US Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers’ motivations for joining the military and their effects on post-deployment mental health

Abstract

The link between combat exposure and mental health among military service members has been well-established, and reservists are at increased risk. This study uses a subset of cross-sectional data (N = 239) from Operation: SAFETY, an ongoing study of US Army Reserve/National Guard soldiers, to examine the moderating effects of reasons for joining the military on the relations between combat exposure and post-deployment mental health symptomology. Soldiers who served for reasons associated with “wanting a military life” had an increasingly higher likelihood of anxiety symptomatology with greater combat exposure. Conversely, soldiers who served for reasons associated with “wanting material benefits” reported fewer mental health symptoms as combat exposure increased.

Current Study

Given that US Army Reserve/National Guard (USAR/NG) soldiers represent a large, at-risk, and understudied population and the multitude of reasons why service members join the military (Eighmey, 2006; Mankowski et al., 2015), it is important to gain a better understanding of how the enlistment motivations of these combat-exposed reserve service members might differentially affect their post-deployment mental health outcomes. To begin to address the dearth of research in this area, the current exploratory study examines a subset of data from Operation: SAFETY (Soldiers and Families Exceling Through the Years), an ongoing survey-based study that examines the health and well-being of USAR/NG soldiers and their partners. The objective of this preliminary sub-study was to examine the moderating effects of motivations for joining the military on the relations between combat exposure and post-deployment mental health symptomatology. Our “working hypothesis” (Casula et al., 2021) was that USAR/NG soldiers who identified wanting material benefits would experience worse post-deployment mental health symptomatology compared to those who identified wanting a military life. We speculated that those who were motivated to join the military for material benefits may be less willing or eager to serve in conflict, and when put in those circumstances, may be less prepared to cope.

Enlistment Motivations

Moskos (1977, 1986) first proposed a means of studying the character of US military organizations by determining their location along a continuum between “institutional” and “occupational” orientations. Moskos theorized that since the advent of the all-volunteer force post-Vietnam, the military is moving more towards the occupational end of the spectrum. Moskos characterized the military as functioning more like civilian occupations, where service is seen as a “job” rather than a “calling” and pay incentives and benefits become important motivating factors in an individual’s decision to join and remain in service. While this shift may have occurred, institutional motivations remain an important component of enlistment decisions, particularly in the period immediately after the events of 9/11, when the military saw an influx of volunteers motivated by patriotism and duty (DeSimone, 2021). These varying enlistment motivations might have significant effects on military service members’ post-deployment outcomes, but this remains a relatively understudied area.

While Moskos’ model was based primarily on the active duty military, the reasons why reservists join the military may be different and may influence their expectations of military service. For example, qualitative work with National Guard soldiers found a wide array of motivations for enlistment consistent with both institutional and occupational motivations, but also an underlying theme that individuals felt joining the National Guard allowed for the maintenance of some freedom of choice or agency over individual life course decisions, and the ability to pursue simultaneous civilian interests in a way that active duty does not (Vest, 2014). Given the uniqueness of reserve military service, it is critical to understand how reserve service members’ varying enlistment motivations might differentially affect post-deployment outcomes, including mental health symptomatology.

While the reserves overall receive less attention compared to active duty, a growing body of international scholarship highlights the unique positioning and service circumstances of reserve forces across the globe (Ben-Ari & Connelly, 2022; Ben Ari et al., 2024). Military reservists have been described as “transmigrants,” navigating the complex, and sometimes at odds, social and organizational roles of the civilian and military components of their identity (Lomsky-Feder et al., 2008). A recent and multi-national conceptual framework developed by Gazit and colleagues (2021) elaborates on this notion of “transmigrancy”; beyond the constant movement between military and civilian spheres, reservists encounter many complex relationships and negotiations between the military and civilian life. Notably, varying sets of experiences and expectations emerge across varying sociological levels over time (Gazit et al., 2021), and these expectations may be particularly fragile in the face of problems during service (Edmunds et al., 2016). Although militaries have been described as “greedy” institutions, institutional control over individuals in the reserves may be more limited (Vest, 2014), and social positioning has been implicated as an important factor in negotiating with the military in the context of this “transmigrancy,” (Ben Ari et al., 2024). Together, these conceptualizations suggest that reservists represent a diverse group of individuals with varying motivations, experiences, and expectations while navigating the social and structural dualism of military and civilian worlds.

