Survivor's Guilt
This past Thursday, PBS's Frontline ran a two-hour long documentary about the Rwandan genocide which occurred 10 years ago this month. The clips with General Romeo Dallaire, head of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Rwanda at the time, are particularly heartbreaking. You just want to hug the guy, tell him it wasn't his fault and he did the best he could do under the hellish circumstances.

If you're suffering from survivor's guilt such words don't really do much for you. All you can do is muddle on with the essential help of family and friends.

My suicidal attempts were based on booze. I starting falling into these depressions, and I'd just drink and drink and then I'd cut myself or try to jump off things, but more often than not that was totally ineffective because I was pissed to the gills. It's only that and people checking up on me that prevented me from killing myself. … I'm not the man I was, and never will become [him again], but hopefully with some drugs or medication that I take, just like someone who's got diabetes takes insulin, to keep me stable … -- that will be my life.

Having read Philip Gourevitch's We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families and Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell" I knew a bit about the genocide but I wasn't aware of the heroism of Capt. Mbaye Diagne, a young Senegalese U.N. military observer and "Cool Hand Luke" character. A devout Muslim, he'd go out on solo rescue missions and charm his way past the genocidaires' checkpoints. From the video you can tell he's a grade A badass with a sense of humor that would put bloodthirsty killers in stitches and would keep up the morale of comrades like General Dallaire and the others the U.N. abandoned.