CAIRO,
May 14, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Sure, US soldiers coming home from
Iraq are welcomed with parades, yellow-ribbon bumper stickers and
opens arms. But when they were out of uniform, everything was
different.
For
many Iraq war veterans, those moments of gratitude were short-lived or
limited to close friends and family as they soon come to realize
bitter impressions of a society that seems to be increasingly
indifferent to their psychological and combat sufferings in Iraq, The
Washington Post reported on Sunday, May 14.
The
paper interviewed 100 of Iraq war veterans, many of whom were still in
the service, others were not, and the constant theme through the
interviews was that the public apathy about the Iraq war despite
round-the-clock television and Internet exposure.
"It
is not a United States unified behind the war effort, such as in World
War II. There's no rationing, no sacrifice, no Rosie the Riveter
urging, "We Can Do it!" Nor is it the country that protested
Vietnam and derided many vets as baby killers," the Post concluded
from the answers given by the vets.
Many
said that the United States that Iraq veterans are returning to is
indifferent.
They
realized that the people are more interested in voting for the best
young singer in the country through the popular American Idol show
than knowing how many soldiers were killed in the daily Baghdad
bombings.
"It
doesn't cross their minds," stuff Adam Reuter told the Post.
"To them, everything is fine."
Looking
across a restaurant where everyone were stuffing their faces with
pasta and drinking wine, Army Capt. Tyler McIntyre wanted to yell,
"You don't know what you have! You don't appreciate it! You don't
care!"
"The
country is at war. People are fighting at this very moment. Don't
these people know what's going on? Don't they care?
US
President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the grounds
that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of
mass destruction and had close links to Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin
Laden.
By
congressional reports proved later that Bush was "dead
wrong" on the weapons case and the Green Zone prisoner had no
link with Al-Qaeda.
"What
Was it Like?"
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"I was taken out of my normal habitat and put in a crazy dream -- a nightmare, really," said Cannaday.
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Many
vets are fed up with "dumb" questions by Americans like
"what was it like?" in Iraq.
"You
just try to give a softball answer," said Army Captain Garett
Reppenhagen, who has been out of the Army for a year.
"Yeah,
it was horrible -- whatever. Or you don't answer the question. You say
it was hot. You don't tell them what it's like to kill a man or to
have one of your buddies blown up. You just don't go there."
But
the captain could spare no details if people pressed for an answer,
then he would look up and see an expression that made him think they
did not really want to know after all.
"The
look on their face: This is not the light conversation I want to hear
at a party," he said.
Sometimes,
they would ask something so crazy there just was not any way to
respond, such as when a friend asked Monika Dyrcakz, "Did you go
clubbing in Iraq?"
"Some
people have no idea," she said.
There
are 136,000 US troops in Iraq.
A
March 2006 survey by Zogby International and Le Moyne College found
that the vast majority of US troops in Iraq (72 percent) wanted to end
occupation of the Arab country within a year and return home to their
loved ones.
Traumatized
Many
soldiers came home haunted, carrying heavy memories that will take
years to sort out with the images of bombings and bloodshed making
some of them jumping out of bed in the middle of the night.
"I
was taken out of my normal habitat and put in a crazy dream -- a
nightmare, really," said Army Spec. Cheyenne Cannaday.
"I
think about it every day still, and I'm not sure if it's gonna go
away."
They
came home driving scared, scanning the interstates and the back roads
of their home towns, looking for bombs that were not there.
Jeramey
James "Jay" Lopez was working under the hood of his car with
his dad in New Mexico when one of the noisemakers designed to scare
the birds out of the nearby pecan orchard went off.
It
sounded "just like a round coming out of a tank," he said.
Lopez's head snapped up and smacked the inside of the hood.
"My
dad put his hand on my back, and he just said, 'Son, you're okay.
You're home.' "
Others
like Jon Powers came home and thought that their work in Iraq was
finished and "swore I would never go back to Iraq until they
build a Disney World in Baghdad."
But
moved by the scene of Iraqi orphans, Powers knew his work in Iraq was
not yet over.
He
helped start a nonprofit, War Kids Relief, that helps Iraqi children.
That is his new career.
A
recent US study revealed that US troops returning from Iraq have the
highest rate of mental health consultation and psychological problems
compared to other troops returning from Afghanistan and other trouble
spots.
One
third of US troops returning from Iraq have needed at least one mental
health consultation and one in five have been diagnosed with
combat-induced psychological problems.
Amputees
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Anti-war icon Cindy Sheehan speaks at a peace rally Saturday, May
13.
|
Thousands
also came home wounded, scars fresh; some even with shrapnel in them.
Kevin
Whelan, who was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded next to his
Humvee, has so much metal embedded under his skin that it set off a
security detector at the airport.
"In
case it goes off," he warned the guard, "I do have shrapnel
in me." The wand beeped as it passed over his shoulder.
Nearly
400 of the 550,000 Iraq war veterans returned as amputees and had to
learn to open doors with metal fingers, walk on prosthetic legs, the
paper said.
Senior
Airman Brian Kolfage came home to sad, strange stares and spontaneous
charity.
As
he sat in a wheelchair after having lost both legs and his right arm
when a mortar exploded outside his tent, a stranger handed him $250 in
cash.
Many
others have breathed their last in a war that alienated many Americans
from the current administration.
A
group of mothers led by prominent war opponent Cindy Sheehan, who lost
her soldier son in Iraq, started Saturday a 24-hour vigil outside the
White House to protest the presence of US soldiers in Iraq.
At
least 2,437 members of the US military have died since the beginning
of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to a Pentagon count.
