Wives of war veterans about their acquired disabilities during war foreign missions. Case studies

What is it about?

The article is a qualitative research report written from the theoretical perspectiveof disability studies. Qualitative research, case study, carried out for the purposesof this article, concerns learning about disabilities acquired in husbands a war vet-erans by their wives. The place of research is military culture, while the aim is tounderstand the essence of what wives learned about the disability of their husbandsduring the entire process of adaptation to life with a disability after returning froma mission, against the background of life in military culture. The theoretical partof the article contains a review of world literature with an emphasis on deningacquired disability. The very phenomenon of acquiring disability by veterans dur-ing military missions and its background, i.e. the anthropological phenomenon ofculture shock, were analyzed. The empirical part of this article is a qualitative re-port of 3 case studies and 3 voices of war veterans’ wives. The research question inthis report was formulated as follows: What did the wives learn about the acquireddisability of their own veterans’ husbands after their return from military missionsabroad? Research results generated after coding and categorization analyzes (Gibbs,2011) indicate categories that answer the main research question and sub-questionsin the following contexts: (a) acquired disability, (b) military support, (c) veterans’privileges (d) auto-marginalization of veterans (e) wives’ inrmity, (f) alcohol anddomestic violence, (g) before suicide, (h) wives suggesting changes in the supportof veterans with acquired disabilities. The results of the analyzes indicate that the wives learned about the symptoms and characteristics of their husbands’ disabilities(mental and physical) and, additionally, they learned about the secondary disability(auto-marginalization, alcohol or drug addiction, domestic violence, escalation ofsuicidal thoughts) during adaptation after military missions.

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Why is it important?

The situation in families after the return of veterans with acquired disabilities is complicated. Thanks to the continued qualitative research, it is possible to learn about the areas neglected in the support of military families and veterans with acquired disabilities. The actions of proper diagnosis of helping families can protect against the suicide of veterans.

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