Raped, beaten and bruised: military institutional abuse, identity wounds and veteran suicide

ABSTRACT

The Australian government has recently established a Royal Commission on Defence and Veteran Suicide (DVSRC). Veteran suicide rates for those who have left the Australian Defence Force (ADF) are higher than the national average and there has been little success in reducing this over an extended period of time. Veteran suicide is poorly understood, and the collected data is imprecise and incomplete. Deployment trauma and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD i.e. a mental health lens) are taken for granted as the principal causes. This article presents a case study on institutional abuse in the ADF which led to the veteran attempting suicide on numerous occasions. The article draws upon the mental health and moral injury knowledge but questions their centrality and dominance. Military Institutional Abuse (MIA) and its consequent identity wounds are explained as institutional causes of military trauma. We argue that these institutional abuse processes and their consequences, occurring within military moral geographies, lead to suicidal ideation and attempt. These are situated within wider relations of civil society, the state, and the military.

KEYWORDS:

• Military institutional abuse
• veteran suicide
• identity wounds
• moral injury
• moral geographies
• PTSD

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Other terms are ‘ratting’ or the person who has divulged information is a ‘dog’.

2. Blanket bashing is when a group of soldiers use a blanket to hold down a victim while beating them with objects, for example soap tied up in socks.

Additional information

Funding

This research was given ethics approval by the Flinders University Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee SBREC 7372.