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War changed Sgt. First Class Steven Addison into eight different people.
The guy he was before he marched into battle — twice in Bosnia and twice in Iraq — and the guy who came home each time.
“Being in combat is not something that is normal for the human body or human soul to experience,” the 33-year-old career soldier said as his wife, Kay, listened. “Imagine: 365 days a year. Every day, guns firing. Every day, mortars. Every day, bombs. Being exposed to a combat zone will affect you for the rest of your life. Coming back, you’re never the same.”
Ever since the first bombs were dropped on Afghanistan in October 2001, more than 1.6 million soldiers have served at least one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Pentagon says. More than 600,000 soldiers have served two.
They are married and single. They have come home in uniform or as veterans. More than 35,000 have been wounded, 4,300 killed in the combined operations.
For many, coming home from today’s wars is no different from how it has been for combat vets since wars began. Happy families. Tears. Hugs. Bright futures.
Others face issues that are as familiar as they are sad: joblessness, homelessness, battered minds and bodies, struggles to connect with family.
But wars and warriors are also unique to their age.
The veterans of World War I who returned as heroes roared through the 1920s headlong into the Great Depression.
The vets of World War II built the nation in the shadow of discrimination.
Korean War vets were all but forgotten.
Vietnam vets, jeered as “baby killers,” came home to a society in upheaval.
Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo and Somalia vets returned into the age of Google and iPods and sometimes wondered whether they had become afterthoughts.
Not so with the veterans of what soldiers call OIF or OEF, Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
The most recent polls show more than 60 percent of Americans oppose the war in Iraq or how it is being managed.
Yet unique to this era is Americans’ eagerness to separate their feelings about the war from the warriors, greeting returning soldiers at airports, buying them drinks, shaking their hands, giving them money, thanking them for their service.
“Every time I have gone out in uniform, I have gotten a positive reaction,” Sgt. Addison said. “I have never gotten a negative reaction.”
The moment one returns, he said, is always joyful. But he also knows that it’s just that — a moment.
“Everyone is hugging and kissing, and it’s wonderful,” Kay Addison said. “But give it a few weeks. That’s when everything starts to go differently.”
“It’s going to be good that first day,” Sgt. Addison said. “But the next day, reality hits.”
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For today’s new combat vets, no single reality exists.
How one handles coming home is unique to every individual. It depends on a multitude of factors: health and family; whether one is single or married; who they were before they left; their experiences in battle; their character; what they’re coming home to; or, for active soldiers in an open-ended war, whether they will soon have to return to battle.
Matt Zadeh of Overland Park signed up in June 2003. He wanted to fight in the infantry, but he was trained as a medic. Ten months later, on April 4, 2004, the 19-year-old Zadeh got his first taste of war: Members of the Mahdi Army ambushed a U.S. Army patrol outside Sadr City on what would come to be called “Black Sunday.”
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