WASHINGTON — Melissa Gauntner, a retired Army first sergeant, has at times been gripped with panic and has trouble socializing beyond close friends, the result of dual traumas: years of sexual assault and harassment in the military, and mine explosions she saw in Afghanistan.Jen Burch, once an active runner, developed breathing problems after she was exposed to toxic burn pits in Kandahar, Afghanistan.Isiah James, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, keeps a knife in his shower, ever on guard.Thousands of veterans who served in the wars that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks struggle with issues that are often invisible to those around them. Some are suffering from health problems and trauma, and others from feelings of displacement and alienation, which for many grew more intense as the United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan last month and the Taliban regained control of the country.“It is one of those things you have to leave in God’s hands,” Ms. Burch said of her health issues. “To someone looking at me, I look like a very healthy 34-year-old woman, and I am not.”Watching Kandahar, where she had tried to make a difference, and then the entire country quickly fall to the Taliban exacerbated her pain.“It all feels like a complete failure,” she said from her home in Washington, D.C. “I have my own demons from my time there, and I worry about other veterans and the defeat they must be feeling.”Some veterans are wondering if the wars were worth it, said Bonnie Carroll, the founder of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a support organization for those grieving the death of a service member.“In World War I and World War II, if you died, you most likely died on the battlefield,” she said. “But many of our loved ones are now bringing the war home with them and dying from suicide as a result of post-traumatic stress or illness as a result of exposures.”Ms. Burch, who was a staff sergeant in the Air Force in Kandahar from 2010 to 2011, often walked by pits filled with garbage, equipment and other waste. She said the doctors who examined her in 2014 found ground glass nodules in her lungs, which must be monitored for cancer. She now regularly uses an inhaler.U.S. officials estimate that more than 3.5 million service members who deployed were exposed to toxic smoke from the roughly 250 pits used in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Biden has said that he believes toxic substances from burn pits contributed to the brain cancer of his son Beau, who served with the Delaware Army National Guard at Balad Air Base in Iraq and died of the illness in 2015.ImageJen Burch said the doctors who examined her in 2014 found ground glass nodules in her lungs, which must be monitored for cancer.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York TimesEven as they struggle, veterans are having more open discussions about their experiences and mental and physical conditions.“I was too close, too much in love with my war,” said Maj. Thomas Schueman, 38, a Marine Corps commander who is now studying at the Naval War College. As time passed and he realized that the war in Afghanistan was essentially lost, “I started to maybe come to terms with the reality,” he said. “I am still fighting a little bit of that war, inside.”Julie Howell, an Army specialist from 2000 to 2005 who deployed to Iraq, said she was always going to join the military.“My grandpa and grandma met at a U.S.O. dance,” she said.She enlisted at 17 and became quickly disenchanted.“I am just coming to terms with the sexual violence I experienced,” said Ms. Howell, 38, who lives in El Paso. “You expected your battle buddy to bring you back to your room, not take you to their room.”She added, “I don’t think civilians have a clue about this, and part of that is our own silence.”In interviews, scores of female veterans shared stories that were remarkably similar if distinct in the details: attacks or coercion by men they served with, sexual encounters they felt pressured to have, abuse suffered in formation the next day.Taliban Takeover in AfghanistanLatest Updates
Updated Sept. 2, 2021, 5:49 p.m. ETAs Afghan evacuees are screened for security risks, very few have raised concerns, the military says.The last U.S. diplomat to leave Kabul has tested positive for the virus.The White House rejects easing sanctions on the Taliban.For the past 10 years, the military has tried to make progress against sexual assault in the ranks. The Pentagon and Congress are poised to change how sexual assault cases are adjudicated by taking their prosecution out of the hands of military commanders, which many survivors say would reduce retaliation and increase convictions.Ms. Gauntner, 40, who retired this year after 21 years in the military and By: Jennifer Steinhauer
Title: Veterans Struggle With Issues That Are Often Invisible to Others
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/us/politics/afghan-war-veterans.html
Published Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2021 09:00:16 +0000
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