Military service members are diverse, including in terms of their reasons for joining the military. A comprehensive study examining several Department of Defense Youth Polls identified several distinct underlying themes to explain why youths enlist in the military, including tangible benefits for the self (e.g., good pay), tangible benefits for others (e.g., protection), dignity (e.g., personal achievement), and fidelity (e.g., duty to country) (Eighmey, 2006). A small qualitative study suggests that both a desire for skill development, training, and college financial support, as well as a sense of patriotism and being “called” to serve were primary motivators for enlistment among female service members and veterans (Mankowski et al., 2015).

Griffith (2008) examined the implications of Moskos’ motivational orientations for reserve (and specifically National Guard) recruitment and retention. Griffith (2008) identified four distinct types of enlistment motivations among reservists: 1) wanting a military life, 2) wanting material benefits, 3) wanting occupational development, and 4) wanting future opportunities. Griffith argued that whether soldiers join reserve service for institutional motivations (i.e., “intrinsic”) such as service to country, a sense of duty, loyalty, and other value-based reasons, or for occupational motivations (i.e., “extrinsic”) for money, educational benefits, and bonuses appears to be directly related to their satisfaction with their military experience, their combat-readiness and their ability to perform in combat situations (Griffith 2008). Soldiers who express an institutional orientation towards service and intrinsic motivations to serve appear to be more likely to reenlist and to feel they are combat-ready than soldiers who express an occupational orientation (Griffith 2008). These motivations may not only influence actual enlistment (Eighmey, 2006) and retention (Griffith, 2008) but might also shape service members’ expectations and perceptions of service (Griffith, 2009), particularly around participation in deployment (Vest, 2014) and have downstream effects on psychological outcomes. Taken together with modern theoretical conceptualizations of reserve service (Ben Ari et al., 2024; Gazit et al., 2021; Lomsky-Feder et al., 2008; Vest, 2014), it follows that further examination of the interplay between varying motivations for joining the military, military experiences, and post-deployment outcomes is warranted.

Enlistment Motivations, Combat Exposure, and Mental Health

The connection between combat exposure and mental health concerns among military service members is well-documented (e.g., Pietrzak et al., 2012; Stander et al., 2014; Thomas et al., 2010; Wilk et al., 2010). However, the ways in which enlistment motivations and combat exposure might interact to affect service members’ mental health are not well understood but may have implications for improved prevention and intervention efforts. Since 9/11, reservists in the US share similar military job roles and combat experiences to those on active duty (Griffith, 2010; Renshaw, 2010; Riviere et al., 2011; Thomas et al., 2010), but USAR/NG soldiers experience significantly higher rates of psychiatric problems than their active duty counterparts (Jacobson et al., 2008; Milliken et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2008; Thomas et al., 2010). These differences in mental health-related outcomes may be driven, in part, by the unique family, financial, job, and identity stressors that reservists face as part-time service members (Griffith, 2010, 2015; Lapp et al., 2010; Riviere et al., 2011; Vest, 2013). Anger, anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology are prevalent among reservists, who comprise nearly one-third of the US Armed Forces (Defense Manpower Data Center, 2019). For example, findings from a large and representative cohort of Reserve/Guard service members suggest that more than half experience problems with anger (Worthen et al., 2014), and a large study of Ohio Army National Guard soldiers suggests that 13.2% meet clinical criteria for an anxiety disorder (Tamburrino et al., 2015). Further, a systematic review demonstrates that clinical depression and PTSD are also prevalent (5.6% and 9.8%, respectively) among Reserve/Guard service members (Cohen et al., 2015), and psychosocial problems are particularly common in the post-deployment period for this group (Hoopsick et al., 2019; Hoopsick, Vest, et al., 2018; Vest et al., 2018; Vest et al., 2020). A better understanding of how pre-service factors (e.g., enlistment motivations) might affect USAR/NG soldiers’ expectations of military service and combat experiences might help to identify those who are at greatest risk for adverse post-deployment mental health outcomes.

