Where is Waldo

We can all remember searching for Waldo as he goes from one adventure to another.  He is a face in the crowd but in a way with his striped shirt, he does stand out just enough so eventually you'll find him.  We can spend a long time searching for him, past the point of just giving up before we do and trying to make sure we find him before someone else does.  It's a matter of pride.

We have men and women coming home from adventures most of us do not envy any more than we understand where they've been, what they've seen or what they had to do.  Unlike Waldo, they don't want to stand out in a crowd so they wear the same clothes everyone else does.  They don't want someone searching for them because they are searching for themselves.  They want to find the person they were before they left but so much changed during the deployment, that person is trapped behind a wall of pain.

Families find strangers living with them and they know something is wrong but they don't know what to do about it.  They get frustrated and some give up before the person they love is "found" again.  Others get angry and walk away.  Some will keep trying because they know "he" or "she" is in there somewhere.

For some families, it is too late to find "them" again.  They did all they could with what they knew how to do out of love but sometimes loves is just not good enough.  It would have taken an army to help "find" the person inside the veteran of combat but the army didn't show up.

This is about one of those families and about a veteran of combat no one is looking for now.

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Where is Waldo