Mixed Messages and the Troops

The astonishing numbers of American soldiers returning from the Bush/Obama Wars with severe emotional issues say to me that there is a harsh disconnect going on. At home, we gung-hoingly (if Sarah P. can do it...) supported the rush to war. Now, a decade on, we don't care as the national attention span rivals that of a crack addict. We don't know or care that death happens there; it has nothing to do with us going to Wally World and buying more shite. Yet, we send our sons and daughters there to witness death, cause it, participate in it, and expect them to return to the apathy of a nation that willfully ignores the wars and resents its (rare) intrusion on our consumption. One can see that such a dissonance--the chaos there and the blasé here--would cause the stripping of emotional gears even in the stoutest among us. We must bring them home, now.