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Families Endure Private War: Returning Troops
Night Stalker
Member Posts: 11,967
Chicago Tribune
November 29, 2004
Pg. 1
Families Endure Private War
Returning troops struggle to adjust to home life after the stress of Iraq's urban battlegrounds
By Mike Dorning, Tribune national correspondent
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. --Holly Friedrichsen was hoping for a tear--or a smile, at least--when she held aloft her 5-month-old daughter to give her husband his first glimpse of their child.
Instead, what she got was what she and other wives call the Marine Look. "There's really no emotion to it."
There were welcoming banners and cheering families that brilliant sunny Southern California morning when the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment arrived home in September after seven harrowing months of roadside bombs, mortar barrages and sniper attacks mounted by a roiling Iraqi insurgency.
But their return from war has been more complex than the familiar television images of hugs and kisses on the tarmac or homecomings portrayed in Hollywood movies. In the two months since the men--and in this combat battalion, they are all men--returned to their wives, loved ones and families, there also have been shouting matches in the kitchen and tears in the bedroom.
The tour of duty that the 1,000-member battalion just completed was especially intense for the Iraq war. But it is emblematic of the broader experience U.S. troops have had there--and have upon their return home.
Deployed to Ramadi, a smoldering stronghold of the Iraqi insurgency, the unit took heavy casualties, with 34 killed and more than a quarter of the battalion wounded in action. Yet the ever-present threat of ambush they faced is characteristic of the war that is fought in Iraq, one without front lines and against an enemy who wears no uniform.
After the euphoric early days, when he rode on a float in a hometown parade, Lance Cpl. Jeremy Bennett has settled into an uneasy restlessness, troubled by guilt, over the friends he lost in Iraq and at times yearning for the harder but simpler life he led there.
Cpl. Jason Rodgers tries to recapture the intensity he felt in combat by pushing the limits as he speeds around canyons on his dirt bike.
Navy Hospitalman 2nd Class Jason McDonald, a field medic for the battalion, struggled at first, wishing for solitude to reflect on his time in Iraq even as his wife ached for attention after their long separation.
Cpl. Travis Friedrichsen, Holly's husband, was sitting in bed a few days after his return when he began to shake uncontrollably for nearly 15 minutes, an involuntary response to the memory of a hidden bomb that detonated only a few feet from him in Iraq.
Once an easygoing son of Iowa, Friedrichsen, 21, now has trouble controlling his temper, with the stress inside him sometimes exploding into tirades that he says have gone on for an entire weekend.
"It's hard that he has changed," said Holly, 19. "The guy I fell in love with is completely different now."
The men have been altered by the experience of war. The hair-trigger reactions and emotional distance that helped them survive in a place of constant and unpredictable peril often do not recede easily or quickly.
Picking up the pieces
Many of these Marines are only now working through the deaths of friends whom they could not take time to truly mourn amid the demands of the fight. Some still crave the adrenaline charge of combat. And frequently, returning veterans feel unable to communicate what they endured in Iraq to those who were not there.
At the same time, their spouses and families have borne stresses of their own during a prolonged period apart. Wives have been living in a state of uncertainty and anxiety that they could lose their husbands at any moment. For those with children, spouses have spent many months as a single parent.
The deployment to Iraq also has been a source of strength. Many in the Marine unit speak of a formidable self-confidence they have developed, a sense that no challenge is beyond them now that they have been tested in battle. They have forged deep bonds of friendship with their comrades in arms. And, after living in danger and witnessing the deprivations of life in Iraq, they often return with a renewed appreciation for those they love and for the basic comforts of life in America.
"I'm still glad I went," said Friedrichsen, sitting beside his wife in a booth at a Chili's restaurant in a San Diego suburb. Gesturing around him, he added, "It gives me a better appreciation for this, the States: I love everything about here."
The transition from wartime service to home life always has been fraught with difficulties. Some interpret "The Odyssey," Homer's ancient tale of a Greek warrior-king's long and arduous journey home after the Trojan War, as an allegory for the trials of return from combat.
Not all soldiers are able to complete that transition. After the Civil War, the men who remained haunted by the horrors of the conflict were said to suffer from nostalgia. After World War I, it was shellshock and after World War II, battle fatigue. Since the Vietnam War, psychologists have referred to post-traumatic stress disorder.
The war in Iraq is evolving into a kind of conflict that can be especially wearing on the psyches of the soldiers and Marines who are sent there, according to military psychologists and others who have studied the stresses of warfare.