To our knowledge, how different enlistment motivations might modify the relations between combat exposure and post-deployment mental health among USAR/NG soldiers has not been described in the literature. Notably, the US military has been criticized for a number of potentially coercive practices when it comes to recruitment (Krebs, 2009). It has been posited that people with poor socioeconomic circumstances may be more likely to be recruited by and/or join the military (Ettinger, 2018), which might have unique implications for their military experiences and post-deployment outcomes.

Methods

Participants and Procedure

We recruited participants (soldiers and their partners) for the Operation: SAFETY study from 47 different USAR/NG units in the state of New York in 2014 and 2015. To be eligible for inclusion, participants needed to meet the following criteria: (1) the couple had to be married or living as if married; (2) one member of the couple had to be a current USAR/NG soldier; (3) the soldier had to be between the ages of 18 and 45; (4) had to be able to speak and understand English; (5) had to be willing and able to participate; and (6) had at least one alcoholic beverage in the past year, given that people who completely abstain from alcohol tend to differ in other health behaviors than non-abstainers (Green & Polen, 2001). After providing informed consent, participants completed yearly electronic surveys. Each participant received $60 at baseline and $70 at each of the first two follow-up assessments (i.e., year 1 and year 2), and $80 for the third follow-up (i.e., year 3). The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University at Buffalo, the Army Human Research Protections Office, the Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, as well as the Adjutant General of the National Guard. Additional details about study recruitment and procedures have been published elsewhere (e.g., Devonish et al., 2017; Hoopsick, Homish, et al., 2018).

The current study examines a subset of data from Operation: SAFETY from soldier participants who completed the third follow-up survey (N = 239), which represents the first assessment that included questions related to soldiers’ enlistment motivations. These participants were predominantly male (87.0%), non-Hispanic white (80.8%), and with at least some college education (91.2%). On average, these participants had served approximately 12 years in the military at enrollment, and most had enlisted in the military (83.3%), while few were commissioned officers (14.6%). Additional details about the study sample are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Participant characteristics (N = 239)

	Mean (SD) or % (n)
Sex
Male	87.0% (208)
Female	13.0% (31)
Age, years	37.6 (6.0)
Race/Ethnicity
Non-Hispanic White	80.8% (193)
Non-Hispanic Black	4.2% (10)
Hispanic	9.2% (22)
Other	3.8% (9)
Education
High School	8.4% (20)
Some College	49.0% (117)
College Degree	42.3% (101)
Family Income
Less than $20,000	1.3% (3)
$20,000 – $39,999	4.2% (10)
$40,000 – $59,999	12.6% (30)
$60,000 – $79,999	19.7% (47)
$80,000 – $99,999	18.4% (44)
$100,000 – $119,999	19.7% (47)
$120,000 or more	22.6% (54)
Years of Military Service	12.1 (5.9)
Rank
Enlisted	83.3% (199)
Officer	14.6% (35)
Military Status
Current Reservist	76.2% (182)
Former Reservist	23.9% (57)
DRRI-2 Combat Exposure Score	28.7 (14.7)
PROMIS Anger Score	18.2 (7.0)
Severity Measure for Generalized Anxiety Disorder Score	5.1 (6.2)
PHQ-8 Depression Score	3.8 (4.6)
PCL-5 PTSD Score	10.5 (13.9)

Measures

Combat Exposure

Operation: SAFETY participants with a history of at least one deployment completed the Deployment Risk and Resilience Inventory-2 (DRRI-2; Vogt et al., 2012) to characterize their most recent deployment. Participants reported on 17 objective events and circumstances occurring in their most recent warzone experience, ranging from 1 (Never) to 6 (Daily or almost daily). Items include statements such as, “I personally witnessed enemy combatants being seriously wounded or killed,” “I was exposed to hostile incoming fire,” and “I fired my weapon at enemy combatants.” This measure had good internal consistency among our sample of USAR/NG soldiers (α = 0.94). If participants reported multiple deployments during the longitudinal Operation: SAFETY study, the combat exposure score from the most recent deployment was used in the current set of analyses.

