Bobby’s War, originally uploaded by WBUR.
“[The decision to invade Iraq] was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results.”
– Ret. Lt. General Gregory Newbold, Marine Corps“You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.”
– Kaiser Wilhelm to departing German troops, August 1914.
As we observe Veteran’s Day this week, the war in Iraq will be heading into its sixth year. We did a show last November on the cost of that war on many of those who return. PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The numbers are staggering. It’s the war that never stops. Much of what we know about it we’ve learned since the war in Vietnam, when the phrase was coined…in the cases of so many living dead who came back. Even now, forty years later, substantial numbers of Vietnam vets are turning up for the first time at Veterans Administration hospitals with symptoms of PTSD.
Bobby’s story, which you can listen to here, says more than the numbers ever could about the cost of our wars and the sacrifices of those who fought them.