Vietnam similarities
The closest parallel may be the American troops who returned from Vietnam, where the U.S. also fought against guerrillas. Some consider Iraq more stressful because the conflict is fought largely in urban settings and troops come home knowing they are subject to repeat deployments. Others believe an all-volunteer Army may be better equipped for the strains of war and note that today's returning veterans benefit from greater public support.
U.S. forces in Iraq are engaged in a counterinsurgency campaign in which they can be hit without warning from any direction at any time. There are no front lines. Hidden bombs explode as patrols move through the streets. Guerrillas indistinguishable from ordinary civilians wait in ambush on rooftops and in alleyways. Rockets and mortars crash into bases. There are no safe zones. Death can come on the street while returning a child's wave, or back at base on a trip to the latrine. The resulting stress takes a cumulative toll on soldiers, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Gary Hoyt, a psychologist attached to the 1st Marine Division.
"Somewhere in your mind, your body says, `I don't trust your instincts because stuff happens when I thought you were safe.' So your arousal system is on a heightened alert," Hoyt said. "That then affects you when you come back. It's a deconditioning process. You reacclimate to this environment."
'A burning, blood-lust rage'
Navy Hospitalman 3rd Class Keith Grimes, a medical corpsman who patrolled with a platoon of Marines and killed at least seven Iraqis in firefights during the battalion's deployment, put it more bluntly.
"You really need some time, because you're still aggressive," said Grimes, 27. "That lizard, primordial part of your brain is still active. You're on edge. Honestly, it feels like a burning, blood-lust rage."
Three to four months after returning from Iraq, 16 percent of Marines and 17 percent of Army soldiers showed symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study conducted last year by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
One psychologist consulting for the Army said he has heard anecdotal reports of spikes in automobile and motorcycle accidents at bases where troops recently returned from Iraq, a sign of risky behavior among the soldiers.
An Army spokesman said the military does not separately track accidents involving personnel returning from Iraq. But overall, traffic fatalities among off-duty soldiers jumped 27 percent in the past year, according to the U.S. Army Safety Center.
When people ask Miguel Escalera what it was like in Iraq, he tells them it was hot.
"That's pretty much all I say: It was hot," said the Navy hospitalman.
In Iraq, Escalera ran into gunfire and dragged wounded Marines to safety. At age 23, he struggled to save the lives of friends and watched them die. He spent half a day running from rooftop to rooftop in a house-to-house fight with insurgents. Bullets pinged against walls so close that fragments of concrete hit his back.
The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment spent seven months in Ramadi. On a single day in April, a dozen Marines were killed in coordinated ambushes around the city.
Still, Escalera tells people it was hot.
"They're going to get their lattes and go ahead with the rest of their lives and they won't care about it. Why should I pour my heart into it?" Escalera said, speaking in a tone more of resignation than bitterness. "Even if I do tell you how bad it is, you're not going to understand how bad it is, how dangerous it is, the stress--unless you do it."
Keeping experiences private
Few members of the unit have spoken much to civilians about their experience in combat. Some share with spouses what they have seen and done, but even that can be frustrating. Most say they feel satisfied speaking only with others who have seen combat, in Iraq or elsewhere. Perhaps a father or grandfather who served in Vietnam, Korea or World War II.
As for others, "Well, you could tell them a million stories and they still wouldn't understand," said Maj. Mike Wylie, 36, the battalion executive officer. "They really don't. It's not their fault. They have nothing to relate it to. The thought of going down the freeway and bombs going off around them is so foreign."
Cpl. Rodgers tried. At first, he showed friends the digital photos he sometimes took in the aftermath of firefights, of insurgents who died trying to take his life. But his friends' responses only exasperated him. He might as well have been showing them stills from a movie--"oh, cool," some said.
"You want them to understand--how precious life is, how easy it was for them to kill us and us to kill them," said Rodgers, 22. "They don't get it, that this guy was shooting at us before he got shot in the mouth."
In some ways, Rodgers misses the intensity of Iraq. The incredible alertness he would feel when he stepped out on a foot patrol. The rush of adrenaline from a firefight. The way his heart would pound when the bullets zipped past.
"Now it's gone," Rodgers said. "The only thing you can do to bring it back is dirt biking. It's addictive."
On a recent weekend, he went out with two fellow Marines. One broke his wrist. Another broke his ankle. Rodgers wiped out and planted his face in the ground.
The transition back has grown harder, not easier, for Lance Cpl. Bennett.
The barracks on base remind him of the friends who used to live there with him but didn't make it back. So do the video games that the Marines play at night; they all used to play together.
And the music, too. He heard Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" on a friend's car stereo the other day. "It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right," is the refrain. "I hope you had the time of your life."
