February 16, 2006 6:42 AM

A human life shouldn't merely be tossed aside when we're done with it

Can We Come Home Now?

Because I was still in the navy, I was able to refer myself to the psychiatry department at the local military hospital and was diagnosed with PTSD. After a year and a half of treatment, I was discharged from the military with disability pay. Doug was not so lucky: he was a National Guardsman and not entitled to care in the regular military system. He had to turn to the Veteran’s Administration, who determined he had a Personality Disorder. A malady which, by definition, exists before a person becomes of military age, and thus, the VA will not compensate for it or treat it. The VA thus would not acknowledge his subsequent PTSD that afflicted him in Iraq. So Doug suffered the demons of war without adequate treatment. He struggled for two years trying to make ends meet, all the while fighting with the VA for the disability benefits he had earned in the sands of Iraq…. Doug and I are not alone. 30% of Iraq veterans have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The divorce rate among Iraq Veterans is very high. Homelessness, unemployment and drug abuse are also on the rise. As Doug put it in an article written shortly before he took his own life, “All is not okay … for those of us who return home alive and supposedly well. What looks like normalcy and readjustment is only an illusion to be revealed by time and torment. Some soldiers … will live with permanent scars from horrific events that no one other than those who served will ever understand.

It’s become fashionable to talk about how important it is to support our troops. People slap magnetic ribbons on their SUVs, they pray for our men and women in uniform, they might even send care packages, but what happens to our troops once the come home from the war? What happens to those who return as very different people, scarred by their experiences and forever, perhaps irretrievably damaged? It might surprise you to know, if you’ve thought about it at all, that a significant number of military personnel return stateside with profound psychological and emotional problems, and that the country and government they’ve served does a damn poor job by them- particularly if they’re a member of the Reserves or National Guard.

Most of us simply do not want to know what happens to soldiers who return as broken people. We want to celebrate those who return and resume their lives as if nothing happen, because that’s what we would hope to do were we to be in that situation. We assume that soldiers should be able to return and resume their lives, full of pride of service and grateful for the freedom they fought to protect. But we lose sight of the reality of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. War is ugly. War is brutal. War is terrifying, and it requires people to commit horrific acts that back in “The World” would land them on death row. We laud the ability of soldiers to repeatedly and brutally kill other human beings (“The Enemy”), but we completely ignore the effect that killing has on those who send other humans to meet their Maker. Back home, war is a glorious and patriotic pursuit. The reality, however, is noisier, uglier, and significantly more terrifying. How can we send people off to fight and kill in our name and then expect them to return unaffected and reintegrate themselves into normal civilian life? Apparently, that’s exactly what happens if you are a member of the Reserve or National Guard…and we should be ashamed. Perhaps we would be…if we weren’t so busy slapping magnetic ribbons on our SUVs, watching Fox News Channel, and loudly broadcasting how much we support our troops to anyone who will listen

Doug and I are America’s returned veterans, her sons, left on our own to suffer after the torment of war. I still struggle through life. I often remind myself that I have to bring myself through for my daughter. I force myself to hope that even though my personal finances are in shambles, my marriage destroyed, and nearly everything I once held dear left on the rubbish heap created by this war, this torture cannot last forever. Some days I believe it; on many, I don’t.

Though some may question his actions or his motives, Doug was just one of thousands of the forgotten casualties of the Iraq War. He was killed in action long before he died. On my darkest days, I almost envy Doug, because he had the courage to end his suffering. But in reality, I know that his act was not one of courage, but one born out of the deepest despair. There are hundreds of thousands of Iraq veterans, 150,000 still in Iraq and every one of us is in harm’s way. Doug has gone to rest, but you the citizens of America cannot; you do not have that luxury. While you are tucked safe in your beds, we veterans are still out here in the cold asking, “Can we come home now?

We’re all for our brave men and women in uniform going overseas and kicking ass. What we’re seriously deficient at is caring for these same brave men and women once they return from war. Those of us who have not known the terror of combat and the soul-searing cost of killing another human being have no right to expect soldiers to quickly and easily reintegrate themselves into civilian life. These people deserve better. They deserve the best we have to offer- not what we have left over.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 16, 2006 6:42 AM.

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