PROBLEM When soldiers return from war, they often suffer from moral injury, which is caused by “perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations may be deleterious in the long-term, emotionally, psychologically, behaviorally, spiritually, and socially.” (Litz 2009) Moral injury often leads to isolation, guilt, and a wide range of difficulties during a soldier’s transition back to the “normalcy” of civilian life. A very unfortunate consequence is that more and more soldiers each year are turning to suicide. SOLUTION Our solution revolves around storytelling. We wanted to enable and encourage soldiers to share their stories, while at the same time enabling and encouraging the general public to read the stories and gain a better understanding of the soldiers’ experiences at war. Our design consists of a web application and public display. Through the web application, soldiers can share and read stories, as well as view support networks. The general public can also read stories and view the support maps. The public display is simply a large screen that slowly scrolls soldiers’ stories in multiple columns. To get a better understanding of our concept, view this walkthrough.

1. The end of Marine Sergeant
Virginia Shaw’s third
deployment to Iraq signaled
the end of her eight years of
service, and she was ready to
head home and finally start a
family with her husband.

2. A couple months after her
return, Virginia’s feelings of
regret kept her isolated from
her community, making her
transition back to student life
at University of Michigan
difficult at best.

4. Virginia is still afraid to get
close to her loved ones
because of the pain and guilt
of losing three soldiers in her
unit. She couldn’t find a way
to communicate her
struggles.

6. During her Marine
decompression period, she
was told about a website
where soldiers could share
their experiences and help
their communities understand
what the soldiers have been
through during deployment.

8. Virginia browses the site and
reads through some of the
seemingly endless stories
submitted by other soldiers
and veterans. She identifies
with many of the stories, and
eventually feels safe enough
to share her own experiences.

10. Virginia writes her story. It
takes a while, but she feels
better afterwards. After she
uploads it, she sees that she
can share it with others. She
wants to send it to her
husband but she doesn’t feel
ready for that yet, so saves it
in her account.

12. Virginia then sees a link to a
map. The map shows circles
of support, generated by the
number of people who have
shared and read stories in
each location.

14. Virginia sees information
about a public installation that
scrolls stories from the
website. She wants her
husband, Ethan, to have a
deeper understanding of what
she went through overseas, so
she emails him directions to
the installation.

16. Ethan follows the directions
and visits the public
installation. While there, he
reads many of the
experiences shared by other
veterans. He can hear their
stories and begins to
understand what his wife
must have gone through
while at war.

18. When he gets home, he tells
Virginia about the installation.
A few weeks later, Virginia
feels comfortable enough to
revisit her collection of
messages and send her
husband stories she shared.

20. A year later, Private First Class
Alex Black has an even more
difficult transition home. With
the loss of his best friend during
an intense small arms fight, and
because of a number of
questionable orders by his
CO, the moral injuries he
sustained weighed on him
heavily.

22. Upon his return home, Alex
was encouraged to share his
story on the website so the
community could get a better
understanding of his
experiences. He thought it
was a waste of time, but did
it anyway.

23. Alex still found it difficult to
adapt to civilian life. He
reluctantly visited his school
advisor, who told Alex that
she understood where he was
coming from. Alex didn’t
believe this was possible, and
felt that his advisor couldn’t
possibly understand what he
went through.

25. However, Alex’s advisor told
him a story she read on the
website about a Sergeant
Virginia Shaw. Alex realized
that his advisor might
actually understand him after
all.

26. Through the sharing and
reading of these stories, we
envision the severity of moral
injury for soldiers to lessen as
time goes on, which will help
soldiers return to civilian life
with less difficulty, and lower
the suicide rate among
veterans in the United States.