Contenu du sommaire : En revenir ?

“Remember! Do not forget!” the Bible commands. Remembering means recalling what one has done, whereas not forgetting means taking account, when we act, of what we have learned from experience. For human beings, this means building a new era. Going back is not the end for which we are aiming but only the beginning of a new story, for human beings are themselves only when they are able to overcome the ordeals showing that they are equal to the hopes of God.

Writers who fought in World War
I and other conflicts have recounted in their works what resembled a return to hell, the realm of Hades. They had made acquaintance with death and, having escaped from battle, they told us about the painful experience. There, comparable to the ancient tales of the Odyssey and the Aeneid, their writing referred to certain great myths, and in particular that of Orpheus.

Getting away does not mean forgetting, but going beyond the ordeal by converting it into a new power to take action. It does not imply rebuilding a facsimile of the past but creating and promoting a new identity. The testimony by Eugène Bourse, a resisting prisoner of war from 1940 to 1945, supplied here by his daughter, reveals two fundamental factors: first the basis of willingness, founded on a sense of duty, patriotic convictions and the fighters' tenacity, and, second, the choice of silence which is not synonymous with forgetting, but is an “empty space” that can be filled up. Bouncing back needs something other than rectification; it requires that the opportunities be grasped for transformation, both in oneself and in society or a socio-political group.

André Rogerie, then aged 21, was arrested by the Gestapo on 3July 1943, and was held successively in the Buchenwald, Dora, Maidanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau camps. Then, during the “death march”, he experienced Gross-Rosen, Nordhausen, Dora (again), and then Harzungen, but ultimately succeeded in escaping. In particular, he had been a witness of the “selection” process when trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He returned to France only on 15May 1945, but from then on was motivated by a fierce desire to testify. Now aged 91, and a General of France's armed forces, he appeared beside Simone Veil in the Paris town hall in 2005, marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. His speech is reproduced here, with his permission.

Returning home is a moment that soldiers both hope for and fear. They leave with the hope of returning alive and finding their family in good health. They are afraid that changes may have happened while they were away. This article shows various types of return, using three examples taken from history: the Anabasis retreat of the “Ten Thousand” from Babylonia to Ancient Greece and the returns of GIs at the end of World War II and following their withdrawal from Vietnam. Each return is a transformation for both the individual and the group. The time occupied by returning and the group's symbolic dissolution are both factors of fundamental importance. We therefore need to think of a return as a real period in the operation and not simply a journey to be undertaken from the workplace to home.

The return of soldiers involves a long psychological process, and establishment of a psychological decompression chamber for the military personnel returning from Afghanistan is a recent innovation for France. It underlines the importance of the army's concerns in relation to the soldiers' futures, after they have left a particularly testing theatre of operations. Based on her personal experience of this facility, the author identifies the positive aspects, and the potential for comparable care and protection measures.

Returning is an ordeal for those who left and were subjected to the stress of a mission, just as it is for those who remained behind and had to deal with everyday matters by themselves. Everyone has to learn how to get back to previous relationships. Avoiding psychological wounds implies that those coming back are fully reintegrated into the community, and once again find their place among their friends and family. This depends on the possibility of collective accounts: shared stories in which each person contributes his or her share of the experience while simultaneously benefiting from the accounts of others.

Special correspondent Patricia Allémonière was wounded on 7September 2011, while following an operation of France's armed forces in the Alasay valley, Afghanistan. Despite her wounds, remaining in the field was obviously necessary, in order to continue her work. Here, she reviews the experience: preparing, the group's strength, the return and the difficult convalescence.

In recent years, post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) has been accorded increasing importance, which poses questions for military leaders about the consequences of how they conduct operations. The viewpoint of leaders is more operational than concerned with clinical matters, and their concern to retain military numbers has resulted in their using an “empirical method” to manage possibilities of ptsd. In particular, the process aims to respond urgently when there is a threat, and then regenerate the group's collective strength, which is the factor determining fighters' morale. Keeping soldiers who have experienced ptsd in the theatre of operations seems to have produced good results, as compared to repatriation during a mission. Protecting against ptsd also depends on the command's ability to justify the mission, both before and after the action, as everything is a matter of significance when we are dealing with the indescribable.

