Veteran Therapeutics: The Promise of Military Medicine and the Possibilities of Disability in the Post‐9/11 United States

Abstract

This article draws on a decade of ethnographic work with injured U.S. soldiers and veterans to show the collateral effects of military medicine's salvific promise. In tracing these effects through recent changes in amputation protocols and less spectacular conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder, I show that the prevalent model of “veteran therapeutics,” which posits cure as the aim of post‐war, has perverse and cruel effects. Drawing on disability theory, I explore alternative ways to read the frictions that soldiers and veterans experience, stretched between the medical model of veteran therapeutics and an emergent sense that cure may be an impossible goal. Alternatively, the article turns to moments when veterans learn to live with disability, rather than living in anticipation of its end. Though small, such moments contain possibilities for a less cruel mode of inhabiting disability, offering incipient signs of what we might call a crip art of failure.

Shaping hope in everyday life: Experiences of veteran spouses with post‐deployment mental health issues

“…Despite the development of psychosocial interventions concerning positive health and recovery‐oriented approaches (Huber et al., 2011; Leamy et al., 2011), the dominant medical discourse within veteran health care involves cure and a return to good health (Wool, 2020). The spouses revealed a trajectory in mental health care characterized by both hope and despair: it is an interplay between hope for a cure and a better future and the hopelessness of an unattainable cure and the unlikelihood of improvement.…”

“…Their experiences entail acceptance of the limitations of their future possibilities. They were willing to adjust their desires and expectations about the normative future of ‘a good life’ (Berlant, 2011) and the medical discourse of cure (Wool, 2020). They reformulated their perspectives to a more achievable reality within the boundaries and possibilities of the diagnosis.…”

“…Well, sometimes I try to change it. But I do not notice any improvement, well, it must be okay then.” According to Wool (2020), this contradiction is ascribed to the friction between the promise of medicine and the ongoing experiences of daily limitations. The spouses aligned present‐day reality with their recovery desires to strive for a realistic hope and a decrease in the impairment (Wool, 2020).…”

“…But I do not notice any improvement, well, it must be okay then.” According to Wool (2020), this contradiction is ascribed to the friction between the promise of medicine and the ongoing experiences of daily limitations. The spouses aligned present‐day reality with their recovery desires to strive for a realistic hope and a decrease in the impairment (Wool, 2020). The interviews also revealed that the belief that their partners were victims of mental health issues led them to accept the current situation.…”

“…They are collectively produced and culturally interpreted (Del Vecchio Good et al., 1990; Eaves et al., 2016). With regard to deployment‐related mental health issues, Western therapeutic approaches and military medical discourse offer a range of treatments that enhance hope for a cure (Antelius, 2007; Wool, 2020). Even in the absence of an immediate cure, the future remains uncertain, holding the potential for recovery or healing.…”