I Feel Guilty About Going to War… But It’s Probably Not for the Reasons You Think

I served 27 years in the US Army, and I spent a lot of my time in uniform abroad. My first overseas tour was a six-month peacekeeping mission with the Multinational Force and Observers in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, when I was a young lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division. That experience was eye-opening for many reasons, but especially in terms of the differences in the way we live in America and the way we lead in the US Army compared to other countries. I was always proud to be an American. But after six months in Egypt, and visits to Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon (technically), I was more than proud, I was grateful.

Later, as young captains, my wife and I both served in the Second Infantry Division in Korea, because pre-9/11, that’s where you went if you wanted to prove yourself in the Army. The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened while we were in Korea. I kept my soldiers busy digging fighting positions and practicing base defense drills, and even broke out the unit’s basic load of ammo (for which I got in trouble with the clown who was then serving as our battalion XO; I mean, what did you expect us to do, sir, you warned us to expect an attack). But nothing really happened; despite our XO’s claimed “insider knowledge,” no attack by North Korea materialized. Al Qaeda didn’t attack our postage-stamp-sized base in Uijongbu, and neither (thankfully) did the North Korean Army. As a unit, we ended up OK. And by the time my wife and I returned to the US mainland, the Global War on Terror (GWOT) was in full swing.

After a few stops for professional military training, I ended up in the 5th Special Forces Group, and then in Iraq. Ultimately, I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan seven times between 2004 and 2010. All of these deployments were when I was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Joint Special Operations Command. I went to Iraq once with 5th Group, and twice while assigned to JSOC. I did three tours in Afghanistan with the 160th and one while in JSOC. As I mentioned in some of my other writings, my tours were much shorter and much safer than the average warfighter’s experience. This is why I say that I consider myself a “war” veteran but not so much a “combat” veteran. I got shot at just enough to earn the Combat Action Badge, and my four Bronze Star Medals are for merit, not for valor. And I’m OK with that.

I saw a lot of death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the intel guy, it was my job to view the “kill cam” footage from the Predator drones, the AC-130 attack aircraft, or the various recording devices that our operators carried into battle. I reviewed the videos we captured from the insurgents–it was hard to sort out the useful stuff from all of the digital porn and propaganda they had–and saw the glee that they took in inflicting pain, suffering, and death on their fellow man. I heard the stories of the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. It was terrible. I wrote previously here on The Havok Journal about a time where I did a seats-out, doors-off helicopter ride into Baghdad (in daylight, a rarity) and got a good closeup of how we wrecked that country’s infrastructure.

On my first tour in Iraq, I went to the hospital on Balad with some of my colleagues to see a member of our unit who had gotten both of his legs blown off by an IED. He was carried away on a MEDEVAC. I walked away from Iraq on my own two feet. All three times.

But none of that is why I feel guilty.

I don’t feel guilty that my tours were short; that’s the nature of being in those kinds of units. I don’t feel bad about having never fired my weapon in combat; indeed, as an intel guy in the national SOF task force, it would probably have meant it was a bad day for everyone if I were engaged in direct combat. As the saying goes, “some experiences will vary.”

No, I feel guilty because war—despite everything it is and everything it takes—gave me a lot. And for a long time, I didn’t know how to feel, much less talk, about that.

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War Gave Me Everything I Thought I Wanted

War gave me purpose. It gave me a career, a reputation, a brotherhood with bonds as tight as blood. It taught me leadership, stress management, and how to make life-and-death recommendations in seconds. It opened doors in the civilian world—prestigious schools, elite jobs, speaking gigs. I built a name, a career, and a better life for my family because I went to war.

I was able to parlay my achievements in the SOF community, especially my performance downrange, into graduate school at Yale University and a prestigious teaching assignment at West Point, where I still work now in retirement at the Modern War Institute.

I still get emails from time to time about the article that a fellow JSOC alum and I wrote about JSOC’s F3EAD targeting process in Small Wars Journal more than 10 years ago. That article, which I co-authored with a friend who served in the Ranger Regiment and as a Green Beret, is still getting cited in professional journals to this day. Every once in a while, someone will come up to me and ask me to sign a copy of Violence of Action, the book I helped co-author about the 75th Ranger Regiment during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sometimes I get invited to speak at events like the Ranger Legacy Foundation, even though I was never a Ranger. None of that would have been possible for me, without war.

More importantly, I feel guilty from time to time about what war didn’t give me. I came home in one piece. No PTSD. No nightmares. Healthy. Sane. No Purple Heart. Marriage intact. Great kids.

I didn’t “survive” war the way people expect. I thrived because of it. And that’s where the guilt creeps in.

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I Carried the Benefits While Others Carried the Burdens

Many of us have comrades who died in the war, or who lost the battle after they came home. Some lost limbs, some lost families. Some just lost themselves. We all know fellow veterans who still can’t sleep through the night.

And then there’s me. Degree in hand. Executive job. Healthy family. Speaking at leadership conferences about “grit” and “service.” Invitations to appear on live national television to talk about modern war.

I’m glad things worked out for me. I’m grateful. I don’t feel like I missed out because I made it out OK, and I don’t wish it had turned out some other way. But sometimes it feels like I walked through someone else’s hell and came out the other side with a winning lottery ticket in my back pocket.

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Is It Survivor’s Guilt? Maybe. But It’s More Complicated Than That

This isn’t the classic survivor’s guilt—“Why did I live when they didn’t?” This is: “Why did I profit while others were crushed?”

People thank me for my service, and I always accept it with gratitude… but also with a little guilt. Yes, I did my duty. I did my part. I did what I could. And, frankly, I was good at it.

But what I sometimes want to say is, “Don’t thank me. Thank the guy who didn’t come back.” Or the one who came back broken. They paid full sticker price. I got the upgrade for free.

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So What Do You Do With That Kind of Guilt?

So what do you do, when you realize that the war was good for you? To begin with, you don’t wallow in it. That’s disrespectful to the men and women who carried heavier burdens. And you don’t run from it either. You sit with it. You acknowledge that it’s real.

Then you get to work.

You mentor the next generation. You advocate for veterans who weren’t as lucky. You tell the truth—even the uncomfortable parts—so the full picture of war is known, not just the valor or the trauma, but also the strange success stories that don’t quite sit right.

Because if we’re going to tell stories about war, we owe people the whole thing.

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The End, And a Beginning

I don’t regret going to war. I did what I believed was right. I led honorably. I served with pride.

But I do feel a little guilty. Not because I was wounded. Not because I lost something.

I feel guilty because I gained so much.

And I’m still learning how to carry that well.

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Charles Faint served over 27 years in the US Army, which included seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units and two stints as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also completed operational tours in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea and earned a Doctor of Business Administration from Temple University as well as a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. He is the owner of The Havok Journal, and the views expressed herein are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the US government.