Enlistment Motivations

We assessed soldiers’ motivations for joining the military with the Enlistment Motivations Scale (Griffith, 2008), a validated measure of service members’ reasons for joining the military. This measure includes 13 items across four motivation subscales: Wanting a Military Life (“Institutional,” 6 items), Wanting Material Benefits (“Pecuniary,” 3 items), Wanting Occupational Development (“Occupational,” 2 items), and Wanting Future Opportunities (“Future-Oriented,” 2 items). Items are scored 0 (No) or 1 (Yes) based on whether the item was a reason that the participant had joined the military.

Anger

We assessed anger with the Adult Anger Short Form from the Emotional Distress Scale of the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS; Pilkonis et al., 2011), an 8-item measure of the frequency of various states of anger in the past week. Example items include “I was irritated more than people knew” and “I felt angrier than I thought I should.” Items are scored on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (Never) to 5 (Always). Individual item scores are summed to create a total score (range: 8 – 40), with higher scores indicating greater anger (α = 0.94).

Anxiety

We used the Severity Measure for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Craske et al., 2013) to assess participants’ symptoms of anxiety over the past week. This 10-item measure has high internal consistency (α = 0.91) and maps onto the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Example items include feeling “moments of sudden terror, fear, or fright,” feeling “anxious, worried or nervous,” and feeling “a racing heart, sweaty, trouble breathing, faint, or shaky.” Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (Never) to 4 (All of the time), and individual item scores are summed to create a total score (range: 0 – 40), with higher scores indicating greater anxiety symptomatology.

Depression

We assessed participants’ depression symptomatology with the 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8; Kroenke et al., 2009), a modified version of the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001) which omits an item on suicidal thoughts. This measure assesses the frequency with which the respondent has been affected by depressed states over the last 2 weeks, and includes example items such as “Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless” and “Feeling bad about yourself.” The PHQ-8 is a valid and reliable measure of current depression for use in the general population (Kroenke et al., 2009). Items are scored on a Likert scale ranging from 0 (Not at all) to 3 (Nearly every day) and summed to create an overall score (range: 0 – 24), with higher scores indicating a greater severity of depression (α = 0.91).

Post-traumatic Stress

We assessed participants’ posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology with the 20-item Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL-5; Bovin et al., 2016; Weathers et al., 2013) which evaluates how much respondents are bothered by each of the 20 DSM-5 symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder across 5 symptom clusters over the past month. Example PCL-5 items include “Repeated, disturbing, and unwanted memories of the stressful experience” and “Having strong negative feelings such as fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame.” Each item is scored on a Likert scale ranging from 0 (Not at all) to 4 (Extremely). Individual items are summed to create a total score ranging from 0 – 80, with higher scores indicating greater posttraumatic stress (α = 0.95).

Covariates

We included sex, years of military service, rank, military status (current vs former soldier), childhood maltreatment, and military identity as covariates in our models to control for their potential confounding effects. Participants self-reported their sex (male vs. female), years of military service, and rank (enlisted vs. officer) upon enrollment into Operation: SAFETY. Experiences of childhood maltreatment were assessed with the Comprehensive Child Maltreatment Scale (CCMS; Higgins & McCabe, 2001), a measure of maltreatment experienced during childhood (α = 0.90). Military identity was assessed with the Veteran Identity Centrality Scale, which assesses the extent to which serving in the military is central to one’s identity (Di Leone et al., 2016). The scale consists of five items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (α = 0.70).

