By Judith Meyer,Managing Editor/Days

PULLOUT:

“Just let them be and let them be home. That’s the best thank you you can give them.”

Chaplain Andrew Gibson, Camp Keyes, Maine
Journey home doesn’t end with a bus ride
For soldiers returning from war, the transition to ‘regular’ life creates an emotional maze to be navigated.

Kisses and tears.

Smiles and tenderness.

Frustrations and feelings of dread.

Sex and stress.

These moments and more await returning soldiers.

Coming home will be joyous and frightening for returnees and their families.

Regular Army and Navy folks get used to these routine homecomings, as awkward as they can be, because separation and reunion are the rhythm of military life.

National Guard and Reserve troops are not accustomed to this rhythm, and the return home will be jolting for them, their families, friends and co-workers.

According to Chaplain Andrew Gibson with Camp Keyes, every soldier, whether active duty or Guard, can expect a certain amount of reunion adjustment. With active-duty soldiers, though, home is usually a military post where people with similar experiences are all around them. With the Guard, Gibson explained, the returnees are not only transitioning back to homes, jobs and old friends, but they also are coming back to people living in communities “who really have no point of reference for what the soldier has experienced. The Guard soldier has an additional adjustment to make with people not understanding the experience that they’ve had.”

Extra hurdle

Members of the 133rd Engineer Battalion will have an extra hurdle and may find the readjustment more profound than other Guard units.

The 133rd suffered three combat fatalities, and another from illness, during its year-long deployment in Iraq, and the normal depression that accompanies the grieving process will add to the emotional maze they have to work through, said Gibson.

What soldiers and families can expect on the return home has been carefully explained to them in Maine and in recent debriefings at Fort Drum to help ease the transition as much as possible. Gibson said that after three months most soldiers will report they are feeling better but may not act as if they are; after six months they feel and look better; and, after about a year, “Iraq should be part of their file cabinet of memories. They will always have that as part of their experience.”

This slow and careful return to normalcy is the best possible outcome, but it is not guaranteed.

Beyond the welcome-home banners and initial community outpourings of love and relief are higher-than-normal rates of divorce and higher than normal rates of unhappiness and depression among returning combat veterans.

A recent U.S. Army study puts the rate of soldiers returning from Iraq suffering from post-traumatic stress, major depression or other serious mental illness at one in five. The study concludes that combat-related mental problems “have been higher among those who have served in Iraq than in any military action since Vietnam,” according to the Boston Globe.

Gibson said the incidence of clinically diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder is a minor worry for soldiers and families, but the returnees should be expected to exhibit some bizarre behaviors. They are, he said, “normal people subjected to abnormal situations” and have been forced to develop patterned responses to keep themselves alive.

They can be hypersensitive to noise or smell. Gibson said the soldiers also can be hypersensitive to the lack of noise “because a lack of noise means the bad guys have probably cut wires and are inside the base perimeter fence. If a soldier is in Dixfield, Maine, and it’s dead silent out and you’ve been trained to believe if it’s silent it’s bad,” that soldier is apt to react abnormally.

Ninety percent of soldiers, Gibson estimates, are going to grow out of these behaviors on their own, but it takes time, patience and understanding. And forgiveness.

The Army study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, puts the figure of troops returning from Iraq and suffering mental illness at 17 percent. Of those, less than half sought professional help.

Frozen in time

What’s important for communities to recognize, as Gibson explains it, is that these combat veterans “were freeze-dried a year ago. They kind of come back expecting things to look the way it was in January 2004, but people have lost weight, people have gained weight, furniture has been moved around, spouses have learned how to balance checkbooks and gained new independence. The soldier has to adjust not only to their own changed perspective of things, but also to the changes in their families when they return.”

It can be especially tough when children don’t recognize returning parents, or are angry that a father or mother missed a first football game or first dance recital. Couples who worried about infidelity will be sharing the same bed. Soldiers have missed birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and other significant events and celebrations. This time cannot be recaptured, and that can lead to frustrations and sorrow.

When families live together, they change together. Just because the soldiers and families were separated doesn’t mean change didn’t continue, but it wasn’t in the same way or the same pace for each member of the family and family relationships have to be re-negotiated.

The National Guard warns that returning soldiers may exhibit changes in personalities, they may have become risk takers, want to splurge on expensive items for the home, drink too much, have started smoking. They may crave attention or not want any attention at all. They may feel and act anxious and become emotionally overloaded if they try to do too much at once.

For instance, Gibson said, the instinct of families and friends is to plan large parties for returning soldiers. And, while the party planning is well-meaning, “the soldiers are just not ready for that much stimulus. People have missed them and want to thank them, but for the first couple of months we have to try to let them be a little bit.”

And, no matter what the relationship, there is so little and so much to talk about at the same time following a homecoming. Families and friends may want to hear more than the returning soldiers want to say, and returning soldiers may want to tell families and friends things they just don’t want to hear.

There is a lot families and communities can do to ease the transition if they are aware.

The Army developed its Reintegration & Readjustment Program for returning war veterans to offer readjustment tips and direct them to benefits their war service entitles them to.

National Guardsmen are also encouraged to access Army One Source’s 24-hour hot line (800-464-8107) in case of crisis, and to visit its online site at armyonesource.com for information on returning to home and work, legal issues, disabilities, emotional well-being and addiction and recovery programs.

The Department of Veterans Affairs also offers services to returning combat vets and, according to Gibson, each returnee will receive a packet of Maine-specific resources to seek help.

Professional benefits and services aside, Gibson said the key to ease the transition is for those who interact with soldiers to be patient because, quite literally, everyone who has gone to Iraq has changed at some level and everyone who was left home has also changed.

Before their deployment last year, most of these Guardsmen and women had not held a weapon in defense, in fear or in anger. They are changed. They feel different in their own skin and the readjustment process has to be taken seriously.

“They’re going to perceive themselves as fine,” Gibson said, and don’t necessarily see what issues are going on in themselves because their behaviors have kept them healthy and alive for the past year. “When someone says you’re acting weird, it doesn’t necessarily click and it won’t for a while,” he said.

Gibson offers a strong warning to families, friends and co-workers against becoming armchair psychiatrists. Not every sad day or outburst of temper indicates a major psychological problem. Observing soldiers for warning signs and helping them sort out their emotions is the best thing, as is holding off on setting a lot of expectations on them to rush back to their former lives. The survival skills and on-guard behavior they exhibit took a year to learn and the soldiers need time to unlearn those patterns.

Gibson suggests that we “just let them be and let them be home. That’s the best thank you you can give them.”

Judith Meyer is managing editor/days for the Sun Journal. Her husband, Phil, served 5 years in the U.S. Navy on destroyers out of Florida, New Jersey and Rhode Island.