:58
the more you'd be willing to do for them.
226
586634
2074
10:00
Brotherhood has nothing to do
227
588708
1506
10:02
with how you feel about the other person.
228
590214
3492
10:05
It's a mutual agreement in a group
229
593706
2982
10:08
that you will put the welfare of the group,
230
596688
2242
10:10
you will put the safety of everyone in the group
231
598930
2020
10:12
above your own.
232
600950
1860
10:14
In effect, you're saying,
233
602810
3377
10:18
"I love these other people more than I love myself."
234
606187
5415
10:23
Brendan was a team leader
235
611602
1398
10:25
in command of three men,
236
613000
1863
10:26
and the worst day in Afghanistan —
237
614863
3437
10:30
He was almost killed so many times.
238
618300
2879
10:33
It didn't bother him.
239
621179
1335
10:34
The worst thing that happened to him in Afghanistan
240
622514
2578
10:37
was one of his men was hit in the head with a bullet
241
625092
2816
10:39
in the helmet, knocked him over.
242
627908
4484
10:44
They thought he was dead.
243
632392
1128
10:45
It was in the middle of a huge firefight.
244
633520
1450
10:46
No one could deal with it, and a minute later,
245
634970
2020
10:48
Kyle Steiner sat back up
246
636990
2040
10:51
from the dead, as it were,
247
639030
1925
10:52
because he'd come back to consciousness.
248
640955
2025
10:54
The bullet had just knocked him out.
249
642980
1272
10:56
It glanced off the helmet.
250
644252
1927
10:58
He remembers people saying,
251
646179
2066
11:00
as he was sort of half-conscious,
252
648245
1462
11:01
he remembers people saying,
253
649707
3499
11:05
"Steiner's been hit in the head. Steiner's dead."
254
653206
2071
11:07
And he was thinking, "I'm not dead."
255
655277
1622
11:08
And he sat up.
256
656899
1748
11:10
And Brendan realized after that
257
658647
2197
11:12
that he could not protect his men,
258
660844
1641
11:14
and that was the only time he cried in Afghanistan,
259
662485
2378
11:16
was realizing that.
260
664863
2965
11:19
That's brotherhood.
261
667828
2512
11:22
This wasn't invented recently.
262
670340
2432
11:24
Many of you have probably read "The Iliad."
263
672772
2497
11:27
Achilles surely would have risked his life
264
675269
1971
11:29
or given his life to save his friend Patroclus.
265
677240
4778
11:34
In World War II, there were many stories
266
682018
2938
11:36
of soldiers who were wounded,
267
684956
3076
11:40
were brought to a rear base hospital,
268
688032
2067
11:42
who went AWOL,
269
690099
1356
11:43
crawled out of windows, slipped out doors,
270
691455
2220
11:45
went AWOL, wounded,
271
693675
3598
11:49
to make their way back to the front lines
272
697273
1402
11:50
to rejoin their brothers out there.
273
698675
2636
11:53
So you think about Brendan,
274
701311
2349
11:55
you think about all these soldiers
275
703660
3356
11:59
having an experience like that, a bond like that,
276
707016
2885
12:01
in a small group,
277
709901
1880
12:03
where they loved 20 other people
278
711781
1898
12:05
in some ways more than they loved themselves,
279
713679
2919
12:08
you think about how good that would feel, imagine it,
280
716598
5116
12:13
and they are blessed with that experience for a year,
281
721714
4630
12:18
and then they come home,
282
726344
1489
12:19
and they are just back in society
283
727833
2987
12:22
like the rest of us are,
284
730820
2839
12:25
not knowing who they can count on,
285
733659
2426
12:28
not knowing who loves them, who they can love,
286
736085
5177
12:33
not knowing exactly what anyone they know
287
741262
2591
12:35
would do for them if it came down to it.
288
743853
2234
12:38
That is terrifying.
289
746087
3586
12:41
Compared to that,
290
749673
1990
12:43
war, psychologically, in some ways, is easy,
291
751663
4074
12:47
compared to that kind of alienation.
292
755737
2497
12:50
That's why they miss it,
293
758234
1390
12:51
and that's what we have to understand
294
759624
2478
12:54
and in some ways fix in our society.
295
762102
3403
12:57
Thank you very much.
296
765505
2930
13:00
(Applause)
297
768435
2955

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sebastian Junger - Journalist and documentarian
The author of "The Perfect Storm" and the director of the documentaries "Restrepo" and "Korengal," Sebastian Junger tells non-fiction stories with grit and emotion.

Why you should listen

Sebastian Junger thundered onto the media landscape with his non-fiction book, The Perfect Storm. A correspondent for Vanity Fair and ABC News, Junger has covered stories all across the globe, igniting a new interest in non-fiction. One of his main interests: war.

From 2007 to 2008, Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington embedded with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan. They spent intensive time with the soldiers at the Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley, which saw more combat than any other part of Afghanistan. The experience became Junger's book WAR, and the documentary "Restrepo," which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2011.

Junger and Hetherington planned to make a second documentary on the topic, "Korengal," meant to help soldiers and civilians alike understand the fear, courage and complexity involved in combat. It's a project that Junger decided to carry on after Hetherington was killed in Libya while covering the civil war there. Junger self-financed and released the film.

More profile about the speaker
Sebastian Junger | Speaker | TED.com