Sometimes you just can’t take the War out of the Warrior.

For the past 10 or so years we have been living with war.  Regardless of your personal belief or feelings on the matter, it is something that is dominant in our culture today; Many young men and women risked their lives and are overseas fighting.  Whether or not you agree with why they are overseas, they are, and they deserve our support; they could be our mothers, fathers, brother, sisters, husbands or wives.  They are our peers, and quite frankly, my heroes. 

But what happens to these heroes when they come back home?  They spend a year or so overseas protecting people who are less than appreciative, and then they come back home to people who are apathetic, uninformed, or outright against them.  While many companies go out of their way to hire veterans and have great opportunities and programs for vets, some companies shy away from hiring them, saying they are over qualified or otherwise unfit.  This goes into the catch-22 of coming back to your home country as a vet.

Many veterans have a hard time adjusting to civilian life and often experience feelings of missing the war.  Sure, when you put it like that, it may make them seem like sociopaths, but that is not the case at all.  They do not miss the killing, the risk, the death or the uncertainty of war, what they miss is the camaraderie, the brotherhood that goes with it.  You spend a year fighting side by side with these men and women, seeing things that no one else can possibly comprehend, you get a bond that is much stronger than any friendship.  Being in the military is being in an eternal brotherhood.  You open yourself up to people in a way that civilian life doesn’t.  Essentially on a daily basis you are putting the needs and welfare of your group over your own.  This bond is certainly difficult to break, but it is also even harder to recreate when veterans return home.

While PTSD is a common occurrence in veterans, so is depression.  Sure, a lot can be attributed to what they have seen or done, but it also comes from a great loss.  Imagine going away from your home for a year or so and then coming back not being the same person.  Everyone you previously loved, your family, your friends, maybe even your significant other, is now essentially a stranger.  You don’t know their daily routines, or their favorite cereal, or things that you ‘should’ know, because you have been deployed for a year.  This is where the depression sets in.  Veterans go from a brotherhood where every day they have a sense of purpose, a mission to do, and come home and lose all of that.  It must be extremely difficult to come back from deployment and basically feel like a stranger in your own life.  You realize that you are no longer the same person you were when you left, and you long for people who understand that part of you.

While many family members and significant others of military servicemen and women are supportive, it is often hard for them to fully comprehend that side of them.  So the next time you come into contact with a veteran, think of how they completely had to adjust their whole way of thinking and feeling to come back into civilian life.  Think of all the things they risked for our country; not just by putting their life on the line, but the things their family went through, and no matter how hard they try some things you do not come back totally unchanged from.  Although that sounds like a bad thing, that is not always the case, but even the longing for brotherhood again is a fundamental change in the person they once were.  So when you see a veteran, understand their plight and thank them for their service.