In this week's double issue, we launch a new series on an issue seldom discussed among veterans: moral injury.
While most conversations about returning veterans focus on PTSD, David Wood puts a spotlight on an affliction that doesn't receive nearly enough attention -- a soldier's sense that his barometer for what is right and wrong has been thrown off, and the grief, numbness or depression that ensue. David's thorough investigation reveals that moral injury is a major problem -- with consequences that rival those related to physical injuries and PTSD.
In this series, told in three parts, David speaks to veterans who are dealing every day with moral injury. One struggles with having killed a child; another grapples with knowing he took a man's life only to find out later that it wasn't who he was supposed to shoot. They are all disturbed by their past decisions -- ethical calls they would have never fathomed outside of the context of war. Their stories are incredibly powerful and give a real sense of the depth of these veterans' wounds.
David also speaks to researchers and therapists about some of the programs out there attempting to help veterans deal with moral injury.
"We are not going to brush it aside. It did happen and it wasn't OK," says Amy Amidon, a staff psychologist at the San Diego Naval Medical Center who oversees its moral injury/moral repair therapy group. "The point is to help them feel OK sitting in the darkness with the evil they experienced."
Elsewhere in the issue, Maureen Ryan cuts into the True Detective chatter with a harsh indictment of HBO's diversity. Her extensive research yields some troubling facts about who is creating drama at the popular network.
"With one exception over the course of four decades, HBO has not aired an original one-hour drama series created by a woman," Maureen writes. "Just under 8 percent of HBO's original dramas and miniseries came from women, and 2.6 percent came from people of color. Less than 5 percent of its one-hour dramas -- one of the most high-profile entertainment products in the world -- were created by women. That's over the course of nearly 40 years."
In other news, I'm excited to announce that our next issue of Huffington will hit the Apple newsstand on March 28, on a new and improved platform. We've listened to your feedback, and we want to bring you the same great stories and design, but in a template that is faster, easier to use, and available beyond the constraints of the iPad.
We're launching first on the iPad, with an iPhone release quickly around the corner, followed by other tablets shortly thereafter. After nearly two years on the iPad, our next evolution will continue to bring you the best of The Huffington Post, in a setting that is more conscious of how you read the news. We can't wait to share it with you.
This story appears in Issue 92 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, available Friday, March 14 in the iTunes App store.