The Warrior's Return: Leaving the Temple of Mars
- Bobby Jakucs, Psy.D.
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 20 hours ago
"Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it, what they mind is not feeling necessary."
-Sebastian Junger
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The Homecoming That Isn’t Easy
This article is Part I of a three-part series The Warriors Return, exploring what it means for veterans to come home – not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. To receive Parts II and III when they're published, subscribe here.
I remember at FOB Nolay, where my platoon was between missions in the Sangin District of Helmand Province in Afghanistan there was a beautiful mural, painted by the Royal Army and Royal Marines who originally occupied the post before the US Marines took over. It depicted the names of all their fallen. And on it were the words, from another famous memorial from WWII “when you return home; tell them of us and say, for their tomorrow we gave our today.”
In the sand swept and dust choked place that we Marines called home, it was a reminder of the sacred bond we share with our brothers and sisters who made the ultimate sacrifice. It was also a reminder for us who were blessed to make it home, that our todays and our tomorrows are still available to us. And yet, the tragedy is the unseen physical, emotional and spiritual wounds we carry so often make it hard to appreciate them.
As hard as war is, often the hardest part is coming home. Time does not stop - life and family have gone on without you. And the way you see the world has fundamentally changed. You have fundamentally changed.
If you want to dive deeper, into these realities there are four books I return to again and again – and I even require my trainees who work with veterans to read at least one: Tribe, What it is like to Go to War, On Killing and On Combat. Each of them, explores in different ways, the challenges of community, identity and purpose in war and coming home.
Karl Marlantes in his superb book What It Is Like to Go to War, exploring the psycho-spiritual realities of war writes of it. He likens the experience to entering the Temple of Mars, the Roman god of war: “I had entered the temple of Mars, where not only were humans sacrificed, including me, but I was also the priest.” That contact with the god of war forever marks the psyche and can beat down the stoutest soul. And the sacrifice? It is the sacrifice of not just lives but our innocence and identity.
And yet, as Marlantes goes on to describe, we often miss it. We miss the bonds of community and the purpose a mission gives. For many of us, we even miss combat itself. Because when we put the uniform on the shelf we are left then with another loss of identity, a loss of community and a loss of purpose. We are left to find the way out of the temple of Mars - in all its bewilderment and horror - alone.
And yet those are the very things – identity, community and purpose - that are essential to healing.
In this series we are going to examine a way out of the Temple of Mars. We will look at first the psychological literature on contemporary warriors returning home, the problems they face, and what is needed to heal. Afterwards, we will look at examples, both from the past and current veterans, of what getting out of the temple of Mars, and coming home – not just physically but mentally and spiritually – looks like.
Will this be easy? No. In fact, for most of us the way out is far harder than the way in. But it is necessary. Because just as life didn’t stop when we were overseas it doesn’t stop now. There are still missions to be completed. They may look different. But they are no less sacred. In fact, as we examine the psychological literature and - later look at the lives of exemplars from the past and current day veterans - we may look at our time in the Service as basic training. Basic training in preparation for an even Greater Mission.
Leaving the Temple of Mars: The Challenge of Coming Home
While our modern culture is certainly not the first to experience war, we are as writers like combat veteran and psychology professor Lt Col. Dave Grossman and combat correspondent and journalist Sebastian Junger articulate, the first to do so without a proper communal reintegration and sense of. Grossman in his works On Killing and On Combat argues that modern western culture is the first to wage war without a deep, communal process of bringing warriors home. Not physically of course, but mentally and spiritually.
He describes that traditional societies like the Lakota Sioux and the Samurai of Japan had rituals, ceremonies and community practices that helped transition warriors back to civilian life. He describes many of these as ways of shedding “blood guilt”, even those who killed justly. Because as Marlantes also describes in his work, the act of killing is a sacred act – it brings one into the depths of the human condition, and quite literally the spiritual space of life and death.
The Lakota Sioux would hold purification ceremonies to cleanse returning warriors, spiritually and psychologically before rejoining the tribe. The Samurai of Japan, incorporated a way of life enshrined in the warrior code of Bushido that cultivated a balance for returning warriors. For them, things like engaging with the creative process – poetry, calligraphy, and art- and cultivating strong family relations that encouraged connection to deeper ancestral ties, were just as important as battle itself.
These rituals, like others across cultures, helped foster a connection in identity. It was the same warrior who went off to war and the same warrior who returned home. Changed by battle but through community, reflection and ritual, that identity was integrated back in to community, rather than left “over there.”
Junger’s work reflects on this loss deeply. He writes, “The modern world has drastically reduced the role of community in people’s lives, and that loss has taken a severe toll on their emotional well-being.” The tragedy of our modern culture is we send warriors into battle as part of a team, and yet, they are expected to navigate the complex, and often terrifying process, of reconciling past, present and future identities alone.
In fact, reintegration issues appear to be one of the major issues impacting veterans' well-being. Possibly even more than the actual experience of combat itself. In recent study on this phenomena (Joseph et al., 2022) the authors term it reculturation.
