Military personnel from several nations have been deployed to different conflict areas abroad, such as Afghanistan. The personnel who have worked in a threatening environment or have been exposed to stressful events might initiate a meaning-making process, as such experiences have the potential to be inconsistent with global meaning (Park 2010). Global meaning is described as our goals and the established beliefs about the world, the self, and the self in the world (Park and Folkman 1997). Such goals and beliefs constitute a framework from which we can assess new experiences (Park 2010). A meaning-making process is initiated by an appraisal of an event, and in cases of inconsistencies, coping strategies are used to attribute meaning to the event and ourselves in it. This line of reasoning is found in the cognitive theories of Horowitz’ Stress Response Theory (Horowitz 2001) and the Theory of Assumptive Worlds (Janoff-Bulman 1989). The outcome of this process might lead to improved personal skills, resources, and relationships, as well as to new perspectives on life, sometimes called personal growth or benefit finding (Park 2010).
Finding meaning after being exposed to stressful events has been investigated in the military context (refer review by Schok et al. 2008). Veterans report stress responses and positive effects, benefits, or growth after war-related experiences (Aldwin et al. 1994; Elder and Clipp 1989; Fontana and Rosenheck 1998; Forsvarets Sanitet 2013; Mehlum 1995), and most veterans experience more positive than negative outcomes of serving in war (Schok et al. 2008). Qualitative research has explored those aspects of veterans' experience that are found meaningful (Britt et al. 2001; Mooren et al. 2009; Schok et al. 2010a) and how they correlate with positive outcomes, such as stress-related growth and benefit finding (Britt et al. 2001; Fontana and Rosenheck 1998; Schok et al. 2010b). However, in a military context, this area of research seems to be limited, and different ways of conceptualizing meaning sometimes restrict comparison (Schok et al. 2008). This study explores the aspects of service that veterans find meaningful after being redeployed from Afghanistan. Moreover, it explores inconsistencies in appraisal of meaning that activate coping strategies in order to attribute new meaning to such events.
There are different ways of conceptualizing meaning (Bellin 2012; Park 2010; Park and Folkman 1997). Mascaro and Rosen (2008) define meaning as the “
People do not necessarily consciously identify their global meaning structures or think in terms of the needs for meaning (Baumeister 1991; Park 2010). Moreover, meanings can also be uttered at different cognitive levels (Baumeister and Vohs 2002; Vallacher and Wegner 1989). Previous research illustrates the aspects of service that military personnel report finding meaningful. Such common meaning assigned to service in war seems to concern comradeship and social support, purpose of mission, and significance of work (Schok et al. 2010a). For instance, the gratitude of the local people is meaningful to soldiers, as it seems to be a reward for their presence and efforts (Schok et al. 2010a). Team cohesion and receiving gratitude from locals are also what motivate US combat units to continue fighting (Wong et al. 2003). Britt et al. (2001) also pointed out that in a US peacekeeping operation in Bosnia, meaningful service was related to the significance of the work. Here, significance was described in terms of how soldiers reported the importance of their job, commitment to their job, and how much they identified with the mission.
Categories of global meaning might also be related to incongruence or inconsistencies of meaning. Global meaning directs what to expect and, consequently, allows one to determine whether the appraised meaning in a certain situation is regarded as consistent or inconsistent with global meaning (Park and Folkman 1997). For instance, an experience might be inconsistent with global meaning if it involves loss of meaning, fear for one's life, or a feeling of helplessness, which indicate a loss of control, as found among veterans with stress symptoms (Fontana and Rosenheck 2005; Schok et al. 2010a). Thus, coping with stressful situations is meaningful as it gives a sense of control. According to Janoff-Bulman (1992), control and predictability are the most important global categories of meaning. Meaning-making coping strategies refer to the effort to reduce any presence of inconsistencies between global meaning and situational meaning (Park 2010) so that congruence of meaning can be restored (Skaggs and Barron 2006). The outcome of this process might be twofold: finding new global meaning or situational meaning (Park 2010). However, several meaning-making coping strategies are described in the literature (Park 2010). Park and Folkman (1997) refer to positive appraisal, revision of goals, and planning of goal-directed problem-focused coping, as well as activating spiritual beliefs and experiences, as meaning-making coping. The use of attributions or reattributions is often seen as applying cognitive strategies to establish causality and responsibility for an event to change situational or global meaning, something that often relates to the perception of control (Park 2010; Park and Folkman 1997). According to Baumeister (1991) and Sommer et al. (2012), the need for value might be satisfied by externalizing responsibility for one's own behavior or stating one's own good intentions in cases of failure, and the need for self-worth by comparing oneself with others less fortunate, thus asserting superiority or assuming credit for success.
