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When the War comes home.
Author: Raine    Date: 01/14/2008 13:27:45

We have been told that we must fight them there so we won't have to fight them here. We have been told that Al Quaeda must be prevented from entering America. We have been told to fear the enemy. Support the Troops™, love America(LLC).

But what happens when our troops can't stop fighting the war when they come home? What happens then?
The war echos, and still goes on, it seems.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Specialist Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

And the rest were acquaintances or strangers, among them Noah P. Gamez, 21, who was breaking into a car at a Tucson motel when an Iraq combat veteran, also 21, caught him, shot him dead and then killed himself outside San Diego with one of several guns found in his car.

Our soldiers are coming home and still fighting this war. The receive only minimum treatment for rentry to being back home...

Many of our combat vets are not making the adjustment. And so I ask, is this what it means to fight them over there so we do not have to fight them here?

I am concerned at this article, and the other studies I have been reading over the past year. As our troops come home, we are finding a significant number are homeless, suffer from PTSD, turning to alcohol and drugs and general suffering from a decent way of life. Is this just another side effect of war? Whose responsibility is this?

What must our Vietnam Vet's be thinking when they see the same thing happening again to another generation of people who are not just giving thier lives, but their souls to our country? Is it good enough to accept that they are just more collateral damage in this war?

It may not be happy or hopeful of me to say this, but I only see this problem growing, especially when the pentagon denies the stats, ignores the health issue. Instead, the crimes themselves fall on local and state juristictions, with a good portion of the health issues still going ignored.

The war HAS come over here. That is the sad reality. It isn't the enemy the pResident and the warhawks wanted it be. The war is home, and no one seemed to plan for it.



 

167 comments (Latest Comment: 01/15/2008 04:19:12 by livingonli)
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