Interesting article about how vets from Iraq experience the homecoming.
It is sad that there is no place for these guys when they come home.
I think it depends on the person though, and college is not a great spot for anyone who isn’t 1)super liberal or 2) sheltered in that “the world is sunshine and rainbows” type way.
I would imagine it would be very difficult to hear students bitch and moan about politics when you’ve been sitting in the desert for so long.
[quote]Adamsson wrote:
Interesting article about how vets from Iraq experience the homecoming.[/quote]
I think that was a pretty good article. I wish they would have added someone who still believed in the war as they are the majority, but it hit a lot of good points.
After getting out of the corps in '03 and going to college for a year, I remember writing a thread on here about missing the military and wondering how the other vets dealt with it. My solution was to go back with a reserve unit for a deployment to Iraq. When I came back it got at me even worse. Since then I have done two more years of college and am going into my last year.
Still, while sometimes some of the stuff I have seen comes back to scare me a little, though I didn’t see as much action as many, what gets me is the fact that I have never felt at home since I left Iraq. My friends are more aquaintences than anything else. Since I went to Iraq with reservists I’m hours away from those guys as well.
It sucks because even my fiancee’ doesn’t understand this. The guys I trained and took to Iraq are going back soon and one of my guys that belonged to my fire team in the fleet is joining back up.
I can’t seem to bring myself to reenlist because I want to go to college, get into politics and do some good, the same reason I joined in the first place, but dammit, I haven’t felt at home since that plane left the runway in Iraq.
I miss the Marines something fierce. I always hear about the PTSD guys. That doesn’t get to me much, but combat isn’t my hangup, it’s the lack of combat with some of the best men I’ve ever met. I have never really heard anyone in my shoes. Am I crazy or what?
mike
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Adamsson wrote:
Interesting article about how vets from Iraq experience the homecoming.
I think that was a pretty good article. I wish they would have added someone who still believed in the war as they are the majority, but it hit a lot of good points.
After getting out of the corps in '03 and going to college for a year, I remember writing a thread on here about missing the military and wondering how the other vets dealt with it. My solution was to go back with a reserve unit for a deployment to Iraq. When I came back it got at me even worse. Since then I have done two more years of college and am going into my last year.
Still, while sometimes some of the stuff I have seen comes back to scare me a little, though I didn’t see as much action as many, what gets me is the fact that I have never felt at home since I left Iraq. My friends are more aquaintences than anything else. Since I went to Iraq with reservists I’m hours away from those guys as well.
It sucks because even my fiancee’ doesn’t understand this. The guys I trained and took to Iraq are going back soon and one of my guys that belonged to my fire team in the fleet is joining back up.
I can’t seem to bring myself to reenlist because I want to go to college, get into politics and do some good, the same reason I joined in the first place, but dammit, I haven’t felt at home since that plane left the runway in Iraq.
I miss the Marines something fierce. I always hear about the PTSD guys. That doesn’t get to me much, but combat isn’t my hangup, it’s the lack of combat with some of the best men I’ve ever met. I have never really heard anyone in my shoes. Am I crazy or what?
mike[/quote]
Nearly the same thing happened to a good friend of mine. Enlisted before 9/11, served in the infantry, Army, in Afghanistan. Went back to college after his tour, fall of 2004, I went down to hang out with him for the first time in a long while, could tell he didn’t fit in.
He never really went into it, but you could just tell college wasn’t for him, I think due to maturity as much as anything. Seemed like after seeing combat at the other end of the world, frat parties and hanging out with teenagers weren’t that great.
I remember him scoffing about some ROTC kid wanting to “PT him.” He left college a couple months later, tried to re-enilst, had some weird medical issue come up, got stuck in red tape, ended up becoming a security contractor in Iraq.