Supplements

Commentary

By Liz Quirin

More Than One Day Needed for Veterans

If everything happens just right, you’ll get your Messenger the day before Veterans Day. That has been a time to remember the big battles, the ones of World War II with veterans returning to places they served more than 65 years ago. We don’t have observances like that for Korea or Vietnam, and I’m wondering, if in future years, we’ll recall the names of the battles fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. We certainly have no iconic photographs or parades and celebrations in major cities to view, to remember or critique.

Here’s what I’m wondering: Given the number of casualties, the number of deaths, of limbs lost, of traumatic episodes experienced by so many people in the service, how could anyone send these young people into a war that would send some of them back in pieces — physical and emotional — and some back only for their funerals? Okay, I remember where I was on Sept. 11, 2001 as well as you do, and I gasped in horror along with everyone else as a second plane slammed into the World Trade Center, but it doesn’t seem right or just that so many more people — including our people — would have to suffer or die because of that act.

For some of the returned veterans, from any of the previous wars, death doesn’t look so bad to them given what they brought home to their families: emotional distress so severe they can be dangerous to themselves and their families as they try to live with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Families can be a little shell shocked themselves because they know the person who finally returned to them isn’t the same person who went to war. These veterans and their families don’t need a reminder about the wars they witnessed since some of them never really returned completely.

I’ve met some Vietnam veterans, home now for more than 40 years, who can’t sleep inside a house or an apartment. They can’t quite hold onto a regular job and they never go to places with loud noises. Some have families who have tried to help, but the best help they receive is to join a support group at a veterans center where people understand exactly how they feel. And they can talk about their experiences without fear.

In these wars, no one wins, and if the past holds true, warring countries eventually reconcile, and we become tourists in places we only knew as battle locations where our “enemies” lurked or lived. Certainly it would be better if our political leaders looked at the “big picture” before they decide to send our children into their battles where people die or they return to their families who become the collateral damage of some politician’s platform.

Wars last much longer than any battle — just ask veterans who have been going to support group meetings for years, trying to stop returning to battlefields in distant lands, even as their families call them back to the present reality that has become a new normal for so many.