Being deployed to a war zone likely includes experiences of stressful situations. Some of the experiences will be found meaningful, as documented in previous research (Britt et al. 2001; Schok et al. 2010a; Wong et al. 2003). However, people who have experienced stressful situations often initiate a meaning-making process as it might challenge established meaning structures. Experiences appraised as incongruent with such established meaning structures are here termed as inconsistencies of meaning. Previous research also includes examples of what veterans report as inconsistencies of meaning (Schok et al. 2010a) and general descriptions of meaning-making coping strategies used to restore meaning congruence (Park 2010; Park and Folkman 1997; Skaggs and Barron 2006). The problem statement of this study is twofold: what aspects of the service do veterans find meaningful, and how are these meaningful aspects related to inconsistencies of meaning and meaning-making coping strategies? To answer these questions, 13 members of a Norwegian Air Force Protection Unit were interviewed about their service in Afghanistan, as described later. The findings in this study have been substantiated through a functional exposition of meaning: purpose, value, efficacy, and self-worth, as advocated by Baumeister (1991).
From 2008 to 2013, personnel from an Air Force Protection Unit in Norway took part in three military operations under the Norwegian military engagement in Afghanistan. Some participated in a Force Protection Company (FPCOY) in Maymaneh, serving for 6 months. The overall mission of FPCOY was to protect the camp and adjacent areas, as well as providing escort service to and from Maymaneh City. Some personnel participated in the Task Unit (TU) in Maymaneh, serving for 6 months. The TU conducted operations all over the province of Faryab, sometimes in cooperation with, or as protection for, other military units. Some participated in the Fly Away Security Team of the Tactical Airlift Detachment (TAD) for the Hercules transport aircraft based in Mazar-e-Sharif, for 2 months at a time. FAST teams guarded the aircraft and aircrew during flights and at airports all over Afghanistan. In the following, such service is referred to as Force Protection and Security Operations.
After a presentation about this study at a regular company meeting, half of the veterans present volunteered to participate, and 13 were randomly selected. The selected veterans signed a voluntary declaration according to the ethical guidelines and approval protocol of the Norwegian Social Science Data Service. The veterans were low-rank personnel on contract as well as officers. Nine had two or more deployments, but their most recent deployment was service in FPCOY, TU, or TAD. The veterans had worked in a threatening environment, and the majority of the respondents spoke about at least one highly stressful incident, e.g., handling a mass demonstration outside their camp that resulted in injured Norwegian personnel.
In-depth interviews were conducted in September 2013 at the Air Force Academy or the respondents' home base, depending on the choice of the respondents. We identified resource personnel (military priest, military psychologists, and medical personnel) at these locations before conducting the interviews, as a service to the respondents if requested. Semistructured interviews were conducted, recorded, and later transcribed by the first author (RL). An interview guide that included questions concerning experiences they remembered well and would describe as meaningful or meaningless was used. Several respondents seldom used the words “meaningful” or “meaningless” when speaking of their experiences but rather used “positive”, “negative”, and similar terms to express their feelings and thoughts. Thus, we often used questions, in particular follow-up questions, during the interviews that reflected these words used by the respondents.
