The Lived Experience of Veteranship: A Case Study of Veterans of Ilam City

Abstract

Introduction and Aim: Some of the people who were present at the war front and were injured, endured a lot of pain, suffering, and sorrow and reached the level of veteranship. Investigating and researching various aspects of the lives of these people is of great importance, and accordingly, the purpose of the present research was to investigate the lived experience of veterans of Ilam city.

Methodology: The present study was applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of implementation method. The population of this research was veterans who were more than ten percent members of the Martyrs and Veterans Affairs Foundation of Ilam city, which according to the theoretical saturation principle number of 20 people of them were selected as samples using purposive sampling method. The instruments of the present study included a Demographic Information Form and a Semi-Structured Interview, which its validity was confirmed by the triangulation method and its reliability was obtained by the agreement coefficient between the two coders, 0.86. The data of the present research were analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding methods in MAXQDA software.

Findings: The results of this study indicated that for the lived experience of veterans were identified 44 concepts, 15 sub categories, and 4 main categories, including economic context (with 2 sub categories of economic status and quality of economic experience), social context (with 4 sub categories of quality of residence, quality of communication, acceptability, and religion), cultural context (with 4 sub categories of quality of study, scientific resume, knowledge and awareness, and thesis studies), and veteranship context (with 5 sub categories of veteranship experience status, quality of lived experience of veterans, society's attitude and perspective to veterans, status and dignity of veteran, and attitude toward veterans abroad).

Conclusion: Considering the identified concepts and sub categories and main categories for the lived experience of veterans can be provide the basis for improving their quality of life, especially in the economic, social, cultural, and veteranship contexts.