Homecoming Blues (Marines returning from war readjust)

[kskiska]

Camp Lejeune, N.C. -- For the Marines of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion, the return home was not all yellow ribbons and parades.

There was the expected joy and relief as they returned in June and July from their six-month mission in Kuwait and Iraq. But in the days and weeks that followed, other, more difficult issues arose.

(snip)

Cpl. Joseph Marshall, for example, said he didn't sleep well for two weeks. "I'd be walking around and all of a sudden it felt like everything had pushed forward and I'd get kind of dizzy," he said. "For two weeks I felt like any second I would wake up and be in a tent somewhere in the damn desert. You were there so long and your body was so used to going, going, going, and not eating good and not drinking water and not sleeping."

In addition to sleep difficulty, relationships came under strain, and some Marines have had trouble readjusting to a slower but more formal base environment.

Marshall, 24, said he dreamed about dead bodies he saw at the Saddam Canal, a short but intense firefight in the second week of the war, and a subsequent incident in which Marines shot up a car full of civilians, who had misunderstood orders to stop. (Amazingly, none of the bullets hit any occupants.)

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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usback0811,0,1521359.story?coll=ny-top-headlines