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<p>By Lt. Cmdr. Miller Kerr, MD, psychiatry resident and Lt. Cmdr. Mathew Rariden, staff psychologist at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth<br><br>Wounds of war are not always physical – they can be psychological, moral and even spiritual. Service members can be injured on many levels. One level less frequently mentioned in the literature is moral injury. In a combat zone, service members are often confronted with situations that are radically different from any experience they have had prior to military deployment. A moral injury may stem from ethically challenging or life and death situations that are completely different from one’s previous experiences. These ethical dilemmas and difficult experiences cannot always be processed and incorporated into one’s existing belief system. As a result, the individual may struggle with resolving the conflict between their predeployment values and beliefs, and their experiences and actions in combat. This internal conflict and the associated feelings of anger, shame, betrayal and grief are referred to as a moral injury.
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<br>Subjects: Navy Medicine Live Blog; NMC Portsmouth ; Morals ; War ; military medicine;  Psychiatry</div>
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U.S. Navy. Bureau of Medicine and Surgery</div>
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