Phillips Rita Helena
Department of Education, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria.
Front Sociol. 2024 Aug 15;9:1442649. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1442649. eCollection 2024.
Representative opinion polls indicate that members of the U.S. public may hold dichotomous perceptions of their veterans. While the majority of the U.S. public appreciates and honors their veterans, they are also considered to suffer from war-induced trauma and physical disabilities. Victimizing attitudes toward the veteran population may result in stigmatization and a more difficult transition into civilian society. This may be particularly problematic for U.S. veterans who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as this younger veteran population needs to reintegrate not only into civilian society but also into civilian workplace settings. The present study aims to uncover and unravel underlying rationalities that justify heroizing and victimizing sentiments in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. In order to delve beyond socially desirable reporting and cultural norms, in-depth semi-structured interviews with 29 individuals (20 non-veterans and 9 veterans) were conducted. Three themes were identified by thematic analysis: Theme 1 "Individual Understandings of the Deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan" represents an underlying framework that tainted perceptions of Theme 2 "Conceptualizations of war, deployment, and violence" and Theme 3 "Evaluations of the veteran's personality." If the deployments were considered justified, then veterans were heroized, characterized with supreme altruistic traits when compared with civilians. Negative effects on health that were arbitrarily related to deployment experience were classified as short-lived. If the deployments were scrutinized, then veterans were considered as naïve victims of a deceitful government, suffering from long-term health problems. Importantly, as discussions surrounding the legitimacy of the deployments were context-dependent, the participants were able to hold perceptions of veterans as victims and as heroes side by side. In conclusion, the heroization and victimization of veterans may be the result of considering different viewpoints, elucidating diversity and access to equivocal information in an increasingly complex social world. Although the present findings may require further validation, they suggest that changing negative, stereotyping perceptions of veterans may require a coherent rationale for deployments and uniform mission objectives.
具有代表性的民意调查表明，美国公众对退伍军人可能持有二元化的看法。虽然大多数美国公众赞赏并敬重他们的退伍军人，但退伍军人也被认为遭受战争创伤和身体残疾之苦。对退伍军人的受害化态度可能导致污名化，并使他们更难融入平民社会。这对于被部署到伊拉克和阿富汗的美国退伍军人来说可能尤其成问题，因为这群较年轻的退伍军人不仅需要重新融入平民社会，还需要融入平民工作场所。本研究旨在揭示并阐明为与伊拉克和阿富汗退伍军人相关的英雄化和受害化情绪辩护的潜在合理性。为了深入探究社会期望的报告和文化规范之外的情况，对29人（20名非退伍军人和9名退伍军人）进行了深入的半结构化访谈。通过主题分析确定了三个主题：主题1 “对伊拉克和阿富汗部署的个人理解” 代表了一个潜在框架，它影响了对主题2 “对战争、部署和暴力的概念化” 和主题3 “对退伍军人性格的评价” 的看法。如果认为部署是合理的，那么退伍军人就会被英雄化，与平民相比具有至高无上的利他特质。与部署经历随意相关的对健康的负面影响被归类为短暂的。如果对部署进行审视，那么退伍军人就被视为欺骗性政府的天真受害者，患有长期健康问题。重要的是，由于围绕部署合法性的讨论取决于具体情境，参与者能够同时持有退伍军人是受害者和英雄的看法。总之，退伍军人的英雄化和受害化可能是考虑不同观点的结果，这阐明了在日益复杂的社会世界中的多样性和获取模棱两可信息的情况。尽管目前的研究结果可能需要进一步验证，但它们表明，改变对退伍军人的负面刻板印象可能需要一个关于部署的连贯理由和统一的任务目标。
