The Homecoming, and Then the Hard Part; How do you return to the 'real world' when only other soldiers can understand how you've changed?

Publication: Newsweek

Publication Date: 31-MAY-04

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Byline: Anthony Swofford, Swofford is a veteran and a writer.

In my mother's house there hangs a photo of the two of us taken days after my return from the 1991 gulf war. In the photo, we're both smiling and my mother is crying as I remove a yellow ribbon from a tree in her front yard. The ribbon meant everything to her--my safety and my life, my past and my future, a notice to the world that she had a son at war--and nothing to me.

Ribbons, flags and parades help convince families and the citizenry that our cause is just and that the price paid by the few--death, heinous injury, a long-term psychological disorder--is worth the gain for us all. The soldier appreciates these gestures...

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