When attempting to converse, I need a translator. It is hard for me with my Vietnam experience to talk with these recent warriors – the argot, the slang, of war has changed.
Military leadership now recognizes that prolonged stress and trauma create "problems" perhaps some day they will learn that pills and questionnaires while helpful are not solutions. These recent wars are so different: communications are vastly improved, more efficient, and disturbingly fast weapons, vehicles of all sorts, and even rations have evolved medical assistance and new technologies have saved lives but left individuals and families with terrifying challenges multiple tours with prolonged separations are common. But I wonder if these men and women, like I was, are at a loss about how to respond to these one-sided statements. That's much better than the hostility and indifference that marked my return and many of my colleagues. Warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are met with a heartfelt "welcome home" and sincere "thank you". Exhaustion and despair, expectation and exhilaration had been my duty companions for too long. I also had shared inedible and incredible meals, slept in strange places, cursed at intransigent superiors, and laughed at death but never had time to cry for the dying. Too many explosions, searching dead bodies for intelligence, hours of ennui and minutes of terror, lots of blood, holding the dying, all this and more had taken a toll. Even if they had, I wouldn't have known how to respond. I flew back to my family in Maine they were glad to see me, but not even they said "thank you" or "welcome home". No one said "thank you." My tour of duty in Vietnam ended in August of 1972.
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