Edward Tick > Quotes

“From the recent Balkan Wars, journalist Slavenka Drakulic observed that “someone is always a Jew. Once the concept of ‘otherness’ takes root, the unimaginable becomes possible.”8 She continues, “Once excluded, [people] become aliens. Not-me. Not-us. You still feel responsible but in a different way, as towards beggars. . . . The feeling of human solidarity turns into an issue of my personal ethics. . . . You are no longer obliged to do something for their sake.”9 This is true of anyone we place in special categories—refugees, veterans, victims, and survivors, as well as enemies—even though they may be our neighbors. In the British movie Pretty Dirty Things, one migrant shouts at another, “I’m a certified refugee. You’re an illegal. You have nothing. You are nothing.”
― Edward Tick, War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-tramatic Stress Disorder

“What if significant reasons our veterans suffer in epidemic numbers lie, to paraphrase Shakespeare, “not in the veterans but in ourselves”? What if the sources of traumatic breakdown are in society; in our beliefs and practices; in the reasons and ways we prepare for and make war; and in the ways we neglect or fail our troops before, during, and after service? What if veterans are carrying our collective war wounding alone because it is denied and disowned by society at large?”
― Edward Tick, Warrior's Return: Restoring the Soul After War

“Many civilians do not think war has touched them until they remember that their grandfather was in World War II, their nephew in Bosnia, or their neighbor’s daughter in Iraq. Or that the suicide in their neighborhood was by a despairing veteran for whom life should have been just beginning. Or that the national debt from the war economy squeezed the hope and finances out of their struggling family’s meager resources. War touches us all. We must awaken to how. Our challenge is this: how do we turn war’s inevitable wounding and suffering into wisdom and growth that truly brings warriors home and benefits us all?”
― Edward Tick, Warrior's Return: Restoring the Soul After War

“with meaning, honor, respect, and reintegration into community. When we practice these aright—and it is possible—we fill our communities with honorable, noble, wise elders who in turn serve and mature the society and its most needy.”
― Edward Tick, Warrior's Return: Restoring the Soul After War

“Our concern is the invisible wounding from war. The physical wounds are most visible to our veterans who deserve first concern. But in truth we are all wounded. Grandparents, parents, siblings, children, friends, neighbors, care providers, teachers, taxpayers are all caught in war’s long and crushing tentacles. Our entire society reels in pain, exhaustion, despair, and debt. Look closely. All lives are affected and we all need be concerned.”
― Edward Tick, Warrior's Return: Restoring the Soul After War

“The process of depersonalization begins long before combat, and political leaders of all persuasions have used the same techniques. Nazi leader Hermann Goering explained that the imagination of a people must be reshaped in order to prepare a reluctant citizenry for war: “Naturally, the common people don’t want war. . . . It is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.” His prison psychologist, G. M. Gilbert, answered that a democracy is different; people have a say through their vote, and in the United States only Congress can declare war. Goering responded, “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”4”
― Edward Tick, War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-tramatic Stress Disorder

“Imagination is the vehicle for the soul.”
― Edward Tick

“Return refers not just to bringing troops out of harm’s way but to complete homecoming for the whole person in body, mind, heart, and soul”
― Edward Tick, Warrior's Return: Restoring the Soul After War