Military leadership is failing at the lowest levels. For years, the only ones that suffered were the most junior service members. However, that sickness, the cancer that has so long plagued the staff non-commissioned officer and officer ranks has begun to have an effect on our military readiness as a whole.

Just like Iraq, we aren’t prepared. We aren’t ready.

On the eve of battle, be it a competition, a sporting event, or the night before an invasion, there is no way to actually gauge whether or not you are prepared. The most accurate judge of preparation is what comes in the aftermath.

But that is how conflict is, you never know how you or someone else will respond to the unknown.

During the days, months, years and decades preceding conflict, statiticians, analysts and historians pour over interviews, reports and analytics to determine what happened, what went wrong and what went right. It is these findings that evaluate and determine preparation. But true preparation is only known in the aftermath of disaster.

In the years following World War II and the Korean War, the United States military learned a valuable lesson in the art of killing – prepare the troops psychologically for the trauma of taking another life.

However, within the psychology of killing is a vital component of warfare. The ability to anticipate how your followers will react and behave when faced with the brutality that is war.

This type of understanding though is only achieved through intense mentorship of your followers and extreme conditioning of their bodies and minds.

Without that connection and understanding leaders in combat are blind to the most vital component of any engagement – the people involved.

In the years following the war in Iraq and the continued activity in Afghanistan, the military has faced a suicidal epidemic and mental health crisis that is shocking but not baffling. On the heals of that epidemic and crisis has been the military’s inability to retain combat veterans and the decision of the Department of Defense to force out thousands of service members because of the draw down during Barack Obama’s presidency.

For the Marines Corps specifically, the lack of retention has resulted in just 1 in 5 Marines having ever been deployed overseas, not even in combat. According to the Marine Corps Times, now, less than 18,000 Marines on active duty have been awarded the combat action ribbon.

So from the outside looking in, the United States military is the greatest it has ever been. But within that great legacy of so many wars, our military continues to suffer from failed mentoring, counseling, and personnel development.

As I slowly move up in the ranks of leadership in the Marine Corps Reserve, I am very quickly beginning to realize that the troops our military is sending into combat are not being adequately prepared for what we are asking them to do.

Over the last year I have spent hours studying and reading books and texts on war and combat. In my attempt to understand warfare I have discovered this – the last line of humanity is killing. When a human being kills another, they have entered a realm of inhumanity so gruesome and destructive that many are never able to return from it. In truth, we are asking men and women to do something while turning a blind eye to the immoral demands that we have made. Killing is not human nature, and to assume so is to admit that all human beings are inherently bad.

If we send broken individuals into combat, those individuals will return even more broken by the horrors of war. What other explanation do we have for the mental health crisis facing veterans and servicemen and women?

Sometimes it is necessary to fight evil with evil. But if we are going to ask evil of our men and women, should we not provide them with a program to heal their mind, body, and spirit?

True combat leadership – effective leadership, is about selfless service. From the highest pinnacle to the lowest point we must invest our time in those we lead because it is through that time that we begin to understand how they  think and what they think. Only then can we truly prepare for the horror of war and the terrors that come with it.

However, within this discourse is the alarming issue of the rising number of veterans leaving the military who have been radicalized.

While the protests in Charlottesville have been alarming, as a Marine, even more alarming is the trend of veterans involved on both sides of radical violence.

The online military outlet Task and Purpose has identified three Marine veterans that were involved in white supremacist groups that participated in the protest in Charlottesville.

Are these issues connected? How can we prove that broken individuals who returned even more broken, were abandoned by the country they served and in turn, fell back on radical views to calm their psyche?  And in these cases, can you prove that these individuals were not radicalized prior to enlistment?

If the military truly wishes to solve the mental health crisis, they should first study and understand the mental and physical state of the individuals they are sending to war. The solution is not how they return, but how they leave. Therein lies the key to our survival as warriors.

However, if we do not confront and address these issues head on, our military service community will continue to struggle and be displaced by mental health issues.