This is KPBS midday edition. I am Maureen Cavanaugh. San Diego is home to some more veterans than anywhere else in the country. Because of that, our community has heard a lot about the effects of war including pros traumatic stress disorder. War correspondent Sebastian Junger the challenges what we thought we knew . The book is called tribe on homecoming and belonging. Welcome. Thank you. ________________________________________ If seems that one of the fundamental concept in your book is that lingering trauma for veterans could be caused more by our society them by war. Why would that be? ________________________________________ I studied anthropology in college. We evolved as a species to handle enormous amounts of trauma. The idea that trauma would be psychologically incapacitating for roughly half of the US military doesn't make evolutionary sense. Something else is going on. What seems to happen, and only about 10% of US military actively engages in combat. An enormous amount of soldiers suffered significant alienation and depression when they came home. First of all, if you are truly traumatized as many soldiers are, and you return to a tight tribal cohesive society the rate of trauma is very low. If you return to the type of society that we have, it is quite high. That is part of the problem. Many people diagnosed with PTSD actually have a transition disorder and they are alienated by society in which everyone struggles. They are going from a very close communal existence of a platoon, which for every -- evolutionary reasons feels very good to people to a very alienating place. That is the core of a lot of psychological trouble for vet. ________________________________________ That close collective experience that you talk about is the reason that you say some Beth actually -- vets say they would like to go back into that experience. ________________________________________ Lots of vets say they would go back. It's a rare that that says it feels good here. It really isn't about vets. It is about American society. That is just one way that I found at looking critically at American Society. It is one of several ways that I use. I am trying to understand the lack of community and the effect of that on people in modern society. In researching this book, and all the vets and soldiers that I know who literally have said to me that we would go to Afghanistan back in a heartbeat if we could. It reminded me that something Benjamin Franklin wrote 250 years ago. It was about white people, settlers along the frontier, there was a steady drip of people absconding right away to join the Indians. Franklin said we don't have one example of an Indian to ran away to join us. People go native they don't go civilized. What is it about modern society that in the 1700s and in today's wars that people don't want to return to it? What is missing? It is missing tribe a very fundamental human experience. ________________________________________ Have you felt that way Sebastian? Have you felt a certain longing to return to that environment? ________________________________________ I was very lucky to be accepted by the platoon I was covering. I was accepted and well-liked I think. I lived a life identical to a soldier except I didn't carry a gun I carried a video camera. We slept in the same place we slept together we did everything together. That completes our evolutionary past very closely. 30 or 40 or 50 people doing everything together and depending on each other for survival. That's what makes us feel good. Modern society has allowed people to live individual lives. Now that we have achieved that, we spend a lot of energy how to act collectively again. It is interesting to watch how that works. One thing I did in my book is to look at modern societies that have collapsed temporarily. It immediately produced a communal society. The German bomb people look at that with real fondness afterwards nevertheless because they were living communally. When something like that happens, when the authorities in London were prepared for mass psychiatric casualties of people freaking out and having to be checked into psychiatric wars -- warts. When the bombing started, people got psychiatrically healthier than they were before the bombings. Everyone knew that they were needed by their group. As one official said out we have neurotics driving ambulances. It's quite psychologically healthy for people because it causes them to act in human ways. ________________________________________ Some would argue that tribal mentality is breaking up America instead of uniting it. We have political tribes who will work only with each other, cultural tribes intent on starting their own identities. Isn't that the downside to this collective purpose that you write about? ________________________________________ That is it very metaphorical use the word tribe. A tribe is a group of people who live together and share resources. When you say a political tribe caught your actually speaking about a different group. Your point is well taken and everything can be used for good and ill. I think that people are correct that that is a very dangerous trend to use that very close group of identification and affiliation in a way that fractures the country. We need to think tribally about the entire country because we are a country. When you talk and act tribally about a subset of the American population, it is deeply unpatriotic and undemocratic. That would be my response to that observation. ________________________________________ What kind of reception have you been getting from your book? ________________________________________ I am overwhelmed. Everyone are all saying this is the thing we of all been thinking and that no one knew how to say it. It is incredibly gratifying to have other people feel that I put my finger on something important. ________________________________________ Journalist Sebastian Junger will be speaking about his new book tribe at the La Jolla library Saturday afternoon at 4:00. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. ________________________________________ I enjoyed it thank you very much.
With the third highest concentration of military veterans in the U.S., San Diegans have heard a lot about the effects of war, including post-traumatic stress disorder and the treatment available to veterans.
Award-winning journalist Sebastian Junger has spent years exploring how war affects human beings. His documentary, "Restrepo," chronicles the lives of a platoon of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Junger's new book, "TRIBE On Homecoming and Belonging," challenges much of what people think they know about PTSD and the problems veterans encounter when they return to civilian life in the U.S.
"Many people diagnosed with PTSD are really in fact having a transition disorder," Junger told KPBS Midday Edition on Wednesday.
"They're struggling and alienated in a modern society in which everyone struggles — as wealth goes up, the suicide rate goes up, the depression rate goes up. And so they're going from their great, close communal existence in a platoon, which for evolutionary reasons feels very good to people, back into the great American suburb, which is incredibly lonely, alienating place," Junger said. "That's at the core of I think of a lot of these psychological troubles for vets."
Junger will be speaking about his book at 4 p.m. on Sunday at the La Jolla Riford Library.
