Many soldiers find rude awakening when returning home
Posted: Apr 09, 2012
By Breann Bierman
By Nicole Crites
PHOENIX (CBS5)
Our military hometown heroes sacrifice a lot fighting for our freedom, and when they come home, the battle isn't over.
Many of our veterans are finding a rude awakening when they return home.
"I love my military career... we ate, slept, fought together, we cried together, then coming out of the military, I didn't know anything about, you know, being a civilian," said "Ace" Carter, an army veteran.
Carter gave more than 22 years of his life to the military, being deployed to Vietnam, Iraq and Panama.
He struggled to find the same camaraderie and purpose when he came home.
Carter said, "You see the violence, you see the drugs, you see the alcohol, 'What did I fight for?'"
Retired military police Officer Brittany Hodge is only 26 years old.
"One major event happened when I got back to Fort Campbell," said Hodge.
A soldier's wife intentionally set fire to the family home, trapping and killing her two kids. Hodge was a first responder.
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Our veterans must feel a little like they are returning from an alien abduction when they return home. They were taken out of their comfortable lives and dropped into a foreign and frightening place not knowing what to expect day to day. They experienced physical and emotional pain like never before and now that they are home they are expected to simply pick up where they left off. Life has changed while they were away, they have changed and will need time to figure out what normal life looks like.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment. They do feel out of place because they don't expect how much they changed while the deployed to hang onto them. Top that off with a disconnected public and that makes them feel worse.
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