Analytic Plan

We first used descriptive statistics to characterize the study sample. Next, we examined the main effects of combat exposure on anger, anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptomatology using separate negative binomial regression models. Risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are reported. We then controlled for the effects of sex, years of military service, rank, military status, childhood maltreatment, and military identity by adding these covariates to the unadjusted models and report adjusted risk ratios (aRRs) and 95% CIs. To examine for differences in the relations between combat exposure and each of the aforementioned mental health outcomes based on participants’ motivations for joining the military, we then added an interaction term to each fully adjusted model representing the cross-products of DRRI-2 combat exposure score and each Enlistment Motivations Scale score (i.e., Wanting a Military Life, Wanting Material Benefits, Wanting Occupational Development, and Wanting Future Opportunities), separately. Interaction models also controlled for the main effect of the corresponding enlistment motivations. We then examined the predictive margins of each statistically significant interaction (p < 0.05) and displayed these results visually in separate figures.

Results

Descriptive Results

Most of these soldiers endorsed “institutional” motivations for joining the military, including to serve their country (88.3%), be physically and mentally challenged (81.6%), experience military training (80.8%), develop discipline (82.4%), experience military life (74.5%), and have friends in the military (55.2%). Many soldiers also endorsed “pecuniary” motivations (i.e., 88.3% wanted to earn money, 81.2% wanted to obtain educational benefits, and 62.3% wanted to receive bonus money). Participants also noted “occupational” motivations, including overseas training and travel opportunities (75.3%) as well as to develop civilian job skills (64.4%). Finally, some participants endorsed “future-oriented” motivations, which included being recognized and promoted (56.9%) and working on retirement benefits (60.3%). Mean mental health symptomatology scores are presented in Table 1.

Main Effects of Combat Exposure on Mental Health Symptomatology

Combat exposure was associated with greater PTSD symptomatology (RR = 1.02, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.03; p < 0.01). After controlling for sex, years of military service, rank, military status, childhood maltreatment, and military identity, this association remained significant (aRR = 1.02, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.03; p < 0.05; Table 2). Greater combat exposure was also associated with greater anxiety symptomatology (RR = 1.01, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.03; p < 0.05), but this effect was no longer significant after covariate adjustment (p > 0.05). The severity of combat exposure was not associated with anger or depression symptomatology in unadjusted or adjusted models (ps > 0.05).

Table 2.

Main effects of combat exposure on mental health symptomatology

	Anger		Anxiety		Depression		PTSD
	RR (95% CI)	aRR (95% CI)	RR (95% CI)	aRR (95% CI)	RR (95% CI)	aRR (95% CI)	RR (95% CI)	aRR (95% CI)
Combat Exposure	1 (0.99, 1.01)	1 (0.99, 1.01)	1.01* (1.01, 1.03)	1.01 (0.99, 1.02)	1.01 (0.99, 1.02)	1.01 (0.99, 1.02)	1.02** (1.01, 1.03)	1.02* (1.01, 1.03)

Notes: PTSD = post-traumatic stress; RR = risk ratio; aRR = adjusted risk ratio; CI = confidence interval. Adjusted models control for sex (male vs. female), years of military service, rank (enlisted vs. officer), military status (current reservist vs. former reservist), Comprehensive Child Maltreatment Scale score, and Veteran Identity Centrality score.

^*p < 0.05;

^**p < 0.01;

^***p < 0.001

Interaction Effects of Combat Exposure and Motivations for Joining the Military on Mental Health Symptomatology

We added an interaction term representing the cross-products of DRRI-2 combat exposure score and each Enlistment Motivations Scale score (i.e., Wanting a Military Life, Wanting Material Benefits, Wanting Occupational Development, and Wanting Future Opportunities) to each main effects model, separately. This resulted in several statistically significant interactions (Table 3).

Table 3.

Interaction effects of combat exposure and motivations for joining the military on mental health symptomatology

	Anger	Anxiety	Depression	PTSD
	aRR (95% CI)	aRR (95% CI)	aRR (95% CI)	aRR (95% CI)
Combat Exposure X Wanting a Military Life (“Institutional”)	1.00 (0.99, 1.00)	1.01 * (1.01, 1.01)	1.00 (0.99, 1.01)	1.00 (0.99, 1.01)
Combat Exposure X Wanting Material Benefits (“Pecuniary”)	0.99 (0.99, 1.00)	0.98 * (0.97, 0.99)	0.99 (0.97, 1.00)	0.98 * (0.97, 0.99)
Combat Exposure X Wanting Occupational Development (“Occupational”)	0.99 (0.99, 1.00)	1.01 (0.99, 1.03)	1.01 (0.99, 1.03)	1.01 (0.99, 1.03)
Combat Exposure X Wanting Future Opportunities (“Future-Oriented)	1.00 (0.99, 1.00)	1.01 (0.99, 1.02)	1.00 (0.99, 1.01)	1.00 (0.99, 1.02)