The software NVIVO Version 10 was used for data analysis. The data were analyzed according to open and axial coding (Corbin and Strauss 2008). This included writing notes that included the description of codes, possible underlying mechanisms, or use of language, and later, relation to other codes (Smith et al. 2009). For instance, “caring”, “cohesion”, “recognition”, “coping”, and “ambivalence toward action” were codes that emerged early in the process. Later, patterns across all the interviews were used to establish a simple matrix of themes and categories. Codes were compared with others for similarity in words, content, and frequency. Interpretation of codes into categories and themes started early in the process, but this was more prevalent during the final stages of the analysis when determining categories and linking to previous research and theories within this field (Creswell 2013). Statements that were presented as significant, meaningful, and important, or otherwise a positive experience, in relation to the service were included as potential meaning themes. This also included goals that the veterans set for themselves during service and the motivation to serve in such operations in the first place. Statements that were presented as meaningless, a source of frustration, or disappointment, or otherwise a negative experience, were included as potential inconsistency themes. Moreover, descriptions and explanations of how to think or act on such inconsistency themes were included as meaning-making coping strategies. The most frequently used themes and categories were used to establish a final matrix as presented in the findings that follow.
As illustrated in Figure 1 below, we identified three main themes of meaning, each theme being specified with keywords for each of the categories. The themes of meaning were as follows: 1) “Confirmation of ability”, 2) “Cohesion of peers”, and 3) “Significance of effort”. We also identified three themes of inconsistencies, specified here with a brief description of what constituted the inconsistency theme and an accompanying meaning-making coping strategy. The themes of inconsistencies were “Risky confirmation”, “Impaired cohesion”, and “Little significance”.
We believe that the themes of meaning and the themes of inconsistencies are interrelated as illustrated. The number assigned to each category indicates how many of the respondents have at least one quote within the category in question. In the following sections, each of the themes is described more thoroughly and exemplified with quotes from the respondents, designated by numbers 1—13, starting with the first theme of meaning and then the first theme of inconsistency. During these descriptions, we also use the following wording about frequency: “Most respondents” is used when referring to at least seven respondents. “Many” refers to five or six, “some” refers to three or four respondents, and “few” refers to one or two respondents.
The first theme, Confirmation of ability, relates to how the veterans confirm their personal abilities through Coping and Recognition of abilities. This is accomplished by handling one's job well when working in a threatening and demanding environment and being involved in hostile acts, often termed as action. This included specific tasks of a team outside camp that involved potential or actual threat, e.g., contact with enemy forces, handling mass demonstrations, or handling improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Most of the veterans expressed a desire to cope with stressful situations, as illustrated in the following quote:
Here, recognition reflects the importance of others confirming their ability. Such recognition of ability refers to feedback often given within a team or unit.
We have connected the theme of meaning Confirmation of ability to the theme of inconsistency Risky confirmation. Risky confirmation relates to how confirmation of ability is only accomplished in the presence of risk. This fact seemed to be on the veterans' mind, described through an ambivalence toward action that activated a meaning-making coping strategy referred to as Counterfactual thinking.
Most respondents wanted to experience action to confirm their own abilities. However, most of the veterans also uttered an ambivalent attitude to experiencing action as, at the same time, they feared the possible consequences of the risk involved.
Counterfactual thinking refers to a possible outcome that did not happen, e.g., a possible (counterfactual) negative outcome (Teigen 1998). By imagining a negative outcome, the veterans could assess their experience in positive terms, whether or not they had been involved in action-related situations.
In a way, everybody wants to be part of action and something cool. That is, until it happens. But nobody it has happened to thinks it's kind of cool afterwards, so it's like that, one is lucky if nothing happens. (9)
The second theme Cohesion of peers relates to bonding, trust, and mutual support among personnel within a unit, both in operations and in camp. In general, cohesion is viewed as a sense of belonging and helping behavior (Chan et al. 2006) and is revealed here through the veterans' expressions of “Belonging”, “Backing”, and “Caring”.
Here, Belonging reflects the veterans' explicit or implicit description of bonding or having a sense of belonging to their unit. Most often, belongingness was described implicitly:
A few of the veterans explicitly described how they were integrated in the unit:
Backing reflects the trust among peers to support each other during missions, if necessary (Siebold 2007), and relates to the instrumental aspect of cohesion (Siebold 2012). Reference to backing each other up was normally made in cases involving threat. The following quote is an example:
Here, caring reflects the emotional support through conversations among peers during the deployment. Caring reflects a trust among peers to support each other emotionally during missions, if necessary (Siebold 2012). Most veterans mentioned the act of caring:
We have connected the theme of meaning Cohesion of peers to the theme of inconsistency Impaired cohesion. Impaired cohesion relates to how trust and bonding might be broken within a team, described through “Unreliable team members”, and this activates the use of a meaning-making coping strategy referred to as “Downward comparison”.