Participation of France's armed forces in the Afghan conflict made the need for reflection and action relating to the handling of wounded military personnel, and also the question of their rehabilitation and redeployment, more pressing. Experience of clinical matters teaches us that the problems appear less during initial management of a medical condtion than some time later, when there is a reduction in support from the group to which the person belongs and in the most visible signs of recognition from the institution (ceremonies, decorations, visits from the authorities, etc.). While the units to which the soldiers belong continue the course of their missions, these individuals become anonymous and return to the difficulties of everyday life. It was found to be important during this critical period to strengthen the links with institutional players, through arrangements for rehabilitation and occupational redeployment, in order to ensure better co-ordination of the medical and social arrangements for managing the war-wounded, while not neglecting either the financial aspects or those relating to compensation. This is the function of the rehabilitation and redeployment unit at the Percy armed-forces teaching hospital.

While the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder is certainly a formulation of the 20th century, historians are able to point to indications that the condition occurred in many earlier conflicts, even though the expression itself did not yet exist. This article attempts to record instances where there is evidence of earlier manifestations of such disorders. It also tries to understand how the military medical bodies reacted when faced with widespread instances of ptsd.

The American armed forces have been deployed on a “just in time” basis for more than a decade in two theatres of operations, Afghanistan and Iraq, and are now depleted. Some 20% of the USA's expeditionary force is or will be subject to post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). This psychological condition, which now seems to have reached epidemic proportions in American society, can be understood only within an analysis of overwhelming disorder. It will, in a sense, amount to treating ptsd as a policy, rather than a medical, matter. What justifies the sacrifices and the missions is policy. When unable to succeed in the mission, a soldier facing mortification of the flesh and a threat of death will pay for it by a solitary and morbid torment that will continue to plague him long after the fighting.

From June to December 2009, the first company of France's 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment was committed within the Korrigan Task Force in Afghanistan. A number of its members did not return; others came back with physical wounds, while still others had invisible effects. In the heat of action, each member gave the best of which he was capable, for the group, because he knew that that was the only hope for salvation. The intensified cohesion – without invoking esprit de corps to an unhealthy extent – undeniably produced positive results. It kept most of the members alive, and helped care for those who were injured, strengthening the bonds of friendship and hierarchy, and increasing the group's confidence and dynamism. One fine morning, the operation came to an end, paradoxically not without sadness.

When losses occur in the course of operations, the return of soldiers from a mission has aspects that are literally extra-ordinary. Following the deaths of a number of the men, and cases of serious injuries through an attack suffered in Afghanistan on 20January 2012, the 93rd Mountain Artillery Regiment provided support to the grieving families, first as an emergency measure and then for an indefinite period. It gave comparable support to those who were injured physically and/or psychologically, and to their friends and family, while maintaining an operational readiness relying to a great extent on the care provided for the soldiers returning from a mission. In these painful situations, the regiment was able to judge the crucial role played by its well-structured and robust social organisation, testifying to an extended esprit de corps provided to the families, which is essential when faced with adversity. While anticipation of the crisis made overcoming the problems easier, it also ensured good post-operational deployment of the soldiers, which tends to be a long and complex process requiring particular vigilance from the higher command, and the expression of collective recognition being rather important. A regiment's commanding officer must himself prepare for this eventuality, going through such ordeals which emphasise the human dimension that is fundamental to his responsibilities.

Now, as in the past, soldiers returning from war are in most cases silent, because some of them have seen and experienced horror, though not just for that reason. The indifference of their nearest and dearest, and of the wider community, discourages their talking about it, even when this is not forbidden and there are no pressing thoughts censuring and gagging talk. Unless they have talents as a raconteur, or have cultural means and social connections that give them access to the press and other media, they are unable to communicate the extra-ordinary experience: that of a tragic human situation – which is often also warm and comical – revealed by extreme situations.

