Page 94 - JSOM Spring 2024

flops help because the litters are mesh, so if the patient is bonds of trust by associating foreign cultural meanings with
bleeding the blood will drip down, hit the floor and it will familiar cultural meanings.
splash onto our feet. Probably disgusting, it lets us know
the patient is still bleeding. I’m watching and I’ll never for- The previous quotes highlight how tensive bonding patterns
get the scene because the vomit caused the flip flops to absorb performance pressure and redirect it into torque that
slip. All of the sudden the anesthesiologist was doing this enables adaptation by reducing ambiguity introduced through
tap dance number and trying to carry the patient. Some- deviations in cultural norms and increases sensemaking of
how, they set the patient down gently without falling. It phenomena foreign to the individual, team, or organization.
was grotesque, but things like that are really funny. You Qualitative data suggest that when functioning optimally, the
can’t make this stuff up. We still laugh thinking about it. social determinant of bonding patterns creates a pliability in
Replaying scenes like that bring us together as a team. the support structure that enables expansion and contraction
in direct relationship to the pressure of performance within the
Playful interactions amidst SOST medics allow the pressure of specific SOF mission objectives.
performance in SOF medicine to be modulated such that ten-
sion associated with acute catastrophic injury intervention in Degradation of Unconventional Resilience
an austere environment is momentarily relaxed and redirected. The first bonding pattern that degrades unconventional resil-
Humor lifts the tension and creates torque through lively inter- ience is connection fostered through addictive emotional fixes
actions. The everyday practice of laughter adds an effervescent (i.e., trauma bonding) as illustrated in the following quote:
quality to the bonding, allowing joy to be filtered through the
weight of ambiguity associated with uncertainty when engag- One of the biggest challenges is the bonds can be very
ing with catastrophic injuries. This spirited bonding pattern artificial. A lot of people create an image of the bond of
provides short-term optimization of unconventional resilience brotherhood based on a false persona of who they want
by supporting a momentary recovery period during the intense to be and what type of relationship they want the broth-
pressure of performance amid SOF missions. It provides long- erhood to be. I knew most of these people before they
term optimization of unconventional resilience when SOST joined SOST. Then I experienced them afterwards and
medics revisit the event and focus on laughter to reinforce what I saw seemed fake. It’s easy when you’re on deploy-
plasticity of their bond across time. ment-it’s addictive. Most people are all “bro this and bro
that.” But they don’t have their families around and the
The second bonding pattern that optimizes unconventional re- complexity of daily life. As someone who has done the
silience is connection fostered through curiosity (i.e., cultural same job, listened to what some people make these rela-
bonding) as illustrated in the following quote: tionships out to be, I question their authenticity. Too many
people want a sexy story. Some are addicted to creating
All six of us on my team would just sit with the local the experience to talk about rather than embracing the
fighters and get to know them. Not only did we do our experience when it happens.
work-related stuff, but we also tried to learn their culture.
We would have tea with them. We’d eat. We’d smoke Interactions among SOST medics that strive to achieve the
hookah. They love hookah. They played music all the “SOF Cool Guy” image amplify the pressure of performance
time. One time we were just sitting around with some in SOF culture by singularly focusing practical performance
of the guys, and the ones who spoke English explained on extraordinary experiences. Embracing the mythical SOF
how one particular singer used music to talk about inde- persona as a means of connecting, causes tension that is weap-
pendence. So just like other cultures, they used music to onized into comparative competition. The torque created from
send a message, either political or personal. It was great comparative competition seeks to elevate particular individu-
to hear about the background meaning of certain songs. als in a social status hierarchy. As such, the everyday practice
Sometimes we even danced with them. They love to of fixating on image forecloses engagement with ambiguity
dance holding hands. It’s like line dancing. It was fun and and leads to brittle bonds that can only support a superficial
built trust. Really strong bonds of trust. weight associated with the uncertainty involved in SOF mis-
sions. This pattern of trauma bonding causes short-term deg-
Inquisitive interactions between SOST medics and local fight- radation of unconventional resilience by deflecting the weight
ers allow the pressure of performance in SOF medicine to of ordinary aspects of practical performance. It causes long-
embrace novelty such that the tension associated with social term degradation of unconventional resilience by confusing
ambiguity in an austere environment is distributed across cul- true competence and authentic relationship with affectively
tural boundaries. Curiosity investigates the tension and creates intense and captivating emotional engagement.
torque through open-ended conversation that aims toward
mutual recognition. The everyday practice of questioning adds The second bonding pattern that degrades unconventional
an introspective quality to the bonding agent allowing appre- resilience is connection fostered through collectivization (i.e.,
ciation to be filtered through the weight of ambiguity asso- group think) as illustrated by the following quote:
ciated with uncertainty when engaging with different social
symbols, values, norms, and attitudes. This cultural bonding The six-person team is private by definition. We don’t
pattern provides short-term optimization of unconventional talk much outside of the team guys because nobody else
resilience by expanding a support network through which the understands us. There is no public allowed into that the
intense pressure of performance amid SOF missions can be brotherhood atmosphere. The team is a family and every-
off-loaded. It provides long-term optimization of unconven- thing is closed communication within that family. One of
tional resilience by enhancing the ability to accurately inter- my previous teams used to say there’s us and there’s not
pret cultural meanings across diverse stakeholders, reinforcing us. We trust “us” completely, and if you’re not us we don’t

92 | JSOM Volume 23, Edition 1 / Spring 2024