Return from war brings some vets domestic discord

and Tony Perry ~ Los Angeles Times

For half his 10-month marriage, Lance Cpl. Sean Rodriguez-Street slogged through the Iraqi desert and fired at enemy soldiers in Baghdad.

Then he came home, and trouble started.

He feels distracted and edgy. He finds himself being rude to his wife, Amanda. He wakes up long before she does, and in the loneliness of those hours, he misses the crisp certainty of military mornings: wake up, eat grub and check weapon. Rodriguez-Street is among the veterans of the Iraq war who are discovering that short tempers and feelings of alienation may sour the sweetness of coming home.

Some returning servicemen are sleeping less and arguing more. Others are drinking heavily. One Marine told his fiancee he no longer wanted to have children. One senior Navy petty officer asked his wife for a divorce. Some suspect their spouses have been unfaithful. A number are experiencing flashbacks and other symptoms of combat stress.

In many cases, homecoming is also sweet. For example, Rodriguez-Street, a 21-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine, said there are advantages to being together again with his wife. "It's like being newlyweds all over."

Yet once the flag-waving and rounds of free beers subside, military personnel are feeling the friction of homecoming, and having to renegotiate roles in the family. One Marine planned to resume handling the family's finances, then realized his wife had done just fine. He gave her the bills and took over mowing the lawn.

"Most families get through it without long-term ill effects," said Shelley MacDermid, co-director of the Military Family Research Institute, a Pentagon-financed group at Purdue University. "You can't just flick a switch and say, 'Now, we're going back to the way it was.' There is no returning to normal, because the world has changed."

World goes on

For a serviceman, shoehorning himself back into peacetime life entails an attitude adjustment. "You have to realize that the whole world did not stop while you were away," said Master Sgt. Nicholas Morin, 43, who served with a reconnaissance unit in Iraq. "The whole world can't feel sorry for you because you stood in harm's way."

Re-entry to life at home typically takes as long as the individual's deployment, MacDermid said.

Some postwar carousing is expected. But the line between celebrating and running amok worries high-ranking military officials.

"My first concern is that the first night out they'll all get drunk and the second night they'll all beat up their wives or girlfriends," said Vice Adm. Tim LaFleur, commander of the Pacific naval surface fleet headquartered in Coronado, just south of San Diego. "We've already seen a rash of 'We won the war and we're going to celebrate' incidents."

At Camp Pendleton in Southern California, to which 8,000 of 27,500 deployed Marines have returned, the Marine Corps and Navy have assembled what officials call the most comprehensive array of counseling, therapy and services ever offered to returnees and their families. Dubbed the "warrior transition" program, it includes lectures, seminars and counseling even before Marines and sailors leave Iraq and Kuwait.

Assistance is also being offered to families at Pendleton, where more than 20,000 children have a deployed parent. "We expect our Marines to return a little more emotionally stressed," said Maj. Scott MacFarlane, part of the "family team building" campaign. "But we're also finding that the stay-at-home spouse is stressed" from watching the war on TV "every day, all day."

Morin, who's spent 24 years in the Marine Corps, says he cannot sleep at night.

A communications chief for a unit that came under sniper fire and fought the Republican Guard, Morin saw Iraqis killed. He also witnessed a land mine blow up, severely injuring three fellow Marines.

Morin's unit worked at night, moving into enemy territory. Although it's been two months since his nocturnal forays, "my sleep cycle hasn't adjusted yet," Morin said. "I find myself awake at night and asleep during the day."

His wife, Master Sgt. Kara Morin, is an administrative chief who's spent 21 years with the Corps. After her husband went to Iraq, Kara Morin made sure nothing -- not even the location of knickknacks -- changed in their Temecula, Calif., home.

"It's not good to change too much because it's tough to come home and be a stranger in your own house," she said.

The military plans to give special attention to troops coming home from battle. In part, that's a result of the slayings of four wives last summer at Fort Bragg, N.C., by their soldier husbands, including three Special Forces members who had recently returned from Afghanistan.

The Army announced a new program to help returning troops and their families. Supervising officers will use a checklist designed to determine which soldiers might be at risk for alcohol abuse, domestic violence or depression. The Army also plans to open a toll-free phone number through which soldiers and families can reach a counselor.