Notes: PTSD = post-traumatic stress; aRR = adjusted risk ratio; CI = confidence interval. Interaction models control for sex (male vs. female), years of military service, rank (enlisted vs. officer), military status (current reservist vs. former reservist), Comprehensive Child Maltreatment Scale score, Veteran Identity Centrality score, and main effect of corresponding motivations for joining the military.

^*p < 0.05;

^**p < 0.01;

^***p < 0.001

There was a significant interaction between combat exposure and Wanting a Military Life on anxiety symptomatology (aRR = 1.01, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.01; p < 0.05). Only those who endorsed high “institutional” motivations had an increasingly greater predicted anxiety symptomatology with increasing combat exposure (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Predictive margins of combat exposure on anxiety by level of institutional motivations

Conversely, there were significant interactions between combat exposure and Wanting Material Benefits on anxiety (aRR = 0.98, 95% CI: 0.97, 0.99; p < 0.05) and PTSD (aRR = 0.98, 95% CI: 0.97, 0.99; p < 0.05). That is, there was no relationship between combat exposure and anxiety (Figure 2) and PTSD (Figure 3) among those with high “pecuniary” motivations, while there was a strong increasing relationship between combat exposure and these mental health outcomes among those with no “pecuniary” motivations.

Figure 2.

Predictive margins of combat exposure on anxiety by level of pecuniary motivations

Figure 3.

Predictive margins of combat exposure on PTSD by level of pecuniary motivations

There were no statistically significant interactions between combat exposure and Wanting Occupational Development or Wanting Future Opportunities on any mental health outcome.

Discussion

Results from the current study demonstrate that greater combat exposure is associated with worse mental health symptomatology, which is consistent with other research regarding combat-exposed military service members (e.g., Luxton et al., 2010; Pietrzak et al., 2012; Rivera et al., 2022; Stander et al., 2014; Thomas et al., 2010). Specifically, we found that worse combat exposure was associated with greater symptoms of anxiety and PTSD among this sample of combat-exposed reservists. However, results also suggest that the risk of poor post-deployment mental health may be greater for certain USAR/NG soldiers. The unique characteristics of reserve service, together with individuals’ expectations, may play a role in this. For example, part of the rationale for joining the reserves is the expectation that one will be able to maintain a balance between military and civilian interests (Vest 2014). If so, the experiences of combat and deployment may alter the expected balance, and thus differentially affect outcomes. Our working hypothesis was that USAR/NG soldiers who identified wanting material benefits would experience worse post-deployment mental health symptomatology compared to those who identified wanting a military life. However, our results suggest the opposite is the case. Soldiers who had a stronger desire for wanting a military life had an increasingly higher likelihood of anxiety symptomatology as their combat exposure increased. Conversely, those soldiers who endorsed fewer motivations consistent with wanting material benefits were more likely to endorse greater symptoms of anxiety and PTSD with increasing combat exposure. Although socioeconomic positioning may affect the likelihood of recruitment or joining the military (Ettinger, 2018), it is possible that recruits from lower socioeconomic positioning may be more resilient to the job-related stressors of military service or derive more benefits from their service. For example, research has shown that many people living in poverty have strong psychological hardiness (i.e., dispositional resilience) and that this resilience can buffer the effects of stress on mental health (Williams & Lawler, 2004). Moreover, military service has been shown to increase social mobility (MacLean & Kleykamp, 2021), and upward social mobility been associated with better mental health outcomes (Tiffin et al., 2005).

High combat exposure in the presence of joining the military for a military life, but not for material benefits, points to a subset of service members who may have different or unmet expectations of service (Griffith, 2011).

