Soldiers of nothing

The past week some friends and I have been discussing the soldiers coming home here:
http://shedancesindragn.blogspot.com/
Just scroll down a bit, if I could I'd link proper like but I'm still learning these things.

I'm pretty darn harsh in my judgment because these are volunteers. However my harshness in words does not mean that I believe in harsh action. I do not mean for people to disrespect these people who are only doing the best that they can to be hero's. Who in my opinion are being used wrongly by an administration that has no business to be in power. As a mater of fact I think far far less of people who support the war and are not volunteering for military. Soliders are so committed to what they believe is the right thing or at the very least following what they think of as their countries orders that they are willing to lay down their life, that commands a great deal of respect from me.

But one of the things that chills me to the bone is as one person pointed out they come back here as an unknown, quite possibly a predator of sorts, certainly a trained survivor. It makes me ill, because we couldn't/didn't handle the 'nam vets so good. We practically ignored the last Iraqi vets, there were not so many of them last time. But now we are looking at handling vets in the same no. that we did in WW II. Maybe. If we are not lucky..... or maybe if we are. And I just think even if we get out of this war, if we figure this out, my generation has to figure out how to help these kids out. Us 30 somethings that are not in the war, have never been to war, have to somehow fix what the generation of our parents has done to the youngest that is of age to go to war.

Another point that was made is how poverty makes those of us who survive it similar to soldiers. I guess it is so. The last consoler I saw said that I had symptoms of PTS, and I know she is right. When I talk about my past I put it in terms of war. Still I'm aware that it is not quiet the same. I'm also aware that we were American poor which is not the same as say Ethiopia poor. Yet, yet, I can't quiet get over the feeling, and in talking to others who were at the same economical level as I was they seem to feel the same, that some how we were soldiers. That somehow there was a battle being fought and that friends died in that battle that we loved and that not enough was done by our government. I donno what we were fighting, I don't remember any air raids, I do remember lots of guns and other weapons, I mean the drive by gang shootings started in my teenhood (I think the mob actually invented form of payback but the gangs always knew how to reinvent a "good" idea). I know the theater a few blocks down got blown up, but I think everyone was pretty sure that was an insurance scam rather then anything like terrorism. I know my own mother was afraid of me, and afraid for me. Perhaps everyone that carries a weapon day in and day out becomes a soldier of sorts and maybe all wars make different soldiers. Cold wars make soldiers of nothing. Now if we can just figure out how that can help these new soldiers of Iraq, and make sure that they are not just put out there to become predators or children of neglect, then perhaps we can stop this cycle.