In their conclusions they echo Junger, Grossman and Marlantes, noting that two primary components are needed for a sense of belonging, “a self-identity that individuals use to distinguish who they are and a group to which they belong.” That due to the stark dichotomies of military and civilian culture, veterans experience cognitive dissonance. And in order to resolve that they often choose to isolate - which exacerbates the problem, making a way out of the temple of Mars nearly impossible.
To fully integrate these issues, one needs to come to terms with the totality of life, including guilt, suffering and death. Our society, perhaps unlike any other is fundamentally uncomfortable with these existential concepts. We avoid them at any cost. Perhaps that is why, the best we have to offer is the words, “thank you for your service.” While it is meant well, it is not nearly enough.
Nietzche warned, “he who fights monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” (Beyond Good and Evil) Somebody has to stare into the abyss and face down the monsters we would rather deny. Our men and women who do that, our warriors, are the ones who pay the cost of our denial.
And that cost? Isolation, unresolved psychological wounds, and anguish in the soul. And the second and third order effects? Divorce, broken families and lives cut short by addictions and suicide.
However, it does not have to be that way. Nor should it. While there are many societal changes that should happen to better welcome warriors home, change is likely going to have to happen at the individual, family and local community level. And, it will likely have to be led by warriors and those who love them.
Veterans Returning Home: What the Research Holds
This is where psychology offers hope. What Junger, Marlantes, and Grossman describe in story, metaphor and lived experience, Viktor Frankl and contemporary therapies like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) describe in research and practice. Both Frankl’s Logotherapy and ACT and stress the importance pursuing meaning, along with belonging to a community, as hallmarks of a thriving, resilient life.
Viktor Frankl, identified three major sources of meaning in life – the creative (work, how we spend our time on a worthy goal), experiential (what we receive from the world especially through love, relationships and beauty), and attitudinal (the stance we take towards our unavoidable sufferings). We will explore the creative and relational predominately here. But the third is worth mentioning. The attitudinal is what Viktor Frankl called cultivating a tragic optimism - a radical "yes" to life despite the givens of guilt, suffering and death. We'll explore that in greater context in the next two parts of the series.
For now, Veterans - just like everyone else - need to know that what we do matters and that we are part of a community. In fact, for most of us it is in relationship that we find our purpose – it gives us a role to fulfill, problems to solve, and challenges to overcome. Relationships also serve the added function of allowing us to recognize we are not alone in our sufferings. Even though sometimes our minds tell us, often loudly, that we are. Or, that we are no longer are who we once were, which is only half the truth as we’ll see.
And that is where ACT can really be helpful. So many times, we get caught up in the content of our thoughts. Thoughts like “I’m not who I used to be”, “no one will understand what I went through”, or, in our darker moments even “how can I ever be forgiven?” We become like Maximus in the film Gladiator. Where behind prison bars he cries, “I am a slave, what possible difference can I make?”
Instead of focusing on the literal content of thoughts, ACT teaches us to focus on the function of a thought. Do these thoughts lead me to pursue a life of meaning, virtue and service? Or are they the very prison bars that keep us stuck? It is exactly these thoughts that prevent us from moving forward. Toward the very thing needed to heal: connection and purpose.
A 2023 study in the Journal of Veteran’s Studies found that among veteran’s with “invisible injuries” (PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, chronic pain) those who had social support and a clear purpose were far more likely to flourish, regardless of level of impairment and length of service.
And as Frankl points out, connection and one’s purpose in life often go hand in hand. Because it is in our relationships with others we rediscover how to serve. And while the horrors of war are all too real, perhaps it is we who have seen the worst of human nature - in others and in ourselves - who can bring about a profound good. Those who have walked in the valley of the shadow of death, contended with the darkness in their souls and in others, know how precious is the light. Who better than such as these to be beacons in the black night?
To that point, a 2014 study in the Psychological Medicine identified that among 3157 US Veterans with PTSD, clear sense of purpose, along with social and religiosity promoted growth and healing. These were identified as instrumental to the success of an individuals reintegration.
Despite what our minds may say, being a warrior does not stop because we take off the uniform. For those of us who returned home, we still owe a debt. As the Nolay memorial reminds us veterans we have an obligation – to remind others how precious today truly is. Because so many of our brothers and sisters did not get to see it.
To that end, we warriors are just as needed in peace, if not more so. As witnesses.
The Way Out
In next week’s post, we’ll explore how others have found their way out of the Temple of Mars – and into something far greater.
We’ll walk in the footsteps of three warrior-saints whose scars became sacred:
- A cannonball-shattered knight who became a founder of missionary priests
- A former POW turned radical disciple who rebuilt the Church
- And a Roman executioner who pierced Christ - then picked up the Cross
Their lives – and the lives of veterans today – reveal that there are other missions out there once we take the uniform off for the last time. In fact, perhaps thats when the real mission begins.
