Back home, a struggle to reconnect

[unhappycamper]

Back home, a struggle to reconnect
By Anna Badkhen
Globe Staff / January 6, 2008

No mortar rounds slam into Kim Luce's two-story house in Central Massachusetts. No medevac helicopters throb outside at 3 a.m. No wounded soldiers moan to get her attention. After a year as a chief ward master for an American military hospital in Iraq, Army Reserve Master Sergeant Luce is back in her spacious Shrewsbury home, where the kitchen smells like cinnamon rolls and her four shih tzus - her "babies," she calls them - follow her wherever she goes.

But rather than bring relief after a year of treating mangled war victims, Luce's quiet suburban life is closing in on her. She barely sleeps. She is afraid to be alone. She misses the adrenaline rush of running a hospital under fire, and the sense of purpose she felt when helicopter rotors whipped the dry desert air, bringing in the wounded.

"The pace we were going over there, and then" - Luce made a sound imitating tires screeching on asphalt - "it's like slamming on your brakes and slamming your face against the windshield."

Luce, 42, is one of about 450 mem bers of the 399th Combat Support Hospital, a Massachusetts-based Army Reserve battalion made up of citizen soldiers who normally serve a weekend every month. In 2006, the 399th was mobilized for a year of full-time duty in Iraq, where the medics often came under mortar and rocket fire as they treated more than 30,000 US and Iraqi forces, contractors, civilians, and detainees.

The 399th returned home Oct. 1. Three months later, the soldiers are resuming civilian jobs, reconnecting with loved ones, and returning to something like their state-side routines. But some have had difficulty readjusting to life after fire.


Rest of article at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/01/06/back_home_a_struggle_to_reconnect/