Addiction to opioids, PTSD, depression and suicide are surging among Israeli soldiers. But this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Nazi soldiers would practically drink themselves blind in order to carry out massacres. American soldiers would shoot up heroin to cope with burning down villages in Vietnam. Committing atrocities not only kills the victim, it hollows out the soul of the killer.

There are very few true psychopaths among us. Those who are able to hone their psychosis and attain power are capable of influencing ordinary people to do the unthinkable. But it takes a heavy toll on one’s conscience.

Whether Israel is aware or not, it has created a generation of hungry ghosts. Doomed to live out their days under a cloak of shame that will cast a cold shadow on everything and everyone they know.

They will never be able to hold a baby without seeing the faces of children they shot or starved to death. They will never experience tenderness without remembering the women and men they humiliated. They will never be able feel love without knowing they buried hope in a mass grave.

Kenn Orfanos, September 2025