Chapter 9: Moral Complexities of Military Deployment: Dutch Soldiers’ Experiences of Value Conflict and Moral Injury

Military deployment is fraught with moral tension and conflict. This is what I learned in my research on the deployment and homecoming experiences of Dutch soldiers and veterans. Whether they had been deployed as peacekeeper or combat soldier, they all had stories to share about quandaries they had experienced, which revealed not only the variety of their experiences, but also a common theme: clashing values.

Admittedly, this theme was not exactly evident at first glance. To the contrary, many of the soldiers I spoke would initially state that, to them, their job is just as morally complicated as any other job. “You already know what’s wrong and right,” they would say, shrugging their shoulders. “You just use your common sense.” However, when they told me about their deployment experience, their stories often did turn out to be morally charged and, as mentioned, frequently included situations of value conflicts. Soldiers tended to describe such situations with words such as “challenge” and “difficult decision” rather than with ethical terminology, but the judgments of right and wrong they tied to these situations revealed their moral significance.