The respondents found meaning in experiencing cohesion in their unit. However, most respondents also told stories about personnel within their unit who were perceived as unreliable during stress and did not earn the respondents' confidence when it came to their safety.
Downward comparison refers to comparing oneself to others who are worse off (Buunk and Gibbons 2007).
The third theme, Significance of effort, relates to how veterans view the significance or importance of their work. This is described through the veterans' perception of the effect of their job, how they were recognized by others, or how they gained status due to their efforts.
“Contribution” reflects the participants' view of their efforts as something important. Often, this was judged by seeing the effect of their job.
Recognition of effort relates to how feedback from personnel, mostly outside the team or organization, functions as a verification of their work having an effect, as the following quotes indicate:
Having participated in numerous missions, having experienced action, and being exposed to risk were factors that gained the respect of others, as the following quote illustrates:
We have connected the theme of meaning, Significance of effort, to the theme of inconsistency, Little significance. Little significance relates to how the perception of significance of the veterans' efforts is challenged by the indifference of civilians, something that activates a meaning-making coping strategy referred to as Justification.
The respondents found meaning in the significance of their efforts by making a contribution, receiving recognition, and gaining status for their efforts. However, most of the respondents believed that many civilians did not understand why they had deployed voluntarily and that they were generally not interested in their experiences.
According to this respondent, civilians are not interested in hearing about their experience and they do not know what it is all about, something that is perceived as peculiar. Most respondents said they did not find civilians as interested in their service as expected, even though there were exceptions, something that relates to how others evaluate or value the group, termed as “public collective self-esteem” (Crocker and Luhtanen 1990). The veterans' experience indicates a gap between expected and received attention and recognition, something that relates to the value that others place on their social identity (Crocker and Luhtanen 1990). To make sense of these inconsistencies, strategies of justification were used.
Some of the veterans described the lack of interest from civilians with an account of why they chose to deploy to Afghanistan, as the quote below illustrates:
This study explored the aspects of military service that veterans find meaningful. The findings show that meaning was found in the following themes: Confirmation of ability, Cohesion of peers, and Significance of effort. We believe that the following aspects of service satisfy the needs for meaning: purpose, value, efficacy, and self-worth (Baumeister 1991). We have further explored how some experiences are inconsistent with such meaningful aspects of the service and found one theme of inconsistency for each theme of meaning, specifically, Risky confirmation, Impaired cohesion, and Little significance. We also found that these inconsistencies of meaning activated certain meaning-making coping strategies. The coping strategies found in this study, Counterfactual thinking, Downward comparison, and Justification, are described as meaning-making coping strategies used to alter the meaning of a situation by reappraisal of an event (Baumeister 1991; Park 2010; Park and Folkman 1997). The veterans' description of inconsistencies of meaning and coping strategies does not indicate any contemplation over the global and appraised meanings of their experiences. For example, indifference from civilians is coped with by justifying one's own choices. In this lies a sense of acceptance of reality. In comparison, Schok et al. (2010a) reported that veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms were more preoccupied with negative notions that also had an emotional impact, such as feeling disconnected from the civil society and being irritated by ignorant and spoiled civilians (Schok et al. 2010a).
