Many hide homecoming angst

By Rachael Van Horn Commentary

April 04, 2007 12:56 am

— When my father came home after two tours in Vietnam in 1971, he was pretty much as good as a bag of kicked lemons for a while.
My mother was frustrated by his emotional return to the war zone through a series of his cordoning himself in the garage while he listened to taped recordings he had of his missions there. There also was a certain amount of drinking, which had not really been characteristic of him before.
He eventually adjusted, of course. He is a source of understanding for me, both in our military service and our enmeshment with the war zone — something not easy to admit to others who might see us as war mongers.
So I talk to him a lot about it. I told him once the war zone is something “I just get.”
Like the passionate attorney knows he has chosen the right field when he steps foot into a court- room, or a surgeon is deeply inspired when he enters a surgical suite or even an anti-war demonstrator might feel when he or she has impacted a decision. And so it is for the warrior, whose meaning comes full circle on the battlefield.
During the American Civil War, youths enthusiastically marched off to serve their region. These days, soldiers who have been trained for years, find they must hide their enthusiasm about being deployed for a multitude of reasons ranging from protecting their family from their deeply felt desire to, ultimately leave them and serve, to just avoiding the social implications of the politically correct society in which we live now. So, it is even more difficult for family and society to understand when some come home, they miss the war zone.
Not all have these feelings, but there is a startling number of soldiers who told me, when they learned of their probable extension in Iraq, they were glad to remain. And frankly, I understood that feeling.
While the adjustment to the war zone is intense, it seemed — for some anyway — to be the easier adjustment than was coming back to my home.
I am not sure that, unless someone has been there — to the war zone — in a combat or direct combat support mission, they can possibly be expected to understand how weird it is to come home and try to resume what are considered normal concerns here.
We come home to a public whose talk shows are about whether or not Mariah Carey has had a new set of breast implants, the most recent 40-day-long marriages of Hollywood celebrities and news prominent political figures have engaged in child porn online. We go to social gatherings where we witness petty, but ferociously fought battles about how to move forward in Iraq and yet those battles are fought between people who have not set a foot in the country. So we leave, most of us not bothering to correct anyone because we are tired and frankly, most of us cannot even stand to watch the news anymore.
At night, we wake and for a second we think we are there and then, in the absence of a growling generator, know we are home. Old anxieties creep up about paying bills, fitting church, work, family and home upkeep into our schedules. Old images best left overseas play in our brains late at night. These are activities we have not had to think about while in a war zone. It was enough, there, to think of our missions, plan them, dread them, execute them and start over. Yet, as dangerous and life altering as the battlefield life can be, it is still a less complex existence — in many ways — than being home.
That is just the odd, sort of crazy truth of it for many, me included.
It makes us feel ashamed and it just feels too weird to try and explain and so we hide it and wait for normal to return. And pretty soon, we are — by and large — back to complaining about our steak at the restaurant and participating in stupid, petty discussions about our neighbors and those who lead our government.
I feel for those who live with us. Some have asked me how to help their returning soldier or Marine and I wish I could give them a list of things to do or not to do. But I can’t. It is too individual a process.
However, I have noted when I woke with a bad dream and mentioned it to a family member, that person did not invite me to share it. I could sense they really didn’t want to know about it. I get that feeling a lot from people who are uncomfortable because they cannot understand and don’t know what to say and so we don’t mention these things.
If I might be so bold as to speak for many of us, we don’t care if you understand. We just, sometimes, want someone who is close to us to listen and just understand in a human sense, what it might feel like to have a nightmare so frightening. Sometimes, we just want to share how stupid an argument over how the toothpaste tube is squeezed or toilet paper is displayed, when a soldier has just left a place where someone — to whom they tried to give mouth-to- mouth resuscitation — bled into their mouth and died right in front of them.
I think my friend whose husband recently died expressed it best. “Don’t say anything. Don’t give me advice. Don’t tell me you understand (unless you can) and don’t trivialize my emotions. Just let me talk and keep it confidential, even from me, because none of us want to hear how crazy we were a year later.”

Van Horn is a freelance writer and government consultant living in northwestern Oklahoma. She spent 2 1/2 years in northern Iraq as a military liaison and recently was embedded with 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment. E-mail her at vconsult@ptsi.net.

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