Veterans’ PTSD and Moral Injury Centered in Documentary ‘Healing a Soldier's Heart’

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Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

During the Civil War, “Soldier’s Heart” was the name given to the symptoms we now associate with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. While the condition has had many names in the decades – and wars – that have followed, its toll on soldiers has not abated. Between 11 and 15 percent of Vietnam War veterans are still suffering from PTSD, 50 years after the end of the war. The new documentary “Healing a Soldier’s Heart” follows four veterans reckoning with PTSD and with moral injury – the psychological harm we experience when we violate our moral code. We talk with the filmmaker, a Vietnam War veteran and a psychologist about what it looks like to heal. Related link(s): Watch the documentary “Healing a Soldier’s Heart” Moral Injury – PTSD: National Center for PTSD For Family and Friends – PTSD: National Center for PTSD Moral Injury and Distress Scale (MIDS) – PTSD Guests: Shira Maguen, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, UCSF Medical School; staff psychologist, San Francisco VA Medical Center PTSD Program Stephen Olsson, director and producer, “Healing A Soldier's Heart” Levie Isaacks, decorated Vietnam Army platoon leader (Bronze Star for heroism) and veteran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Sponsorship of this podcast comes from Stanford Summer Session, allowing visiting students to study at
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0:11.9	Sources and methods, the crown jewels of the intelligence community, shorthand for,
0:17.4	how do we know what's real, who told us? If you have those answers, you're on the inside,
0:22.5	and NPR wants to bring you there, from the Pentagon to the State Department to spy agencies,
0:27.9	listen to understand what's really happening and what it means for you. Sources and methods,
0:32.7	the new National Security podcast from NPR.
0:36.5	From KQED.
0:39.1	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
0:42.3	This fall, the American Psychiatric Association updated the DSM-5, or diagnostic and
0:47.8	statistical manual, to include moral problems or acting against your moral code as a source
0:53.5	of mental distress, a condition
0:55.2	seen often in soldiers of war.
0:59.3	Some of us came back alive.
1:02.1	Some of us came back dead.
1:05.2	Some of us came back with the little of each.
1:09.8	Just want to tell them I'm sorry.
1:12.0	For years, I felt guilty and I felt dirty.
1:15.3	I felt like I participated in something that was against my moral standards.
1:20.9	I lost trust in humans, in humanity.
1:25.0	That's from a new documentary called Healing a Soldier's Heart, which follows four Vietnam
1:29.4	War veterans dealing with moral injury and PTSD.
	...

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