Stacy Bannerman: 60,000 Marriages Broken by Iraq, Including Mine (The Progressive, via AlterNet)

[marmar]

60,000 Marriages Broken by Iraq, Including Mine


By Stacy Bannerman, The Progressive. Posted March 5, 2007.


When one military wife got the news that her husband was coming home from Iraq, they didn't tell her he was going to bring the war back with him.

I was folding fliers for a high school workshop on nonviolence when my husband, a mortar platoon sergeant with the Army National Guard 81st Brigade, walked into my office and said, "I got the call."

We hadn't talked about the possibility of him being deployed for months, not since President Bush had declared, "Mission accomplished." But I knew exactly what he meant; I didn't know then what it would mean for us.

We weren't prepared, and neither was the Guard. The Guard sent him into harm's way without providing some of the basic equipment and materials, such as global positioning systems, night vision gear, and insect repellant, that he would rely on during his year-long tour of duty at LSA Anaconda, the most-attacked base in Iraq, as determined by the sheer number of incoming rockets and mortars, which averaged at least five per day.

....snip.....

Finally, the phone rang with the news that my husband was coming home, after nearly a year in Iraq. They didn't tell me he'd bring the war with him.

He'd been back for almost two months, but he was still checking to see where his weapon was every time he got in a vehicle. He drove aggressively, talked aggressively, and sometimes I could swear that he was breathing aggressively. This was not the man I married, this hard-eyed, hyper-vigilant stranger who spent his nights watching the dozens of DVDs that he got from soldiers he served with in Iraq. He couldn't sleep, and missed the adrenaline surge of constant, imminent danger. The amateur videos of combat eased the ache of withdrawal from war, but did nothing to heal my soldier's heart. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/48788/

[indepat]

1. Those who support this insanity care not how many marriages, bodies, and minds are

broken in their quest.

[n2doc]

2. Those darn Gays! How do they do it?

I mean, Gay marriage is the root of all broken Hetero marriages, right? And our Fearless Leader is Strong on Marriage, he done told me so! :sarcasm: