Home from war, troops face 'white knuckled' first month

Home from war, troops face 'white knuckled' first month
By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor
February 18, 2013

In the first month home from war, one Marine routinely searched his darkened bedroom for the rifle he'd left in Iraq, while another Marine shunned his favorite nightspot for fear that someone in the club might carry a gun.

In the four weeks after their homecomings, one infantryman drove “white knuckled” at 55 mph while another soldier purposely began living even faster — losing her virginity, going blonde and drinking hard with battle buddies.

Some 34,000 service members will ship home from Afghanistan during the next year, President Barack Obama told the nation last week.

Amid the gleeful glow of arrivals, many of those troops may quickly confront sensory overloads, social awkwardness and, perhaps, deep cravings for personal freedoms, according to interviews with four younger veterans who weathered such moments.

“The first 30 days are interesting,” said Alex Horton, who spent 15 months in Iraq as an Army infantryman, including during the 2007 troop surge in Baghdad and Diyala Province.

Today, he works for the Department of Veterans Affairs. "I’ll call it the unraveling. That first week back you’re still high on everything, kissing your wife or girlfriend, sometimes seeing your kids for the first time. But then the tension starts to build.
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