Pfc. Cody Calavan, who died in May when a car bomb exploded next to his Humvee, loved that song. Calavan and Bennett used to drive around in a buddy's Camaro and listen to it. Seven of Bennett's friends died in Iraq. Twenty-two members of his company didn't return. He knew them all.
"You feel like a failure for not bringing them home," said Bennett, 20, a powerfully built, 6-foot-1, 210-pound machine gunner who speaks with an incongruously soft voice.
He didn't dwell on it so much in Iraq. There was always a mission. And in between, it was all he could do to find time to sleep, grab some chow and lift weights to stay in shape.
"Now our schedules are not as busy," Bennett said. "There are times there's nothing to do but sit and think."
After seven months away from his wife, Hitomi, Hospitalman McDonald imagined their reunion would be like a honeymoon. And it was, for a while.
Until he needed time to himself.
The slam of a door still summoned memories of casualties coming into the battalion aid station where McDonald worked. And he wanted a little bit of space to sort things out. Just to lie on the couch alone, maybe watch a little television or spend some time with his buddies.
"She'd get upset. She would cry. And I would sort of blame her for being selfish," said McDonald, 28.
After all the phone calls from Iraq when McDonald told his wife he just wanted to be with her, that's what Hitomi wanted to do. Just be next to him and snuggle close.
"I had lost the ability to understand her feelings. Too much pent-up aggression, being in an all-male environment," said McDonald, who said he eventually worked out the tension with his wife. "It was about compromising again, learning to share your day and your feelings again."
Divorces on rise
More than a dozen members of the battalion are in the midst of divorces that started since they returned, said Navy Lt. Colin Cricard, assistant battalion surgeon.
Cpl. Friedrichsen was almost one of them. "When we were in the real bad part, it came close, real close, to ruining it," Friedrichsen said. "I probably said some things I shouldn't have. She said some things she shouldn't have."
Holly, his wife, said his temper is improving, even though he still angers easily. Things like traffic jams, crowds and tardiness set him off. Yet the couple said they have a new appreciation for the moments spent together.
"All the things you thought you needed to do to enjoy yourselves, you don't need that," Cpl. Friedrichsen said. "All you need to do is be together. You realize you don't need to be spending money to have fun. Just relax and be with each other."
The battalion received word this month that it will deploy overseas again next spring. The destination is tentatively set for the western Pacific.
But depending on how the conflict progresses, the unit may go back to Iraq instead.
NSDQ!
"The Lord knows the way I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" JOB 23:10
November 29, 2004
Pg. 1
Families Endure Private War
Returning troops struggle to adjust to home life after the stress of Iraq's urban battlegrounds
By Mike Dorning, Tribune national correspondent
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. --Holly Friedrichsen was hoping for a tear--or a smile, at least--when she held aloft her 5-month-old daughter to give her husband his first glimpse of their child.
Instead, what she got was what she and other wives call the Marine Look. "There's really no emotion to it."
There were welcoming banners and cheering families that brilliant sunny Southern California morning when the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment arrived home in September after seven harrowing months of roadside bombs, mortar barrages and sniper attacks mounted by a roiling Iraqi insurgency.
But their return from war has been more complex than the familiar television images of hugs and kisses on the tarmac or homecomings portrayed in Hollywood movies. In the two months since the men--and in this combat battalion, they are all men--returned to their wives, loved ones and families, there also have been shouting matches in the kitchen and tears in the bedroom.
The tour of duty that the 1,000-member battalion just completed was especially intense for the Iraq war. But it is emblematic of the broader experience U.S. troops have had there--and have upon their return home.
Deployed to Ramadi, a smoldering stronghold of the Iraqi insurgency, the unit took heavy casualties, with 34 killed and more than a quarter of the battalion wounded in action. Yet the ever-present threat of ambush they faced is characteristic of the war that is fought in Iraq, one without front lines and against an enemy who wears no uniform.
After the euphoric early days, when he rode on a float in a hometown parade, Lance Cpl. Jeremy Bennett has settled into an uneasy restlessness, troubled by guilt, over the friends he lost in Iraq and at times yearning for the harder but simpler life he led there.
Cpl. Jason Rodgers tries to recapture the intensity he felt in combat by pushing the limits as he speeds around canyons on his dirt bike.
Navy Hospitalman 2nd Class Jason McDonald, a field medic for the battalion, struggled at first, wishing for solitude to reflect on his time in Iraq even as his wife ached for attention after their long separation.
Cpl. Travis Friedrichsen, Holly's husband, was sitting in bed a few days after his return when he began to shake uncontrollably for nearly 15 minutes, an involuntary response to the memory of a hidden bomb that detonated only a few feet from him in Iraq.
