Another Kind of Veteran
Civilians never sign up for war, but often it rages around them. Wars shape generations that know no other way of being, people for whom calm (to say nothing of peace) is often only an occasional interlude between periods of terror.
“The Rape Was Not the Only Problem”
When Rebekah Havrilla told the story of her rape to NBC, she didn’t think about her assault defining her forever on Google. Lee Hancock talks to survivors and journalists about the damage — and good — that can come with reporting on rape.
The Intrepid
While thousands of U.S. soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, many more war veterans have survived severe injuries. At the Center for the Intrepid, most injured vets spend months, if not years, in out-patient therapy learning to live with amputations, burns and functional limb loss. Photographer John Moore takes us there.
The Wilderness After War
Hart Viges, Mark Wilkerson and Jessica Goodell all chose to go to war. But the war over there – its smells, its sounds, the reflexes they developed to survive – forced its way into their lives over here. Lori Grinker shares their stories of return and recovery.
Secondary Story
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Sex and the Wounded Soldier
With a gash in his skull from an attack in Iraq, Pete Yazgier wondered, “What kind of girl wants a guy with a broken head?” Plenty, judging by their online flirtations, but no amount of coaxing relieved him of the question that defined his private war — the question of the wounded body’s ability to be loved.
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After Agent Orange, Still No Reprieve
“Blue Water Vets” served America from the open seas around Vietnam. That makes them ineligible for Agent Orange benefits, even though some studies suggest its effects likely spread to ships — and the Blue Water Vets themselves are suffering similar symptoms.
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The Narrative Comes Later
Cops, first responders and journalists interview trauma survivors with the usual questions: who, what, where, when, why, how. A military investigator explains how this gets trauma wrong, and how small changes can get more accurate information, more sensitively, from trauma survivors.
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For Vets, a New Version of Justice
Returning to civilian life is a stressful process for any veteran. Some find themselves abusing drugs and alcohol. In Queens, New York, local courts and the VA team up for a rehabilitative approach to justice. Huascar Robles introduces us to one vet who says the approach makes a world of difference.
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Tertiary Story
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When to Write About What You Witness?
By summer last year I had reached the end of my tolerance for war. I didn’t know it then. I’d been covering America’s wars since 2006, and in August I walked through a sweltering, treeless valley in central Afghanistan and joined a unit of soldiers for a mission thinking nothing had changed. Heat, sweat, and a million shades of brown below a singular blue. Later, in the confiscated shade of an Afghan home, a soldier asked me,“So what are you gonna write about us?” Soldiers and Marines always come to this question sooner or later. Years ago I answered vaguely. …
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Syria’s Less-Visible Losses
While reporting in Armenia in October, I joined a group of Armenian Americans for dinner. They were traveling together on a promise they had sworn to the year before: if their friend, a member of the group, survived the cancer and the chemo, they would all make this pilgrimage to the reduced remains of their ancestral homeland. Though they had come from Los Angeles and Montreal, a hundred years ago their ancestors had lived in what Armenians call “Western Armenia,” today a part of Turkey and the region the Ottoman Empire emptied of its Armenian population in the first genocide …
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