There is no living American who has ever experienced a hostile foreign army on American soil. Less than one-quarter of one-percent of Americans service in combat units. In short, most Americans don't know the name of a single combat soldier and even less about the realities or consequences of war. This is a big part of what makes coming home from war harder than being in war: lack of understanding. The overwhelming majority of the PTSD counselors who worked with Viet Nam veterans from 1970 to 2000 have no retired, and those taking their place, for the most part, have never been in the military, much less combat. The majority of those who have seen the most combat won't talk to those who haven't been there. This puts returning veterans in a world of hurt because all their bodies are scattered to the winds when they return home ... and the reception from American civilians ... and don't think it's vastly different than it was in 1969. The taboo on veterans is still prominent in American society, and it is this taboo that is contributing directly to the hidden suicides. Veterans come from a place and people where they are respected to a place and people where they are maligned. They are not prepared for this severe change. A few months ago, I met a three-tour Iraq veteran who asked me if he could help me push my row boat up a hill. I knew he was a combat veteran; there's unmistakable, "competence is all" demeanor and a tell-tail low tolerance for BS. I said, "Coming home is harder than being over there, isn't it?" He didn't answer my question but pulled up his shirt and left sleeve and showed me something like 30 shrapnel scars the size of quarters then, even though we were only four feet apart, yelled at me and said, "But I don't have PTSD." He was showing me where it didn't hurt. Good soldiers are taught not to reveal pain, to carry their own pack. Those who are suffering the most will not tell you, but if you've been in their place, you can spot them in less than two seconds. We talked, and he revealed he came to the park near the lake because it brought him peace. We both enjoyed watching the same birds: bald eagles and barn swallows. Then he told me that he'd just returned from visiting his best friends from high school. His old friends told him that they could no longer be his friend because he had "participated in an immoral and criminal war." What he told me choaked me up; I'd heard the same words a generation ago. He had trouble sleeping. His "new girl friend" was a Glock. He'd become a workaholic to be so tired that sleep came slightly easier and daydreaming harder, ... but, no, he insisted, he didn't have PTSD and he wasn't depressed. If I could scream this, I would. PTSD, depression, and suicide are more a result of how civilians treat soldiers when they return from undeclared, unsupported, and forsaken wars than from trauma in the war zone. It's the war at home that we are not prepared to fight. It's the insensitivity, self-righteousness, ignorance, and cruelty of American civilians that makes us see suicide as attractive. I would have gladly traded three tours in Viet Nam as an artillery forward observer with paratroop infantry to one year of returning home to this country. The problem is that those who have the power to do something about this suicide problem don't understand the problem because they haven't been there. And, the problem is that those of us who DO understand this problem remain like the proverbial monkeys who see, speak, and hear no evil. This is how bad stuff happens: all it takes is for a few good people to do nothing, then tolerating horror becomes a habit. This is nothing new. Thomas Jefferson predicted it in the "Declaration of Independence" when he wrote that mankind is more atune to suffering evil than in doing anthing to stop it. It's this apathy that is more the "American way" than most Americans want to admit. Suicide among returning veterans is a hidden problem that will become a national disgrace in the next ten years, when it's too late for thousands more. Predictably, the problem of PTSD, depression, and suicide will be understood by Americans once terrorists have take the lives of thousands of Americans in every state, but not until then. Then, more than one-quarter of one-percent of Americans will understand a bit more about the realities and consequences of war. We are a nation much like a good-looking rich kid in the last 60 years. We haven't needed to develop character or empathy for others (whether Muslims, blacks, women, or combat veterans). We think we can do anything we want with no consequences. Sadly, this karma will ripen in the next ten years. One cure? A draft with no exemptions. Then war won't be just a video game to the majority of Americans. Then, the majority, not just one-percent of us, will understand the realities and consequences of war. Then, we won't have a President who can get away with saying "Bring it on " from the safety of his air-conditioned bunker. Then, we will have few civilians who can get away with treating a brave warrior like a leper with AIDS. If you haven't "been there," you don't know how that feels. It's how American soldiers are treated when they return home that causes suicides, not what they experienced in Iraq. It's being betrayed by your own that makes you think of "checking out." If you haven't been there, this could make no sense to you; and that's the problem: too few Americans have been in combat to know what it's like to return home, that coming home can be worse that war. What's needed is a "national registry of veterans-helping-veterans" because the VA doesn't know diddly about what to do or how to treat combat veterans because, in most cases, the counselors have never been in the military or combat. Combat is a rite of passage. It creates the initated and the uninitiated. It creates tabooed people, warriors, in