Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll -- you may remember her from her own capture ordeal in Iraq -- has an excellent story in today's paper, featuring many of the names covered heavily on this blog, among them, SSgt. Travis Twiggs, and Norfolk, Mass. District Attorney William Keating. The article is called, "When the War Comes Back Home," and it's subtitled, "When veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan bring their [war] troubles home, police and judges are often the first to deal with them." How they deal with them becomes the gist of Carroll's story, and it's well worth reading -- and linked here.
(We'll update this blog post as we have opportunity, but wanted to get the information out there. Carroll's article is full of good information and tightly written -- so to rehash her main points or the things you'd want to know about would take as long as having you just read the original. Not to mention, it's good practice to do that. So please just go read the original. The quote in the post title is from the article, as civic officials contemplate how long the problems of PTSD from combat trauma are going to remain with us.)
Don't forget we've also written, on this blog, about the similarities between police and veterans in how they develop PTSD from repeated exposure to trauma. While police departments across the country, and the judiciary, are contemplating ways to manage the increased incidence of crime that can be traced to returning veterans (even if it's not much, it may still need greater awareness of PTSD and special challenges to veterans to handle) -- one thing both sides might want to remember is how they're probably more alike than different.
And I'm still loving this old headline from the New York Times, decades ago, about a far different war. Any old excuse to use it is just amusing to me. I guess people were afraid that the "crime wave" they had on their hands was due to veterans, and the New York Times had to reassure them that it wasn't. Argh.
