The War

Are you happy to be home?
"We are a memory of what we have done. I'm no longer my father's son, my friend's friend, or my wife's husband. I'm two hundred and thirty-seven dead Iraqis and twenty-seven dead Marines. I'm an IED blasting along side my Humvee in the middle of telling a joke about vegetarian penguins while on patrol.
"I want to go back. Iraq is home, now. Everyone there is dead Iraqis and Marines. When I'm getting shot at and remembering that I'm not supposed to piss my pants and that I'm supposed to shoot back and fucking kill them, I'm home. I'm home because they know what it's like to get shot at too. They know what it's like to hear an explosion and, right after the edge of the adrenaline rush falls off, feel good because you heard the explosion and weren't in it.

What do you think about the war?
"I don't believe in the war. I don't believe in the government. I don't believe in anything anymore, besides sand in my fucking boots, the smell of gunpowder, and god awful heat.
"I've sat at family dinners since I've been back here and stared at the people around me. I've laughed at their jokes, recalled old times, and thanked people when they've told me they're happy I'm 'home.' Thanks to the war, I don't believe in any of these things anymore. Sure, I could get to being used to being here again, but there will always be moments... at a bare minimum there will be moments when life here is like some happy-cheery movie, and certainly not reality. It's so fucking sweet in a way, like dreaming about your favorite family memory, then waking up and realizing it was just a dream. I feel nostalgic and sad that I can never get it back. I can try, but I'll never get it back."

Is there anything that we can do... that the government can do--like counseling--to help you get back to normal?
"When they can give me something, or do something to me that makes me feel as at home, say, stocking the lumber shelves at Home Depot, or working in some office somewhere, then they won't owe me anything. Until that day, those people owe me big.
"They're not going to do it, even if I beg, because they don't have to. They don't have to because you don't know what it's like to want to sleep in an APC with the crackle of gunfire and the occasional thud of an explosion in the background. You don't even know what that's like, so you can't know how fucking wrong it is to want it. And because you can't know how wrong it is, you can't press them to make it right as hard as they should be pressed.
"And it's not even about me. I'm not going to turn out to be a serial killer or something like that... I'm not going to beat my wife and kids because of what I've been through. It's about not turning more people into people like me, or worse, for some stupid ass reason that nobody can remember anymore.
"Yeah, there were terrorists. Yeah, they attacked us. But we're not killing terrorists over there. We're killing people that hate us, and innocents. 'Collateral damage,' they call it. If a dead Iraqi boy who never did anything to get blown apart by a bomb except be in the wrong place at the wrong time, a boy who won't grow up and fall in love and make babies... if that boy is collateral damage, what the hell am I?"

For voices and experiences of combat vets come home, visit this article.

-S.W. America