a society that has no rituals for purification, in a society that assigns professional, rear-echelon chair sitters to treat returning warriors. This is a society that for all its bragging about being the "land of the brave" is a land of cowardly, self-righteous couch potatoes. For those of us who have managed to "maintain" more than less for decades after returning home, we owe it to our brothers in arms returning from Iraq to offer them one-one-one training in a civilian skill. Combat soldiers are fixated on being competent, because competence keeps you alive. When combat soldiers come home, they are told they are not competent civilians, and often they aren't. We spend billions and no less than six months training civilians to be competent soldiers and ZERO time and money training warriors to become civilians. This is the mark of a society that knows next to nothing about what it means to be a warrior or a civilian. The skills needed to be a competent combat soldier are not always compatible with being a competent civilian. Nurturing is the key to becoming a competent civilian. We need to teach our brothers in arms how to cook for themselves and their famlies, plant gardens, give their wives massages, sing, paint, write, sculpt, turn wood on a lathe, frame houses, lay brick ... make and create rather than destroy (to stay alive). If you want to offer to teach a proven civilian skill to a returning veteran, let me know, and we'll start what I've proposed: a national registry of veterans-helping-veterans. We cannot depend on our government to be wise enough to know what returning soldiers need. They need a safe place to talk (where someone isn't writing down their social security number and taking notes regarding what they say, a person who's been where they've been to help teach them how to become a competent civilian. An ivory-tower education and a degree in psychology, alone, isn't enough to help these returning soldiers. They need an understanding that only former combat veterans can offer them; they need a credible and respectable mentor who won't use psychobabble to talk to them. They need to know from someone who's been where they've been and who's been "where they want to go" to give them a map and compass and some descriptions of how to identify landmarks on the path to becoming a competent civilian, ... someone who knows that it's harder coming home than being in a war, someone who's been both a competent soldier and a competent civilian. If you want to be named on this proposed "national registry of veterans-helping-veterans, let me know. I promise you that I will ensure the list is available to returning soldiers in every state. We who have "been there" need to step forward again and volunteer to help returning veterans in the way we wish we could have been helped when we returned. Greg Gianas 16044 N.E. 106th St. Redmond, WA 98052 Phone: 425-881-1776 email: gianas@earthlink.net

There is no living American who has ever experienced a hostile foreign army on American soil. Less than one-quarter of one-percent of Americans service in combat units. In short, most Americans don't know the name of a single combat soldier and even less about the realities or consequences of war. This is a big part of what makes coming home from war harder than being in war: lack of understanding. The overwhelming majority of the PTSD counselors who worked with Viet Nam veterans from 1970 to 2000 have no retired, and those taking their place, for the most part, have never been in the military, much less combat. The majority of those who have seen the most combat won't talk to those who haven't been there. This puts returning veterans in a world of hurt because all their bodies are scattered to the winds when they return home ... and the reception from American civilians ... and don't think it's vastly different than it was in 1969. The taboo on veterans is still prominent in American society, and it is this taboo that is contributing directly to the hidden suicides. Veterans come from a place and people where they are respected to a place and people where they are maligned. They are not prepared for this severe change. A few months ago, I met a three-tour Iraq veteran who asked me if he could help me push my row boat up a hill. I knew he was a combat veteran; there's unmistakable, "competence is all" demeanor and a tell-tail low tolerance for BS. I said, "Coming home is harder than being over there, isn't it?" He didn't answer my question but pulled up his shirt and left sleeve and showed me something like 30 shrapnel scars the size of quarters then, even though we were only four feet apart, yelled at me and said, "But I don't have PTSD." He was showing me where it didn't hurt. Good soldiers are taught not to reveal pain, to carry their own pack. Those who are suffering the most will not tell you, but if you've been in their place, you can spot them in less than two seconds. We talked, and he revealed he came to the park near the lake because it brought him peace. We both enjoyed watching the same birds: bald eagles and barn swallows. Then he told me that he'd just returned from visiting his best friends from high school. His old friends told him that they could no longer be his friend because he had "participated in an immoral and criminal war." What he told me choaked me up; I'd heard the same words a generation ago. He had trouble sleeping. His "new girl friend" was a Glock. He'd become a workaholic to be so tired that sleep came slightly easier and daydreaming harder, ... but, no, he insisted, he didn't have PTSD and he wasn't depressed. If I could scream this, I would. PTSD, depression, and suicide are more a result of how civilians treat soldiers when they return from undeclared, unsupported, and forsaken wars than from trauma in the war zone. It's the war at home that we are not prepared to