Page 87 - JSOM Summer 2025

3
cycle. These beat structures pre-reflectively contain, energize, well . . . it is just god-awful. After my first experience of
mobilize, and initiate unconventional resilience allowing SOF caring for an American that was killed, the next person I
medics to develop an increasingly intricate ability to rhythmi- had to work on was the enemy who shot the American
cally pattern and direct the force of movement toward peak kid. A part of me was tempted to mistreat the second ca-
performance experiences. 4,5 sualty. Even though I was angry and a part of me wanted
revenge, after a tactical pause, I understood the bigger
Kinetic Consciousness: Re-animating the battle was not going to be won by hurting somebody who
Connection Between Conventional and was catastrophically injured. Nothing will ever be gained
from seeking revenge in that scenario. Everything is to
Unconventional Resilience be gained from sharing a sense of common dignity and
In the first paper of this series, we illustrated that conven- kindness of heart, but it was really hard because every
tional resilience marries human performance to traumatic emotion in me wanted to lash out in anger.
pathology in the aftermath of catastrophic injury exposure.
This coupling is ensconced in a biomechanical, reductive in- The biomechanical, reductive infrastructure grossly over-
frastructure that understands all material matter—to include simplifies the moral, interpersonal, emotional, and political
the human body—to be meaningless and inanimate. Human adversity described in this quote. Reducing resilience to an
performance is idealized in relationship to an automated en- individual’s ability to endure adversity through positive think-
gine. Human character is idealized in relationship to clear ing, ignores the inherent animated reality of caring for cata-
6
reasoning. Consequently, the static “bounce back” theory of strophic injury.
conventional resilience separates physical and mental perfor-
2
mance into two essentially different categories. The former The biomechanical, reductive infrastructure also tends to nar-
understanding of performance is based on physical vectoring, rowly focus training on the biomechanics of movement. Con-
while the latter is based on rational thinking. Powerfully pro- sequently, performance mastery is defined in relationship to
6
7
jecting pure positive thinking toward adversity is thought to industrial productivity. Motivation is driven by a desire to
produce endurance. When one’s force of will properly func- achieve perfect replication of performance outcomes under
tions, endurance allows one to return to a baseline character every condition. The negative impact of focusing performance
post adversity. 2 training on biomechanical replication of perfect technique is
highlighted in the following quote:
Within the biomechanical, reductive infrastructure, physical
performance is evaluated as change of location on a static Our current medical capacity created an unquestioned
6
Cartesian grid. The negative consequences of this mechanical expectation that if casualties arrive to us alive—no matter
understanding of movement are highlighted in the following the circumstances—we should be able to save every life.
quote: If we’re doing things right in the SOF environment, we
can’t mess up or it’s 100% failure. Death is our enemy and
When catastrophic injuries keep coming, people end up should never win. Death is failure. We had one American
plugging into something like a computer grid. It feels like that didn’t survive. No one thinks about the hundreds we
we can move endlessly through tasks, but the medical saved. The one situation where an American died really
support becomes robotic. The more we run around, the messed with our sense of technical capability. We ques-
harder it becomes to unplug from the grid. Even when tioned ourselves over and over. What did we do wrong?
we stop running, we cannot stop moving. When this hap- What could we do different? We seek to avoid failure by
pens, people reach a point of saturation, then they stop letting death fuel our desire to never make mistakes. Un-
caring. They get angry. They have no motivation and a fortunately, The truth is we can’t save everyone, casualties
huge piece of humanity seems to be absent. They are die even though it is rarely acknowledged. One casualty
present, but devoid of human presence. was shot in the side and arrived to us still awake, sitting
up in the gurney, and talking. We knew the injury was
Assuming the force of movement functions solely as location un-survivable. We didn’t have a ton of supplies so we im-
change sans substantive character change produces circular mediately said, “No we’re not giving blood. We’re done.
movement that is disconnected from self, other, and world. This person is dying.” We made the decision to withhold
Simply vectoring in a static performance space does not enable treatment as the person was looking at us and talking.
dynamic freedom of maneuver in the face of constant cata- That’s hard . . . (tearful) . . . The expectation that we are
strophic injury exposure. all perfect at saving lives, causes us to live with terrible
uncertainty. In some cases, teammates end up constantly
Presenting physical performance as emotionless, mechanical, questioning their medical decision-making which creates
causality backed by clarity of human reasoning is not a cul- horrible paralysis. Other times, teammates simply leave
turally resonant way of explaining the SOF medic’s practical medicine because the weight of thinking that technical
performance: perfectionism will combat death in SOF is too overwhelm-
ing to manage.
The first time you have an American in uniform bleed-
ing out it becomes catastrophic combat injuries become If medical productivity is saving all lives, then death destroys
a whole different experience. The level of emotional in- the SOF medic’s performance, because perfect biomechanical
tensity that suddenly goes into trying to save this kid is technique breaks down in the face of constant catastrophic
indescribable. If that kid dies, we have to put a flag on the injury exposure. Taken together, the biomechanical, reductive
body and go through the personal items. Finding blood infrastructure sets up conditions that eventually lead to fatal
all over a picture of the deceased American’s family . . . performance degradation in SOF medicine.

Unconventional Resilience: Integrated Performance Infrastructure | 85