Among these reservists, we found an elevated risk for anxiety and PTSD symptoms with greater combat exposure – among those who joined the military to experience a military life. In the context of this study of USAR/NG soldiers with deployment histories, it is possible that those who were motivated to join the military to experience military life and were deployed may not have experienced the life that they thought they would, either during or post-deployment. Given that in this sample, these are post-9/11 service member deployments, there are several notable characteristics of the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that might explain this phenomenon. First, US involvement in the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq represents the most protracted conflicts to date, exceeding that of the Vietnam War. Second, the all-volunteer force was inadequate to meet these conflict demands, resulting in multiple and frequent deployments for many service members and an increasing reliance on Reserve and Guard troops (National Academies of Sciences, 2018; US Department of Veterans Affairs, 2015). Lastly, public opinion of US involvement in the Middle East remains unfavorable, with the majority of Americans indicating that the US has “mostly failed in achieving its goals” in the Middle East (Pew Research Center, 2018). Taken together, the unique characteristics of recent conflicts suggest that current-era service members who joined the military for institutional motivations (i.e., “intrinsic”), such as service to country and a sense of duty and loyalty, may have been more likely to find misalignments between the expectations and realities of their service, manifesting in a greater likelihood for problems with mental health. Further research suggests that when service members’ military experiences don’t align with their identity or expectations of service, they may be more likely to experience poor mental health (Hoopsick, Homish, et al., 2018). While these reservists may have wanted to experience military life, the transmigrant nature of reserve service (Ben Ari et al., 2024; Gazit et al., 2021; Lomsky-Feder et al., 2008) means that after deployment and combat experiences, reserve soldiers return almost immediately to their primarily civilian lives, without the more robust supports and ongoing engagement with the military community found within an active-duty unit (e.g., Griffith, 2010; Renshaw, 2010; Riviere et al., 2011). This limited support and the abrupt return to civilian life may lead to increased incongruence for these soldiers and potential disappointment around how their military lives and experiences integrate with their civilian ones.

Psychologists have posited that disappointment and regret are negative emotions that can develop when peoples’ outcome expectations are not met, and these emotions can adversely affect future decisions and behaviors (Zeelenberg et al., 2000). However, clinical research suggests that self-regulation strategies can be employed to reduce the negative emotions like disappointment and regret that are sometimes elicited by “if only” reconstructions of life events or trajectories (Krott & Oettingen, 2018). These strategies may be useful for developing interventions that help people to come to terms with a lost counterfactual past (e.g., different or unmet expectations of military service).

Limitations

Our study has several limitations. First, our data comes from a sample of USAR/NG soldiers recruited from units in a single state and who were all married or cohabitating at baseline, which may limit the generalizability of our findings. However, the baseline demographics of this sample were consistent with USAR/NG soldiers nationally, and approximately half of all reservists are married (Department of Defense, 2021). Second, all data reported in this study were self-reported and are subject to self-report bias; however, the use of a confidential survey and validated measures lends confidence to our findings. Moreover, computer-assisted self-interviewing has been shown to produce accurate estimates of substance use and other sensitive topics (Gerbert et al., 1999; Kumar et al., 2016; McNeely et al., 2016; Spear et al., 2016; Waruru et al., 2005) and is frequently preferred over face-to-face interview methods by research participants (Perlis et al., 2004; Waruru et al., 2005). Lastly, participants were asked to retrospectively report their motivations for joining the military, and their responses are subject to recall bias. These soldiers may have differentially recalled their motivations for joining the military based on their military experiences or other factors not assessed here.

Conclusions and Future Directions

Service members’ motivations for joining the military represent an important pre-service factor that might moderate the relationship between combat exposure and post-deployment mental health symptomatology. Additional research is needed to understand the mechanisms by which pre-service factors, such as enlistment motivations, might affect expectations for military service, military service experiences, and downstream mental health outcomes. Moreover, a deepened understanding of these mechanisms might allow for more targeted intervention efforts, given that certain service members appear to be more at risk.