The Effects of Combat Deployments on Veterans' Outcomes

As millions of soldiers deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, Veteran Affairs Disability Compensation payments quadrupled and the veteran suicide rate rose rapidly. We estimate causal effects of combat deployments on soldiers’ well-being. To eliminate non-random selection into deployment, we leverage quasi-random assignment of newly recruited soldiers to units on staggered deployment cycles. Deployments increase injuries, combat deaths, and disability compensation, but we find limited evidence that they affect suicide, deaths of despair, financial health, incarceration, or education. More dangerous deployments have similarly limited effects. Our estimates suggest that deployment cannot explain either the recent rise in disability payments, which is more likely driven by policy changes, or the surge in noncombat deaths, which is better explained by shifts in observable characteristics of soldiers. Jesse M. Bruhn Department of Economics Brown University Providence, RI 02912 jesse_bruhn@brown.edu Kyle Greenberg Department of Social Sciences 606 Thayer Road West Point, NY 10996 kyle.greenberg@westpoint.edu Matthew Gudgeon OEMA & Dep. of Social Sciences 607 Cullum Road West Point, NY 10966 matthew.gudgeon@westpoint.edu Evan K. Rose Department of Economics University of Chicago 1126 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 and NBER ekrose@uchicago.edu Yotam Shem-Tov University of California at Los Angeles Department of Economics Box 951477 Los Angeles, CA 90095 shemtov@econ.ucla. edu Almost 2 million American servicemembers deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan following September 11, 2001 (Bilmes, 2021). Simultaneously, the outcomes of U.S. veterans deteriorated. The age and sex adjusted suicide rate of veterans rose nearly twice as fast as non-veterans (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2021). As shown in Figure 1, real annual Veterans Affairs Disability Compensation (VADC) payments per living veteran rose from $900 to $4,700 over this period, reaching total annual expenditures of nearly $100B by 2021. As a result, VADC growth has outpaced widely documented growth in other programs, and is currently 10 times larger per eligible beneficiary than Social Security Disability Insurance (Autor and Duggan, 2006a). Many lay the blame for the rise in VADC and the decline in veteran well-being on the long-run behavioral and health consequences of combat deployments (e.g. Stiglitz and Bilmes, 2008; Tanielian and Jaycox, 2008; Bilmes, 2021). 1 However, assessing the causal role of warfighting is challenging because many other factors have changed over this period. For example, in response to recruiting shortfalls, the Army permitted soldiers to enlist with lower Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores and granted more waivers for prior felony convictions (DoD, 2020; Murphy, 2019). Changes in policy also made it easier for veterans to access VADC (McMahon et al., 2009; Department of Veterans Affairs, 2010; Public Law 112-56, 2013). This paper estimates the causal effect of combat deployments on veterans’ outcomes. We construct a unique dataset that combines numerous military and non-military administrative data sources. Our data allow us to investigate the effects of deployment on VADC and noncombat deaths, including deaths of despair and suicides, and other key measures of veteran well-being. Unlike prior literature, we do not rely on survey data based on retrospective questions about military experience. The span of our data permits us both to measure effects over long time horizons and to compare cohorts of soldiers who enlisted between 2001 and the present. This allows us to contrast the effects of deployment over this period with the impacts of changes in the characteristics of soldiers. Despite our detailed data, identifying the causal effect of combat deployments remains difficult because soldiers are not deployed at random. For example, unit commanders 1For example, President Biden has said, “A lot of our veterans and their families have gone through hell— deployment after deployment, months and years away from their families; missed birthdays, anniversaries; empty chairs at holidays; financial struggles; divorces; loss of limbs; traumatic brain injury; posttraumatic stress. We see it in the struggles many have when they come home. The cost of war they will carry with them their whole lives” (Biden, 2021).