For Miss. vets, no 'end' in Iraq War

For Miss. vets, no 'end' in Iraq War
Soldiers, kin left with question: "Was it worth it?"
Gary Pettus • gpettus@clarionledger.com • September 8, 2010


T.L. Chandler doesn't know yet if the war in Iraq has really changed that country.
He just knows it changed him.

"When I came back," said the 21-year Army veteran, "I wasn't the person my wife had married. That person doesn't exist anymore."

Nor does his marriage - one more casualty of a war that the United States is no longer fighting, officially.

With President Barack Obama's announcement this country's combat role was formally over on Sept. 1, Mississippi veterans and their families are reflecting on the meaning of the "end" and all that came before it.

Like Chandler, many returned veterans and their loved ones aren't quite the people they used to be before Operation Iraqi Freedom divided Americans over its mission and its costs in dollars and lives.

"I still remember the suffering there, children 3 and 4 years old standing out there begging for food," said Chandler, 42, of Jackson, who was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder before his marriage blew up.

"As a parent you think about those children. 'This could be my kid.' "

On top of PTSD - the anxiety disorder that develops after a shocking event - Chandler has had surgery to repair injuries he suffered in a war whose objectives, he said, were "clouded."

"Even so," he said, "the liberation actually happened. That was why I went."
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For Miss vets no end in Iraq War