As we set about celebrating yet another Veterans Day national holiday, many questions and unnerving contemplations come to mind for those of us who've served in our country's armed forces, for family members of those who've fought in America's wars and, lest we forget, for those still serving in our decades-plus long global war. Questions like: "Did I waste years of my life fighting an unnecessary war?" "What does it mean to support our troops?" "What are we doing in Afghanistan?" "Did what I do make a difference?" Questions and thoughts like these are unmistakably asked by the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines returning from any war—but sometimes it seems our nation glosses over these sorts of close-to-home notions, especially when it comes to the more challenging "after actions."
Since the onset of our latest two war incarnations—Iraq and Afghanistan—in the shadows of 9/11, much of what has happened to our veterans has been avoided, ignored or misconstrued. Our top military leaders and media outlets have often limited airing the views or experiences of our men and women in uniform, in large part, to lighten the burdens of our political leaders and appease a somewhat indifferent American public. I mean, who wants to hear about readjustment difficulties and wartime horror stories of veterans? For some regrettable reason, commemorating a shared sense of victory without addressing the actual post-war status of our veterans is just much more politically palatable and socially acceptable for all concerned. And for all appearances, most nations who've shed blood in war behave this way—avoid, forget, commemorate—even a superpower like the United States.
I still recall my return to the US after having served in Afghanistan for a year. For most veterans, returning home is simply one of the most surreal experiences of our lives. This is for a variety of reasons: First, you've come out of an impoverished developing world environment, but with some very unique differences—you've had to carry a weapon 24/7 to provide for your own security, the possibility of life-altering injury or death was ever-present while you were at war and because of potential risk to your personal safety, you haven't actually relaxed in a long time. Secondly, while shedding the feelings of war, you feel yourself immediately immersed in an ego-jarring culture shock as you realize that you've lost all day-to-day common ground with other Americans. Simultaneously, you meet people you don't know, with a handful oddly crying, others thanking you for doing your job and some strangely calling you a hero. Finally, after a year or so at war, you find yourself away from your unit, and completely isolated and alone. In this context, the difficulty of readjusting to a non-wartime environment begins.
Upon returning home, your emotions are a mixture of cold war-worn disaffection and elated homecoming bliss. The initial emotional outpourings of your family, looking into the faces of your kids and friends, being able to let your guard down, holding your spouse in your arms again—are all absolutely incredible. But then you discover you can't sleep right because you're still thinking you have to maintain your personal security, you hear every crack or creak in your house, you find it hard to be around crowds of people out of paranoia and driving down the street you can't relax in your car because you constantly think of IEDs. As you're adjusting to these simple day-to-day things, your spouse starts to talk about all the problems they dealt with while you were away, your kids and friends talk about things that seem frivolous, your military commander who never went to war asks you: "Did you see any dead bodies or kill anyone?" Quickly you start to feel like you don't belong here at home, but back on the battlefield, back with those who can relate to all you've done, back with all those who can understand all of what you've seen.
In the best of circumstances, you stay in touch with those who went to war with you—talking to your "battle buddies" is sometimes the only thing you can find that gets you out of your head and gives you a feeling of being a "regular Joe." When your war brothers or sisters aren't around, you find yourself reaching for a beer—first to commemorate those guys that can't drink cause they're still over there or didn't come home; later to numb the cold isolation that is constantly with you. Inevitably, you get into an argument (or two) with your spouse over trivial things that are important to them, but that to you are incredibly unimportant. So you withdraw a little more or in some cases do other self-destructive things—drink more, take drugs, drive too fast, flirt, retreat to the gym—because no one can relate to what you're dealing with and you want to escape from putting a happy, exciting adventure face on your harrowing experiences to make everyone else feel like you had a "good" war.
Fast-forward to Veterans Day today, you hear the blah, blah, blah of the politicians' speeches, you watch the wreath laying ceremonies and you hear from many of the guys you served with and, despite everything you've been through, it feels good to have survived that "deployment." On TV, you hear media personalities, generals or academics talk endlessly about a war many of them didn't experience. All the while, you wonder why the media isn't talking to the sergeant who saved you in that firefight or who lost his friends in that small village on the edge of the world. You think about the guys who didn't come home—eulogizing them by name with a beer, toasting their memory and the lives they didn't get the chance to live. You feel remorse for the boys who couldn't cope with coming home—maybe they divorced their spouses, died seeking that irreplaceable war-like euphoria in a motorcycle accident, put a gun to their head to escape the isolation or they now wander the streets lost in perpetual limbo.
So this is Veterans Day, a celebration of service with touches of sadness, tales of bravery and feelings of joy for having made it home. But it really makes you wonder—as a country are we genuinely celebrating to thank all of those veteran men and women for their service to our nation or are we commemorating an undying guilt, because so many of them will never come home and there's nothing that even a superpower can do about that.
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Wes Andrews is an Afghanistan war veteran and former diplomat. He holds an MA in international affairs from SIPA at Columbia University, and an MBA in international management from the Monterey Institute of Int'l Studies. As a freelance writer, he can be reached via Twitter @Wes_Andrews.
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