By Penny Coleman
Master Sgt. Hawk Randolph lost his legs during the Gulf War and became homeless when he returned. (Photo: Keith-e / flickr)
Far too many soldiers end up behind bars while the rest of us are free to ignore the human evidence of what our military ventures really cost.
As all the other justifications for the U.S. invasion of Iraq have fallen by the wayside, it is ironic that the one that remains is "freedom," because in the name of someone else's freedom, we train our own soldiers to behave in ways that may very well cost them their own.
Gordy Lane is a retired Syracuse police detective who served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. As a cop, it was his job to put lawbreakers behind bars, but as a veteran, he understands that when you go to war, "you come back a little different than when you went over there."
"Listen," he says, "you pop up out of a foxhole, and you blow a guy's head open like a watermelon. The other two guys in the foxhole start patting you on the back and saying, 'Good job!' because you just did the worst thing that you can do to another person. How do you translate that into civilian life?"
For far too many soldiers, the simple answer is, you don't.........Read Rest Here
Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, "Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War", was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her Web site is Flashback.
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