When faced with invisible wounds, we still, and always, have the ability to speak. We can talk, tell ourselves and give accounts. This consigning to accounts produces a division between you and yourself, opening a way into the mind for reconciliation. You need to divide yourself in order to better find yourself. You need to detach from yourself the painful experiences, in order to distance yourself from them, trying to heal the pain by expressing it in words. This shows the formidable power of words arranged in an account that can lead us to forgiveness and finding, once again, the essential trust: trusting yourself, being trusted and being confident that one can again become part of the world.

Decorations play a full part in the returning process. Just like the two sides of a coin (or a “decoration” medal!), struck on the same piece of metal, the award of a decoration to a soldier results from a choice that engraves sensitive material with hollows and raised portions, the latter being all the more prominent by contrast with the former. This sharing of malleable material is special, producing both grandeur and drama, and having all the more visibility for containing strong contrasts, distinguishing some of them rather than others. The rewards, particularly those for bravery, then become items at stake in the socialarea: important for recognition, for power and for representation.

What must we avoid interpreting as a culture of resilience? This article puts forward three lines for reflection. First, the culture of victimism is not a culture of resilience, even if its motivation is kindness. Then, the culture of vulnerability, which is now fashionable, includes attention to invisible suffering and it must be analysed and discussed. Lastly, what can a culture of vitality be if it is not a culture of performance?

Stress in combat and its after-effects are as old as war itself, but recognition of them following World WarI came much later. Rather paradoxically, the titanic confrontation with the Warsaw Pact armed forces, for which Western countries prepared during the Cold War, was not accompanied by any particular raising of awareness about these phenomena, which are now better known. In view of their lack of intensity, operations of peacekeeping-type, in which we have been engaged for more than 30 years, have not produced any notable developments in this area. It was left to the contact supervisors and unit doctors to deal with these problems on a case-by-case basis. Things did not begin to move until the 1990s. Even then, it was our commitment in Afghanistan and the return from war and all the associated brutality that led to progressive organisation of arrangements to protect against and monitor cases of post-traumatic stress disorder; they should now be continued indefinitely.

What is there but time? While everyone finds it very difficult and risky to attempt an academic definition, we all observe its universal power and inescapable nature. Whatever use we make of it, we remain (increasingly) constrained by events and by an acceleration in lifestyles, subject to the shocks of disturbances that are constantly upsetting our perceptions of time. Whether the time available is short or long, it escapes us and gets the better of us. We must therefore fight the tyranny of the moment and accord decision-making the time required, most especially when it comes to national defence.

In the collective memory, the Indochina war tends all too often to be summed up by the defeat at Dien Bien Phu, on 8May 1954, and the heroism of the soldiers involved. This representation of heroic soldiers was communicated by the first witnesses, beginning with the great military leaders. The hero-soldier figure leaves little room for the expression of suffering: a true soldier accepts his fate as all in the day's work, sacrificing himself to a higher cause. This representation found its ultimate expression in the work of cinematographer Pierre Schoendoerffer. A new image came, however, to be superimposed on this in the early 1990s. It may have originated from the community of former French prisoners of war in Indochina, who came to public attention through the Boudarel affair (a French academic accused of torturing French prisoners for the Viet Minh during Indochina the war). Their evidence progressively illustrated what could be understood as a “humanised soldier”.

Returning is an ordeal for those who left and were subjected to the stress of a mission, just as it is for those who remained behind and had to deal with everyday matters by themselves. Everyone has to learn how to get back to previous relationships. Avoiding psychological wounds implies that those coming back are fully reintegrated into the community, and once again find their place among their friends and family. This depends on the possibility of collective accounts: shared stories in which each person contributes his or her share of the experience while simultaneously benefiting from the accounts of others.

When faced with invisible wounds, we still, and always, have the ability to speak. We can talk, tell ourselves and give accounts. This consigning to accounts produces a division between you and yourself, opening a way into the mind for reconciliation. You need to divide yourself in order to better find yourself. You need to detach from yourself the painful experiences, in order to distance yourself from them, trying to heal the pain by expressing it in words. This shows the formidable power of words arranged in an account that can lead us to forgiveness and finding, once again, the essential trust: trusting yourself, being trusted and being confident that one can again become part of the world.