Returning US marines prepare for the battle to retain sanity

By Oliver Poole at Camp Fallujah
(Filed: 08/03/2005)
Thursday 3 November 2005

It is time to go home for the US marines who stormed Fallujah last year, killing more than 2,000 insurgents in house-to-house fighting that reduced stretches of the city to rubble.

Kit bags are being packed and boxes freighted back to America as the troops count down the days to the 20-hour flight that will take them back to their loved ones.

Brains are being reprogrammed, from kill-without-hesitation mode to one more attuned to hugging wives, paying bills and drinking beers at parties in the back yard.

Thousands of servicemen at Camp Fallujah are being ordered to relive memories many would rather forget. Holding group therapy in confessional sessions is the Marine Corps's new remedy for the mental scars of battle.

"Dogs eating corpses," recalled a sergeant in one of the intimate gatherings.

"That's right," said a captain. "I saw a dog coming from the chest cavity of a man, its face dripping in blood. That was pretty bad. I've got dogs and I don't think I'm quite going to look at them the same way again."

Then another marine said: "The smell of it. I am not looking forward to the next barbecue."

A hand went up. "The suffering of the women and children." Then another: "The loss of good comrades."

Across Iraq US troops are being rotated and thousands of battle-hardened veterans are flooding back home. Haunting them all is the spectre of the dysfunctional Vietnam veteran in the 1970s and 80s, abandoned, alienated and alone.

"We did not do a very good job on our soldiers then and we learnt from that," said Capt Steve Pike, Camp Fallujah's regimental chaplain. "What these marines have seen has changed them and we need to help them deal with it."

The emotional toll is real. Sixteen per cent of army personnel who served in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 report combat related mental illness. There has been a marked rise in the number of broken marriages, car accidents, fights and alcohol and drug abuse.

To try to avoid more of the same, the "Warrior Transition'' therapy sessions, with departing marines gathered in 40-strong groups to share their experiences, are now compulsory.

The troops are mostly receptive, even the outwardly extremely tough ones such as the man with "Devil Dog'' tattooed on his arm. He had a nagging fear that his wife may have been unfaithful while he was away.

They have all seen Rambo, the film in which a traumatised Vietnam soldier runs amok in a sleepy American town, and are aware of the effects warfare can have on the psyche.

"When I lay my head down and go to sleep I can see the images of the city," says Cpl Ivan Getierrez, 21. "There was nothing but rockets and machineguns going everywhere. I lost two good friends. I think about why it was them and not me. I am not who I was before this."

The marines are taught that their wives or girlfriends are unlikely to have been transformed into the "sexual Houdinis" they may have fantasised about while they were apart.

Go slow with reconnecting with your children, comes the advice. Don't be surprised by the nightmares. Tolerate bad traffic.

"What would you do if you're in a bar and someone started making disparaging remarks about the war in Iraq?" Capt Pike asked one group.

"Smash him over the head with a beer bottle," came back the answer.

During the coming months America will discover how many can follow the official advice and simply walk away.

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