Coming Home
- 2. Every day there is more cases of former American soldiers, who are now struggling in
a common life because of the issues, experiences, or injuries which they have brought home
from the Middle East. There is already nearly 1.5 million Veterans from the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are constantly producing more
of them (Martinez). One of the combat veterans said:
"That War is like permanent dent in my heart and mind. Tonight I was at party with my
wife. My favorite music was playing . I felt love for life itself. But this happiness only made me
acutely aware of the pain of my past." (Matsakis)
Unaware, he in fact speaks on behalf of the thousands of veterans who experienced the
terror of war and are marked with possibly forever. Many of the soldiers coming, like this
veteran, from the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq are facing long lasting hardships in their
reentered lives but fortunately they are also being provided with the needed help by some
nonprofit organizations such as Wounded Warrior Project. The effort of these charity
companies, which has been present for the last several years, is motivated by sympathy and
patriotism of American citizens deserving at least a literate kind of praise.
The Wars in Middle East
The unarguable cause of these issues, which for that reason deserve more than just an
honorable mention, are the wars fought by US troops in foreign countries of the Eurasian
continent. There has already been millions of Americans soldiers who lied down their lives in
hopes of peace and millions more of wounded ones. The two most recent conflicts are the
Iraqi War, also known as the "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and the war in Afghanistan with a
code name "Operation Enduring Freedom".
- 3. The first of these two, the Afghanistan War, began in response to the events of 11th of
September of 2001. On that day, the whole nation was shocked by the attack on the World
Trade Center buildings in the New York City and the Pentagon building in north Virginia. It
was clear, that the attack was organized by Taliban terroristic group alQa'ida from
Afghanistan. However, the government of Afghanistan rejected the request of arresting all of
the alQa'ida leaders. Therefore the Operation Enduring Freedom was initiated on the 7th of
October 2001. (Maley) The international conflict itself then went on very rapidly. In fact, the
major fighting was over in just several weeks, when the Taliban government was overthrown.
Still, the unrests of the Islamic extremists and killing were present ever since with the North
Atlantic Treaty Alliance taking over the peacekeeping in 2006 and Hamid Karzai as a
democratic leader. (Maley)
In Iraq, the cold relationships between Sadam Hussein's dictatorial government and
United Nations, which lasted since the Persian Gulf War of early 1990's resulted in another
opened conflict. Starting o March 19th of 2003 US Air Force launched attack on the Iraqi
capital (Deese). The main goal of the United Nations in Iraq was to overthrow Saddam
Hussein and terminate, or at least get under control, the production of weapons of mass
destruction. The US, first without any UN support captured most of the countries strategic
points, on some places with more resistance from Iraqis forces than on others, within the next
month and "on May 1st United States president George W. Bush declared that major combat
operations in Iraq had ended."(Deese) By the May of 2004 the dictatorial regime of Hussein
was already lying in ashes, new, democratic government with Iyad Allawi as a PM has been
established and the UN troops were from a big part already being transported home or waiting
to with the same expectations. (Profile and Deese) However, a big part of the soldier stayed to
keep the relative peace and the minor fights between the UN troops and Iraqi guerillas never
- 4. really came to an end to this day.
Up to the this year's March, there have already been 4,487 Us soldiers killed and
32,223 wounded in Iraq (White) and 1,959 killed and 15,858 wounded in the Afghanistan
War (Chesser). According to internet server "veteransnewsroom.com", there is over 800,000
of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are injured the way that they are "eligible
for VA healthcare".
The Veterans' Hardships
Possibly, the three most gravest categories of problems are the serious combat injuries
such as lost of limb or eyesight, post traumatic stress disorder and the difficulty in terms of
obtaining sufficiently paid job.
"I was so excited when Tom finally talked to me about the war. All these years, he
hasn't said a word about it. Finally, maybe, I thought we could be close. But ever since he
opened up, he's shut down more than ever. He won't even say what he wants for dinner and he
hasn't let me touch him for over a week." said Mrs. Natasha about her husband who returned
from Middle East while being interviewed by Ph.D. Aphrodite Matsakis
(Matsakis).According to the article "The War in Iraq Was a Mistake From the Beginning" by
Dennis Kucinich, one out of five veterans who has returned from the Iraq War is stricken by
the post traumatic stress disorder. In thousands of cases, similar to the one of Tom and
Natasha, this disorder represents a cause of serious complications of the soldiers' family
and/or social life.
Just in the Iraq War alone there have been 986 amputees and another approximately
168,000 are classified as "60% or higher disabled by the Department of Veteran
Affairs"(Kucinich). A vast majority of these veterans is no longer capable of work they would
- 5. have successfully applied before the injury and the government financial support is not even
close to the wage they could otherwise reach to. Especially the veterans who were having
difficulties with asserting themselves on work market even before their deployment are often
struggling to parry a personal or familial bankrupt. As published on internet server "Veterans
Inc.", veterans represent about 11% of American population but at the same time they make
up more than one quarter of the American homeless people.
Trying to Help : Wounded Warrior Project
The Wounded Warrior Project is a nonprofit organization founded by John Melia in
Bibliography
Chesser, S. G. (2012). Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians. Congressional Research
Service.
Deese, D. A. (2011). The Iraq War. In The World Book Encyclopedia (pp. 414a414g). Chicaco,
Il: World Book, Inc.
FAQs. (2011). Retrieved May 20, 2012, from Wounded Warrior Project:
http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/faqs.aspx
Kucinich, D. (2012). The War in Iraq Was a Mistake From the Beginning. US News , 1.
Maley, W. (2011). Afghanista War. In The World Book Encyclopedia (p. 97). Chicago, Il: World
Book, Inc.
Profile: Iyad Allawi. (2010, March 27). Retrieved May 20, 2012, from BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3757923.stm#blqmain
Statistics. (2010). Retrieved May 20, 2012, from Veteran Inc.:
http://www.veteransinc.org/aboutus/statistics/#homelessness
White, D. (2012). Iraq War Facts, Results & Statistics at January 31, 2012. (p. 1). New York Time
Company.
