There is more to coming home from war than the hugs and kisses from family member’s longing for the return of their loved ones. There are more than the simple little adjustments of indoor plumbing, and waking to the sound of a coffee maker rather than the roar of personnel carriers. There is the well documented cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that seem to be more than a merely documented, but pervasive. And then there are the instances of suicide among returning veterans. According to a CBS News article published Jan. 14th 2004 there were 21 reported suicides among returning Iraq war veterans in 2003. The army began keeping more detailed statistics after several soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., killed their wives and themselves after returning home from the war.
Since then the rate has soared. “There are more suicides today from the Iraq war than from any other war we have ever been involved in. Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, 20 percent of them are acts by veterans. Meaning on average 18 veterans commit suicide each day” (Statistics Released by Veterans Affairs (VA) Jan. 13th 2010)
There are still countless other issues that returning veterans must contend with in the aftermath of wars psychological and physical effects. But it is the impact on our society as a whole that is often forgotten. We are rightly concerned about the soldiers and their adjustment to society and community at large. The instances of violent behavior either toward themselves or their families seems to be growing exponentially. Aside from the Fort Bragg incidents there have been reports from all over the country of soldiers returning home to become police offices, firemen, and security guards. While this seems as though it would be a good fit, and in general it has, there are hundreds of stories in the news and on the internet regarding ex-soldiers returning home only to commit horribly violent acts within our communities. Murder, rape and assault are just the most prevalent crimes.
There is still the issue of soldier’s returning home with addiction issues. Afghanistan is one the world’s largest producers of heroin. Invariably soldiers find it an escape from the everyday horrors of not only what they see, but from the feeling of responsibility for what they are ordered to do in regards to innocent civilians that are residing within “engagement areas”
In Watertown New York, the neighboring town of the Fort Drum Army Installation they are expanding the Credo Community Center for Addiction Treatment Services. This is solely for the purpose of accommodating the huge numbers of returning soldiers with addiction issues. This is the typical situation in many towns across America.
We are forced into funding our own lack of activism and conviction. With all the issues that war brings to our society, perhaps the most disturbing is the eventual apathy that pervades our culture. Mounting costs in health care for soldiers, the price of the community in dealing with those that have become violent and criminal due to the acceptability of certain behavior in war and the cost integrating those same people back into life at home, as well as the moral and ethical implications of a warring society and its ability to maintain any semblance of solidarity. It would seem that we have every reason in the world to unite as a nation and demand that those in power begin the process of putting an end to the destruction of our young men and women.
It is the young who go off to foreign lands at the behest of old men. It is our brightest and best that are chosen for sacrifice on the altar of greed and empire building. It is they and their families that are thrown to the fire of peril and dire. And it is the rest of us that are left to pick up the pieces of broken young men and women as they try to regain their humanity upon their return to us. The Senator’s son does not fight on the ground with the brown and dirty white kids. And until we regain some measure of unity it will remain as it is. As it has ever been.
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