Afghanistan veterans struggle to adapt a year after homecoming

Vets struggle, adapt a year after returning home from Afghanistan
Dayton (Ohio) Daily News
By Mary McCarty
Published: October 28, 2013

A year ago, they simply longed for home — for the cry of a newborn baby, the touch of a spouse, the comfort of sleeping in their own beds.

But life after Afghanistan has been anything but simple for the Army reservists who have shared their stories with the Dayton Daily News for the past year.

It has been a year of joyful reunion and painful adjustment; a year of welcome down time, for some, coupled with anxiety about finding a job; a year of mending — and ending — relationships.

The soldiers were greeted with open arms and “Welcome Home” banners last fall when they landed at Rickenbacker International Airport in Columbus last fall, but day-to-day reality hasn’t always been a welcoming parade for these soldiers from the Ohio Army National Guard’s Columbus-based Task Force 1-134 Field Artillery Regiment.

After the initial euphoria, they have dealt with the daily indignities of life, from relationship problems to financial struggles. Worst of all, they lost a fellow Guardsman, 24-year-old combat medic John Ainslie III of Toledo, to suicide in April.

It has been an eventful and challenging year for soldiers who shared their stories with the newspaper.
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