Lessons from war: Study butterflies, reject border walls

As a veteran of the U.S. army, I view the border wall as a direct affront to the democratic principles, values, and protection of human rights that the U.S. military is entrusted to uphold.

In 2008, during my time in the army, I was a 22-year-old hunting for bombs on the front line in Sadr City, Baghdad. It was a deadly, terrifying, and foolish mission — and it involved a wall.

{mosads}My experiences in Iraq were wounding, but the pain of these experiences also taught me that healing personal and collective problems does not come through throwing up barriers or creating new trauma, but through compassion, reflection and a willingness to transform. One of my greatest teachers in the art of healing and transformation has been the butterfly — a symbol that is in stark contrast to that of a wall.

During the Battle of Sadr City, my unit was tasked with a mission: to clear bombs from the front line, called Route Gold, so other units could build a wall to limit the enemy’s movements. The goal was to divide Sadr City and ideally limit access of Jaysh Al Mahdi fighters to the city’s southern end.

It was a desperate and short-sighted attempt to win the hearts and minds of communities whose lands we were invading. This, the U.S. army thought, would protect the Green Zone from rockets by pushing fighters out of range, and in the long term give the Iraqi government a chance to increase development in the southern end of Sadr City. But it didn’t work.

I myself was a victim of that wall’s ineffectiveness. The wall blinded us. While insurgents planted roadside bombs called Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), we saw the bombs cut through the wall like butter, and on May 9 my truck took a hit from an EFP on the other side. The wall plan backfired, and still, a decade later the wall in Sadr City continues to cause more problems than it prevents.

Today, the city’s residents still struggle with the wall hurting their businesses and disrupting their movement and lives. Residents in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas share those sentiments and overwhelmingly reject these outdated and unnecessary militarization tactics — again being driven by the U.S. government.

I naively assumed that these lessons from war and ones from history books would teach us the true futility of walls and barriers. But the reality is: even as Americans who promised to fight the atrocities of authoritarianism and xenophobia overseas, our own government is promoting those same fear politics. Right now, that’s in the form of cruel treatment of immigrants and a border wall — even on our own soil.

What is happening at the National Butterfly Center, is abhorrent, and against the very principles I served to protect as a veteran of the United States army. It is reprehensible that the land this administration has chosen to bulldoze and destroy for a wall is where many of our region’s most spectacular creatures and dynamic communities thrive.

This week, I stand in solidarity with my fellow veterans who are camping in protest at the National Butterfly Center, where the Trump administration is violating the Constitutional separation of powers to build more border wall, atop its grounds. The irony and symbolism of this very location is glaring to me.

Each time I see a butterfly, I am reminded of my personal transformation since coming home from war. Healing requires letting go of rigid, maladaptive psychological defenses so that you can be renewed — this requires a softening rather than a hardening so that you can take flight. 

Each time I see a wall, however, I am reminded of primitive psychological defenses — blinding barriers that cause more harm than they prevent. Maladaptive defenses always come at a cost, robbing victims of vitality, while distorting reality. They do not cure the problem they seek to address. This is true psychologically, and the same principle applies outwardly. 

These days, I supplement psychotherapy with time outdoors, appreciating the living world of nature where I am reminded that slowing down and mimicking nature are powerful healing practices. To me, there is no more powerful symbol of healing and transformation than that of the butterfly. Whatever the scientific processes that explain its transformation, I find it miraculous that these creatures begin as eggs, are born caterpillars, go into the chrysalis, experience the metamorphosis, and emerge changed with their beautiful wings. Whereas once they could hardly crawl, they become capable of flight.

I also find it symbolic that, as the Trump administration tramples on nature’s greatest symbol of transformation, they themselves fail to transform and adapt to a changing world. Time and time again, this administration is unable to lead a nation that is entering a new life stage — where a new way of seeing and being in the world is required. Their backwards, medieval border wall and deportation agenda is an affront to the values I — we all — fought for.

Adam Magers is the founder of Warriors’ Ascent, a non-profit supporting veterans with PTSD, and Exploring Roots, a non-profit providing nature-based wellness programs in Kansas City. He is also a volunteer for the Sierra Club’s Military Outdoors program.