When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again…

By: Tahira Ansari
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” is the title of a popular Civil War song that expresses the people’s longing for the end of the war and the safe return of their family and friends. No doubt, every soldier in every country throughout history has looked forward to going home at the end of their tour of duty. The veterans of the Iraq war are no exception but they are finding that just when they have completed their assignment and are ready to go home, another war is about to begin. It’s nothing new. It’s a side effect of war that has always plagued the lives of veterans and their families long after they leave the battlefield. They exit the war torn country that they invaded and return home to continue suffering the ill effects of the damage they inflicted on others. When they return, they experience an initial feeling of relief, even elation to be ‘safe’ at home. But as the days go by, they find their lives self-destructing right before their very eyes.
Thanks to modern medical and rehabilitation technology, the physical casualties of war are actually some of the easiest to treat. But the psychological and emotional effects, commonly referred to as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), of war seem to hit the veterans the hardest and they find that effective treatment is very hard to come by.
The soldiers begin experiencing symptoms while in Iraq and by the time they arrive home are exhibiting the full- blown afflictions of PTSD. This wide array of disturbances ranges from night terrors, violent behavior, anxiety, depression, survivor’s guilt to alarming rates of suicide. When they find no source of relief, they often turn to alcohol and illegal drugs to numb their senses to the war that is still raging on in their own psyche. Addiction quickly takes over their lives. Marriages end and all too often homelessness becomes a way of life.
To further complicate the situation, veterans start suffering from a wide range of vague but disabling illnesses that are a result of chemical weapons that have historically been used throughout Iraq. It leaves them suffering neurological disturbances and other maladies for which there is no specific treatment or cure. To make matters worse military cover-ups have become the word of the day. The government has reportedly gone to great lengths to cover up and even destroy evidence that pointed to their use of the chemical weapons. To offer treatment would be an admission of guilt. Without a doubt, the far reaching devastating effects of chemical warfare will go on to destruct the lives of the soldiers and Iraqi civilians and their offspring in ways that no one can even begin to imagine.
The devastation that takes place in the lives of veterans is immense and far reaching. Statistics vary greatly on the number and kinds of afflictions they suffer from. As one veteran’s advocate said “There’s no sense in collecting statistics, there are too many cover ups and there is no one system that effectively takes keeps track of all the veterans and their individual situations. I’m sure that every soldier who fought in the Iraq war is suffering tremendously in one way or another. The after- effects of this war are like a massive tsunami that comes after a huge earthquake”.
So let’s look at a typical scenario of an American soldier who goes to fight in Iraq. First of all an inductee might very well be out of work, not highly skilled and desperate to find some way of surviving to support themself and their family. They listen to the military recruiter who paints a shiny but not often realistic picture. The potential recruits are told that the purpose of the mission is to go into Iraq to liberate the people from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. They are given a long list of economic, medical and educational benefits that they will receive throughout and after their military careers. But once they arrive in Iraq they begin to see the real politics behind the war and wake up to the fact that they are actually invading a country in order to take over and occupy it. Then they experience every kind of combat trauma imaginable – rocket attacks, mortar fire, torture and seeing the dead bodies of their friends and of Iraqi civilians including women and children. They complain that they never feel safe and they never know when and from where the enemy is going to attack next. They miss the comforts of home and their families and often find that their deployments are extended beyond what they agreed to. Then when they finally arrive home, they find that the help and supportive services they were promised by the Veteran’s Administration and other agencies are not available as promised.
Although agencies are in place to help them they fall very short in actually delivering the needed services. Experiencing economic problems, PTSD, and medical impairments their lives begin to crumble right out from under them. When all this is complicated by damage done to their nervous systems it’s a miracle that any of them survive at all. One veteran said “It never ends. It effects every moment of my waking life and never lets me sleep”. Sometimes it happens right away and sometimes it sets in months later. But whenever it strikes, it erodes the life of the veteran with a domino like effect on their families and even the communities they live in.
Having been destroyed in every way imaginable the returning veterans all too often begin the rapid downhill trip to homelessness. The first thing they find is that they cannot get jobs, or if they do, they are not able to perform well enough to maintain their them. As economic pressures build, marital stress increases. Frustrated and angry with no where else to take out their aggressions, domestic violence becomes a part of their marriages and many finally end in divorce. The spouses and children of veterans find their own lives turned in to nightmares of economic problems and emotional instability. Feeling completely overwhelmed and helpless they unsuccessfully try to numb their brains from the residue of the after-effects of war. Once alcohol and drug abuse step in and take over any hope of returning to a normal life diminishes rapidly. The next step down after that is often homelessness and crime is often resorted to support their addictive habits. For many, suicide becomes the only way out. Veterans reportedly have a suicide rate twice that of other Americans.
Martin Luther King said it a long time ago - “…sending soldiers home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love”. If one opens their eyes, it is easy to see that the technology of war and killing has expanded and in its path has also made a vicious attack on any kind of humanitarian values.
How can anyone count the number and kinds of casualties that are a product of the Iraq war and how long they will continue to ravage the lives of the Iraqis and the American veterans and their families? With the economic cost of the war by one estimate reaching in the trillions of dollars, every economic system of America is strained to its breaking point.

At the same time there is a small glimmer of hope. Growing groups of well-organized and highly vocal veterans, their families and supporters are making public the atrocities of war and its aftermath. They are uniting with the anti-war activists and both groups are making themselves heard all over America. They are exposing the lies and educating people about the realities of the war from its deceptive beginning to its continuing mass destruction of Iraqi and American lives.
Machiavelli said it so aptly but apparently those in power either are not listening or don’t care -
“Wars begin where you will, but do not end up where you please”
© Islam Times