It’s funny how isolated we are from the horrors of war. American citizens have never really had to get their hands dirty, especially in more recent wars where sacrifice and the raw horrors of war hasn’t touched us, but there are those who have soldiers coming home for which those horrors are coming home with them. What’s different now is the soldiers are not only coming home with mental scars permanently etched into their psyches, but oftentimes they come home with photos and videos that can be played right in the living room. If you are easily upset, you may no want to continue reading this because included in this article are graphic details of the ugly side of war that no one wants to talk about.

What got me started on this subject is an article I read in the May, ‘07, Utne Magazine written by a distraught sister of a returning Iraq war soldier. What compounds this problem of returning soldiers is that in bringing their nightmares home, it effects not only the soldier, but their families as well. The newly arrived soldier struggling with how to cope with the unimaginable and despicable things that he had to do in the name of “soldiering” arrives at the door with more than his share of suppressed guilt and shame.

What a loving sister found when her once lovable and innocent brother returned from war, was not pretty. He was a changed man who brought back tales of despicable destruction and inhumanity that the sister found impossible to accept. The Marine came back with fifteen memory cards worth of bizarre and disturbing photos and videos that included acts that were unspeakable.

So, you may wonder what legacy our American soldiers are leaving behind in Iraq. This article tells of one man’s reality in a war-torn world called Iraq which will disturb your sense of honor and how you feel about this country. This particular Marine, a demolitions expert, carted out photos of half-naked soldiers dancing in the desert, a severed goat’s head in a hangmen’s noose and Marines prancing around in traditional women’s clothing found following “just another raid of an Iraqi household”. One of the most disturbing was a photo of children in Fallujah who were clustered together beside their destroyed school for which the brother proudly proclaimed he was the one who bombed the building.




Then there was the video that he saved for a special occasion for his friends on his 25th birthday. This was the breaking point for the sister. On that night, with his friends gathered around, the brother began telling of his adventures in Iraq tossing pictures of carnage and devastation in front of them. Then he brought out a video for the entertainment of his friends which the sister could not watch. It was of a young Iraqi who appeared to be in his early 20s who was blindfolded and sobbing as he rested his head on his knee. The brother forced headphones of rock music on the young man, laughing and saying…”you’re gonna die”, all the while pushing the camera in the young man’s face with his left hand and slapping him hard with his right.

The sister watched as tears of agony fell from the prisoner’s face onto his pants, heaving and sobbing from his suffering. Arabic was pouring from his mouth and as all in the room grew very silent, they knew he was pleading for his life. The sister could take no more and left the room and never asked about the video again. She could no longer tolerate her family and the people around him who were accepting what he had done and ignoring the truth of his actions.

There are other stories being told by thousands of other soldiers all over the world from this, and other wars for which no amount of retelling will ever make them go away, especially in the minds of those who lived it. I myself have witnessed what this can do to a person because my ex-husband had been tormented by his actions in Vietnam and only found solace in the bottom of a whiskey bottle which almost killed him and certainly killed our marriage.

As hideous as this is, what we need are more story tellers to come out in the open. We need for people to tell their stories in graphic, hideous detail in order for us to comprehend the carnage and to truly understand that violence is not the answer, and war just makes more war within each of us and our society. We will never heal as a society or as world citizens until we stop this madness of warring. We need to hear about the violence, look it straight in the eyes, and finally come face to face with the courage to make it stop. It has to stop because if we don’t make it stop, it will continue until it haunts us all and there will be no peace for anyone in the world.