… was my first really jarring experience with an increasingly common reaction to my war stories: pity. I never thought anyone would pity me because of my time in the Marine Corps. I’d grown up in the era of the Persian Gulf War, when the U.S. military shook off its post-Vietnam malaise with a startlingly decisive victory and Americans eagerly consumed stories about the Greatest Generation and the Good War through books like “Citizen Soldiers” by Stephen Ambrose and movies like “Saving Private Ryan.” Joining the military was an admirable decision that earned you respect.<\/p>\n
Early on in the Iraq war, after I accepted my commission in 2005, most people did at the very least seem impressed\u201d\u201dYou ever fire those huge machine guns? Think you could kick those dudes’ asses? Did you kill anyone? I’d find myself in a bar back home on leave listening to some guy a few years out of college explaining apologetically that, “I was totally gonna join the military, you know, but\u201d\u00a6” The usual stereotype projected onto me was that of a battle-hardened hero, which I’m not.<\/p>\n
But as the Iraq war’s approval levels sunk from 76% and ticker-tape parades to 40% and quiet forgetfulness, that flattering but inaccurate assumption has shifted to the notion that I’m damaged. Occasionally, someone will even inform me that I have post-traumatic stress disorder. They’re never medical professionals, just strangers who’ve learned that I served.<\/p>\n
One man told me that Iraq veterans “are all gonna snap in 10 years” and so, since I’d been back for three years, I had seven left….<\/p>\n