Chicago Tribune on U.S. soldiers "altered by the experience of war"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Viet Nam all over again. This experience will haunt some returning soldiers in ways that will not manifest themselves for YEARS to come...

Read the whole article. The DU mandatory "4 paragraph rule" doesn't convey the impact of the entire piece.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=414



Cpl. Travis Friedrichsen, Holly's husband, was sitting in bed a few days after his return when he began to shake uncontrollably for nearly 15 minutes, an involuntary response to the memory of a hidden bomb that detonated only a few feet from him in Iraq.

Once an easygoing son of Iowa, Friedrichsen, 21, now has trouble controlling his temper, with the stress inside him sometimes exploding into tirades that he says have gone on for an entire weekend.

"It's hard that he has changed," said Holly, 19. "The guy I fell in love with is completely different now."

The men have been altered by the experience of war. The hair-trigger reactions and emotional distance that helped them survive in a place of constant and unpredictable peril often do not recede easily or quickly.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. You don't know the half of it.

The ones that end up homeless, estranged from themselves, society and their families. The drug addicts and stumbling drunks. The ones that punch their own ticket. The ones that escape to insanity. The ones like my friend, who got drunk one too many times and passed out in a snowbank and froze to death.

More of that is coming. I hope their spirits haunt all of the bastards.