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April 23, 2003
Lives shift as veterans return from Iraq war
By THAD RUETER | News-Journal Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH — When the Gulf War ended, stress and excitement still ran through John Murphy's body. It was like an engine that kept knocking after the car was turned off.
He had guarded a U.S. Army headquarters on the fringes of the fighting. Yet, like frontline soldiers, he experienced brief periods of sleep, anxieties about attack and adrenaline jolts.
Murphy returned to his Deltona home hoping not for parades but relaxation and the simple joys of showers and fast food. Then, as time passed, a "weird" thing happened, he said.
"I didn't like what I was doing," the 49-year-old recalled, "but when I wasn't there, it was a letdown. You're going a million miles an hour and then you stop. You almost look forward to going back in that mode."
Hundreds of thousands of young men and women soon will return home from the Middle East with memories of war that will last for decades.
Some of these new veterans have killed or hurt men, women and children on the way to Baghdad. Others never fired a gun or saw an Iraqi firing his; the bulk of a modern military works in supply, maintenance and other vital support roles, not combat.
Whatever their roles may have been, many returning veterans – including those who successfully restart their lives – face problems that range from a sense of letdown to dark dreams and quick tempers.
That's true even for a war so short and – for the United States – so relatively painless as the Iraq campaign, according to Jonathan Shay, a Massachusetts psychiatrist for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs who wrote "Odysseus in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming."
That's largely because war survival skills can't easily be discarded when fighting stops, Shay said.
For example, the fear of open spaces – targets for snipers – can last into civilian life, Shay said. "The persistence of these survival skills is very ancient. It's hardwired" into our brains.
Emotional differences between combat and civilian life also can cause problems, he said. "An essential survival skill in war is shutting down every emotion that doesn't (help one) survive in battle," Shay said. "That can hurt family life" upon a veteran's return.
The mental problems faced by veterans were once called "shell shock," then "combat fatigue," and then, after the Vietnam War, "post-traumatic stress disorder." Symptoms can range from detachment to amnesia, and can lead to arguments with relatives and drug abuse.
Not all post-traumatic stress disorder is catastrophic, said Shay, who likened the condition to a physical war injury. "If I have the last digit of my little finger blown off in a war, chances are, unless I'm a musician, this is trivial."
Sometimes the injuries are worse. Ricky Haddock, a Daytona Beach man who served in Vietnam with the Army, said he lost his left leg in that war.
He advised returning veterans not to think too much about the past. "I carried on with my life," he said. "If you really let it get to you, it's a long way up that hill."
"Veterans do heal themselves," said Shay, "if given a stable and sober setting," he said. He added that such a setting probably is more important than the public reception veterans get upon their return.
Still, as the reception given to Vietnam veterans shows, the public and government help shape how combat affects a veteran's post-war life.
Some Vietnam veterans remain "distrustful of government authority," said Larry Tritle, a veteran of that war himself and now a Los Angeles history professor who studies the aftermath of combat. They share that trait with some veterans of the first Gulf War, who complained the government didn't properly respond to illnesses collectively called "Gulf War Syndrome."
Though it is too early to tell how the most recent war will shape the lives of its veterans, two things seem certain: Veterans will return to a welcoming public, and no matter how limited the experience with combat, hundreds of thousands of people will bring back memories of war.
"It only takes one exposure to combat to change you," Tritle said. Asked if he could name anything positive that could come out of combat, he said no. "You learn about yourself, what you can do. The whole thing is defining," he said. "But there are so many negatives."
For Murphy, coming back from war had at least one positive benefit.
"Everything from food to a real shower – you just appreciate that a lot more," he said. "Your whole attitude toward the military – and when they play the anthem now – it's just a whole different ballgame."