fight. It's the insensitivity, self-righteousness, ignorance, and cruelty of American civilians that makes us see suicide as attractive. I would have gladly traded three tours in Viet Nam as an artillery forward observer with paratroop infantry to one year of returning home to this country. The problem is that those who have the power to do something about this suicide problem don't understand the problem because they haven't been there. And, the problem is that those of us who DO understand this problem remain like the proverbial monkeys who see, speak, and hear no evil. This is how bad stuff happens: all it takes is for a few good people to do nothing, then tolerating horror becomes a habit. This is nothing new. Thomas Jefferson predicted it in the "Declaration of Independence" when he wrote that mankind is more atune to suffering evil than in doing anthing to stop it. It's this apathy that is more the "American way" than most Americans want to admit. Suicide among returning veterans is a hidden problem that will become a national disgrace in the next ten years, when it's too late for thousands more. Predictably, the problem of PTSD, depression, and suicide will be understood by Americans once terrorists have take the lives of thousands of Americans in every state, but not until then. Then, more than one-quarter of one-percent of Americans will understand a bit more about the realities and consequences of war. We are a nation much like a good-looking rich kid in the last 60 years. We haven't needed to develop character or empathy for others (whether Muslims, blacks, women, or combat veterans). We think we can do anything we want with no consequences. Sadly, this karma will ripen in the next ten years. One cure? A draft with no exemptions. Then war won't be just a video game to the majority of Americans. Then, the majority, not just one-percent of us, will understand the realities and consequences of war. Then, we won't have a President who can get away with saying "Bring it on " from the safety of his air-conditioned bunker. Then, we will have few civilians who can get away with treating a brave warrior like a leper with AIDS. If you haven't "been there," you don't know how that feels. It's how American soldiers are treated when they return home that causes suicides, not what they experienced in Iraq. It's being betrayed by your own that makes you think of "checking out." If you haven't been there, this could make no sense to you; and that's the problem: too few Americans have been in combat to know what it's like to return home, that coming home can be worse that war. What's needed is a "national registry of veterans-helping-veterans" because the VA doesn't know diddly about what to do or how to treat combat veterans because, in most cases, the counselors have never been in the military or combat. Combat is a rite of passage. It creates the initated and the uninitiated. It creates tabooed people, warriors, in a society that has no rituals for purification, in a society that assigns professional, rear-echelon chair sitters to treat returning warriors. This is a society that for all its bragging about being the "land of the brave" is a land of cowardly, self-righteous couch potatoes. For those of us who have managed to "maintain" more than less for decades after returning home, we owe it to our brothers in arms returning from Iraq to offer them one-one-one training in a civilian skill. Combat soldiers are fixated on being competent, because competence keeps you alive. When combat soldiers come home, they are told they are not competent civilians, and often they aren't. We spend billions and no less than six months training civilians to be competent soldiers and ZERO time and money training warriors to become civilians. This is the mark of a society that knows next to nothing about what it means to be a warrior or a civilian. The skills needed to be a competent combat soldier are not always compatible with being a competent civilian. Nurturing is the key to becoming a competent civilian. We need to teach our brothers in arms how to cook for themselves and their famlies, plant gardens, give their wives massages, sing, paint, write, sculpt, turn wood on a lathe, frame houses, lay brick ... make and create rather than destroy (to stay alive). If you want to offer to teach a proven civilian skill to a returning veteran, let me know, and we'll start what I've proposed: a national registry of veterans-helping-veterans. We cannot depend on our government to be wise enough to know what returning soldiers need. They need a safe place to talk (where someone isn't writing down their social security number and taking notes regarding what they say, a person who's been where they've been to help teach them how to become a competent civilian. An ivory-tower education and a degree in psychology, alone, isn't enough to help these returning soldiers. They need an understanding that only former combat veterans can offer them; they need a credible and respectable mentor who won't use psychobabble to talk to them. They need to know from someone who's been where they've been and who's been "where they want to go" to give them a map and compass and some descriptions of how to identify landmarks on the path to becoming a competent civilian, ... someone who knows that it's harder coming home than being in a war, someone who's been both a competent soldier and a competent civilian. If you want to be named on this proposed "national registry of veterans-helping-veterans, let me know. I promise you that I will ensure the list is available to returning soldiers in every state. We who have "been there" need to step forward again and volunteer to help returning veterans in the way we wish we could have been helped when we returned. Greg Gianas 16044 N.E. 106th St. Redmond, WA 98052 Phone: 425-881-1776 email: gianas@earthlink.net