Once an easygoing son of Iowa, Friedrichsen, 21, now has trouble controlling his temper, with the stress inside him sometimes exploding into tirades that he says have gone on for an entire weekend.
"It's hard that he has changed," said Holly, 19. "The guy I fell in love with is completely different now."
The men have been altered by the experience of war. The hair-trigger reactions and emotional distance that helped them survive in a place of constant and unpredictable peril often do not recede easily or quickly.
Picking up the pieces
Many of these Marines are only now working through the deaths of friends whom they could not take time to truly mourn amid the demands of the fight. Some still crave the adrenaline charge of combat. And frequently, returning veterans feel unable to communicate what they endured in Iraq to those who were not there.
At the same time, their spouses and families have borne stresses of their own during a prolonged period apart. Wives have been living in a state of uncertainty and anxiety that they could lose their husbands at any moment. For those with children, spouses have spent many months as a single parent.
The deployment to Iraq also has been a source of strength. Many in the Marine unit speak of a formidable self-confidence they have developed, a sense that no challenge is beyond them now that they have been tested in battle. They have forged deep bonds of friendship with their comrades in arms. And, after living in danger and witnessing the deprivations of life in Iraq, they often return with a renewed appreciation for those they love and for the basic comforts of life in America.
"I'm still glad I went," said Friedrichsen, sitting beside his wife in a booth at a Chili's restaurant in a San Diego suburb. Gesturing around him, he added, "It gives me a better appreciation for this, the States: I love everything about here."
The transition from wartime service to home life always has been fraught with difficulties. Some interpret "The Odyssey," Homer's ancient tale of a Greek warrior-king's long and arduous journey home after the Trojan War, as an allegory for the trials of return from combat.
Not all soldiers are able to complete that transition. After the Civil War, the men who remained haunted by the horrors of the conflict were said to suffer from nostalgia. After World War I, it was shellshock and after World War II, battle fatigue. Since the Vietnam War, psychologists have referred to post-traumatic stress disorder.
The war in Iraq is evolving into a kind of conflict that can be especially wearing on the psyches of the soldiers and Marines who are sent there, according to military psychologists and others who have studied the stresses of warfare.
Vietnam similarities
The closest parallel may be the American troops who returned from Vietnam, where the U.S. also fought against guerrillas. Some consider Iraq more stressful because the conflict is fought largely in urban settings and troops come home knowing they are subject to repeat deployments. Others believe an all-volunteer Army may be better equipped for the strains of war and note that today's returning veterans benefit from greater public support.
U.S. forces in Iraq are engaged in a counterinsurgency campaign in which they can be hit without warning from any direction at any time. There are no front lines. Hidden bombs explode as patrols move through the streets. Guerrillas indistinguishable from ordinary civilians wait in ambush on rooftops and in alleyways. Rockets and mortars crash into bases. There are no safe zones. Death can come on the street while returning a child's wave, or back at base on a trip to the latrine. The resulting stress takes a cumulative toll on soldiers, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Gary Hoyt, a psychologist attached to the 1st Marine Division.
"Somewhere in your mind, your body says, `I don't trust your instincts because stuff happens when I thought you were safe.' So your arousal system is on a heightened alert," Hoyt said. "That then affects you when you come back. It's a deconditioning process. You reacclimate to this environment."
'A burning, blood-lust rage'
Navy Hospitalman 3rd Class Keith Grimes, a medical corpsman who patrolled with a platoon of Marines and killed at least seven Iraqis in firefights during the battalion's deployment, put it more bluntly.
"You really need some time, because you're still aggressive," said Grimes, 27. "That lizard, primordial part of your brain is still active. You're on edge. Honestly, it feels like a burning, blood-lust rage."
Three to four months after returning from Iraq, 16 percent of Marines and 17 percent of Army soldiers showed symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study conducted last year by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
One psychologist consulting for the Army said he has heard anecdotal reports of spikes in automobile and motorcycle accidents at bases where troops recently returned from Iraq, a sign of risky behavior among the soldiers.
An Army spokesman said the military does not separately track accidents involving personnel returning from Iraq. But overall, traffic fatalities among off-duty soldiers jumped 27 percent in the past year, according to the U.S. Army Safety Center.
When people ask Miguel Escalera what it was like in Iraq, he tells them it was hot.
"That's pretty much all I say: It was hot," said the Navy hospitalman.
In Iraq, Escalera ran into gunfire and dragged wounded Marines to safety. At age 23, he struggled to save the lives of friends and watched them die. He spent half a day running from rooftop to rooftop in a house-to-house fight with insurgents. Bullets pinged against walls so close that fragments of concrete hit his back.