Finding meaning in a military context might be somewhat different from other contexts. Military personnel are not random victims of negative life events. They are selected and trained to cope with stressful situations (Larner and Blow 2011). Thus, soldiers have probably already found some purpose for the mission before being deployed. In this study, Coping, as a test of oneself, was sometimes phrased as a goal. Here, Coping connected prior training to active service in war, as well as personal qualities to qualities needed in the role of a soldier. To our knowledge, finding purpose in coping as a test of oneself has not previously been found within the research on meaning-making process in a military context. However, it has been documented that soldiers who volunteer for military service abroad are sometimes motivated by the adventure and opportunities to test themselves in a stressful environment (Battistelli et al. 1999). On the other hand, the importance of cohesion resonates with previous research on meaning making, whereby strong cohesion or comradeship represents trust and safety during the deployment (Schok et al. 2010a). Such commitment to each other's safety and common goals are in the soldiers' self-interest (Siebold 2007) and might be viewed as a reasonable adaptation to the context. However, only a few of the veterans spoke explicitly of this theme as a goal. The theme Significance of effort relates to how the veterans established the belief that their efforts had an effect. Knowing that your efforts matter is probably important to most veterans as it gives a sense of purpose to the mission (Schok et al. 2010a), making the burden, stress, and risk involved in such deployments worthwhile. In this study, some veterans expressed a sense of fulfillment, indicating that they had found purpose in their deployment.
Furthermore, finding meaningful aspects of the service, such as value, efficacy, and self-worth, also fulfilled the other needs for meaning (Baumeister 1991). First, meaning was found in Confirmation of ability through the experience of Coping and Recognition of ability. This indicated that the veterans confirmed or enhanced their perception of their efficacy and self-worth. This theme was related to the inconsistency theme Risky confirmation, which related to a reduced perception of control and an effort to reestablish self-esteem through Counterfactual thinking. Second, meaning was found in Cohesion of peers through Belonging, Backing, and Caring. This indicated that the veterans enhanced their perceptions of collective efficacy and collective self-esteem. This theme was related to the inconsistency theme Impaired cohesion, which possibly concerned a reduced perception of collective efficacy and collective self-esteem through unreliable team members, as well as an effort to reestablish mainly collective self-esteem through Downward comparison. Third, meaning was found in Significance of effort through Contribution, Recognition of effort, and Status from effort. This indicated an enhanced perception of value, collective efficacy, self-worth, and collective self-esteem. This theme was related to Little significance, which was possibly related to the reduced moral value of their efforts and a strategy of Justification to defend this reduced moral value.
We argue that meaning constructs and the meaning-making process are to be understood in terms of needs for meaning. However, people rarely think and speak in such terms (Baumeister 1991; Park 2010). For instance, people might report thoughts and behavior known as coping strategies, but they are not necessarily aware of why they are using these strategies (Park 2010). Thus, we can only substantiate the connection of meaningful aspects of the service to such needs for meaning. At the same time, we might not pick up important nuances when using the wording of the respondents. In this study, recognition was expressed as an important part of the experience, but there might be a difference between positive feedback received for one's skills or effects of efforts, and the gratitude received from people who are personally affected by the war. The former might mostly respond to the need for efficacy and self-worth and the latter to the need for value. Gratitude is described as a response to moral behavior and an emotion that connects people to society, as people might be grateful toward people they have never met (McCullough et al. 2001). Thus, feeling a sense of value in this particular context might be largely dependent on gratitude from people outside the military organization. This might explain why recognition from civilians seemed to matter so much in this study. In comparison, medal ceremonies were sometimes described as being of little importance. Such ceremonies can probably refer to several needs for meaning, but recognition from people who are personally involved and have firsthand knowledge probably matters more than recognition from others. Thus, medal ceremonies might be perceived as a result of institutional practice rather than personal involvement.
Another problem of connecting meaning to needs for meaning is that some experiences of the veterans might be substantiated within several needs for meaning. In this study, the inconsistency theme Unreliable team members was presumed to predominantly affect collective efficacy when experiencing lack of trust and backup from other team members. However, the strategy of downward comparison indicated a need to protect one's own self-worth. Efficacy and self-worth might often work together in real-life experiences. The situation of unreliable team members might comprise a threat to both collective efficacy and self-esteem, as it might be perceived as both a threat to trust in others' support and a threat to belongingness to the team. In general, group belonging provides a basis for receiving support (Haslam et al. 2005), but support also functions as an affirmation of group belonging (Thoits 1986). Alternatively, there is a close relationship between the constructs of self-efficacy and self-esteem (Bong and Skaalvik 2003; Judge and Bono 2001), even though they are also described as two separate constructs (Chen et al. 2004). The same connection is found between self-esteem and value, whereby self-enhancing evaluation, such as perceiving one's action as morally good, might be viewed as maintenance of self-esteem (Sommer et al. 2012).
The findings in this study are the result of researchers' interpretations and abstractions and might be biased due to leading questions and experimenter expectancy (Kvale 1996). This is a well-known criticism of qualitative research, for instance, when preconceived attitudes and insider perspectives influence the research process (Flick 2009). However, being an insider from the military organization might also be an advantage as trust can be established with the respondents. This research also involves researcher subjective abstraction during analysis, e.g., the abstraction of quotes to coding and coding to themes of meaning. In this study, the second author investigated the proposed coding and themes to ensure that they were grounded in relevant quotes (Creswell 2013), as well as including discussions on alternative understanding.
The retrospective nature of this study also has its limitations. Development and refinement of meaning structures over time is an important attribute of the meaning-making process (Park 2010; Skaggs and Barron 2006). Thus, a longitudinal design with two or more concurrent measurement points could have reflected this process better. For instance, longitudinal research using measures from the pre-deployment to the post-deployment periods would allow for examination of change in meaning structures over time. Moreover, even though we identify inconsistencies of meaning and accompanying coping strategies, we do not capture the end state of this meaning-making process. Thus, this study does not document whether the coping strategies are effective and result in successful integration as we have anticipated (Park 2010). However, we believe that this study concerns veterans without severe stress responses and acknowledge at the same time that the meaning-making process, in particular, of veterans with stress responses, also covers other categories or needs for meaning than those chosen in this study, e.g., as found in the study by Schok et al. (2010a). Furthermore, meaning structures are also constructed within a particular social context (Bartone 2005; Weick 1995) such that there may be differences in the beliefs and goals of soldiers from different nations, branches, and units. The veterans in this study have returned to the same home base unit, which also represents a certain social context. A comparison group of veterans could have demonstrated influence from different social contexts on meaning making, for instance, a study of veterans having served within the same unit but returning to military versus civilian lives afterward.
The findings of this study are in line with those of Schok et al. (2010a), who explored the meaning-making proess among Dutch peacekeeping soldiers in Cambodia, in particular, the themes Cohesion of peers and Significance of effort. Bearing this in mind, one should note that in our study, the veterans most often saw their efforts in relation to lower-level military objectives and not the overall development in the country as found in the study of Schok et al. (2010a). Further research might reveal whether military campaigns regarded as unsuccessful in the overall mission by the majority of the veterans (Forsvarets Sanitet 2013) intensify the veterans' focus on lower-level mission objectives, as found in our study. Further research could also explain differences between these two studies, such as the theme Confirmation of ability, which was found in our study but not reported in the study by Schok et al. (2010a). Furthermore, finding meaningful aspects of the service is associated with better adjustment to stress and personal growth, in particular, for units experiencing high-threat situations (Fontana and Rosenheck 1998; Schok et al. 2010b). Finding meaning is also related to personal growth, such as the enhanced self-esteem and self-efficacy among Norwegian veterans having served in Afghanistan (Forsvarets Sanitet 2013). The findings in this study and previous research indicate what might be regarded as common aspects of meaning found by veterans. A measure covering such common aspects of meaning might be constructed for use in quantitative surveys to explain what part of the experience leads to such personal growth in terms of purpose, value, efficacy, and self-worth.
We have explored the aspects of military service that veterans find meaningful and how these aspects are related to inconsistencies of meaning and meaning-making coping strategies. We found that meaning and inconsistencies of meaning relate to such themes as Confirmation of ability and Risky confirmation, Cohesion of peers and Impaired cohesion, as well as Significance of effort and Little significance. We also found that veterans use different meaning-making coping strategies, such as Counterfactual thinking, Downward comparison, and Justification in an effort to restore meaning congruence. To the best of our knowledge, no other research has explicitly separated themes of meaning, themes of inconsistencies, and coping strategies, as done in this study. Thus, we argue that the current study contributes to a thorough understanding of the difference between meaningful aspects of the service and the process of meaning making. This seems to be important within a field of research with different ways of operationalizing meaning. It also lays the grounds for further investigation into how meaningful aspects of the service and the meaning-making process independently might be determinants of personal growth among veterans.