The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment spent seven months in Ramadi. On a single day in April, a dozen Marines were killed in coordinated ambushes around the city.
Still, Escalera tells people it was hot.
"They're going to get their lattes and go ahead with the rest of their lives and they won't care about it. Why should I pour my heart into it?" Escalera said, speaking in a tone more of resignation than bitterness. "Even if I do tell you how bad it is, you're not going to understand how bad it is, how dangerous it is, the stress--unless you do it."
Keeping experiences private
Few members of the unit have spoken much to civilians about their experience in combat. Some share with spouses what they have seen and done, but even that can be frustrating. Most say they feel satisfied speaking only with others who have seen combat, in Iraq or elsewhere. Perhaps a father or grandfather who served in Vietnam, Korea or World War II.
As for others, "Well, you could tell them a million stories and they still wouldn't understand," said Maj. Mike Wylie, 36, the battalion executive officer. "They really don't. It's not their fault. They have nothing to relate it to. The thought of going down the freeway and bombs going off around them is so foreign."
Cpl. Rodgers tried. At first, he showed friends the digital photos he sometimes took in the aftermath of firefights, of insurgents who died trying to take his life. But his friends' responses only exasperated him. He might as well have been showing them stills from a movie--"oh, cool," some said.
"You want them to understand--how precious life is, how easy it was for them to kill us and us to kill them," said Rodgers, 22. "They don't get it, that this guy was shooting at us before he got shot in the mouth."
In some ways, Rodgers misses the intensity of Iraq. The incredible alertness he would feel when he stepped out on a foot patrol. The rush of adrenaline from a firefight. The way his heart would pound when the bullets zipped past.
"Now it's gone," Rodgers said. "The only thing you can do to bring it back is dirt biking. It's addictive."
On a recent weekend, he went out with two fellow Marines. One broke his wrist. Another broke his ankle. Rodgers wiped out and planted his face in the ground.
The transition back has grown harder, not easier, for Lance Cpl. Bennett.
The barracks on base remind him of the friends who used to live there with him but didn't make it back. So do the video games that the Marines play at night; they all used to play together.
And the music, too. He heard Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" on a friend's car stereo the other day. "It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right," is the refrain. "I hope you had the time of your life."
Pfc. Cody Calavan, who died in May when a car bomb exploded next to his Humvee, loved that song. Calavan and Bennett used to drive around in a buddy's Camaro and listen to it. Seven of Bennett's friends died in Iraq. Twenty-two members of his company didn't return. He knew them all.
"You feel like a failure for not bringing them home," said Bennett, 20, a powerfully built, 6-foot-1, 210-pound machine gunner who speaks with an incongruously soft voice.
He didn't dwell on it so much in Iraq. There was always a mission. And in between, it was all he could do to find time to sleep, grab some chow and lift weights to stay in shape.
"Now our schedules are not as busy," Bennett said. "There are times there's nothing to do but sit and think."
After seven months away from his wife, Hitomi, Hospitalman McDonald imagined their reunion would be like a honeymoon. And it was, for a while.
Until he needed time to himself.
The slam of a door still summoned memories of casualties coming into the battalion aid station where McDonald worked. And he wanted a little bit of space to sort things out. Just to lie on the couch alone, maybe watch a little television or spend some time with his buddies.
"She'd get upset. She would cry. And I would sort of blame her for being selfish," said McDonald, 28.
After all the phone calls from Iraq when McDonald told his wife he just wanted to be with her, that's what Hitomi wanted to do. Just be next to him and snuggle close.
"I had lost the ability to understand her feelings. Too much pent-up aggression, being in an all-male environment," said McDonald, who said he eventually worked out the tension with his wife. "It was about compromising again, learning to share your day and your feelings again."
Divorces on rise
More than a dozen members of the battalion are in the midst of divorces that started since they returned, said Navy Lt. Colin Cricard, assistant battalion surgeon.
Cpl. Friedrichsen was almost one of them. "When we were in the real bad part, it came close, real close, to ruining it," Friedrichsen said. "I probably said some things I shouldn't have. She said some things she shouldn't have."
Holly, his wife, said his temper is improving, even though he still angers easily. Things like traffic jams, crowds and tardiness set him off. Yet the couple said they have a new appreciation for the moments spent together.
"All the things you thought you needed to do to enjoy yourselves, you don't need that," Cpl. Friedrichsen said. "All you need to do is be together. You realize you don't need to be spending money to have fun. Just relax and be with each other."
The battalion received word this month that it will deploy overseas again next spring. The destination is tentatively set for the western Pacific.
But depending on how the conflict progresses, the unit may go back to Iraq instead.
NSDQ!
"The Lord knows the way I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" JOB 23:10