War’s effect on veterans

Re “Long tours in Iraq may be a minefield for mental health,” May 5

The Pentagon report on the mental health and ethics of our soldiers is disturbing but not surprising to those who study history. This degradation of ethics and spirit is always the effect of war on those who participate in it.

The problem is not long tours of duty; rather, the problem is war itself. War requires the dehumanization of the “enemy” because the human conscience must rationalize what it realizes to be the greatest crime -- the killing of fellow humans. The tragic irony of war is that its principal casualty is the humanity of all those who participate in it. It is no wonder that our soldiers are breaking down mentally. They too are victims of the latest ideological war -- the “war on terror.”

Is it not time that we renounce war as a tool of policy and reject those demagogues who would lead us there?

CHRIS APOSTAL

Silver Lake

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After serving three tours of duty in Vietnam over a period of four years, I can identify with the problems veterans can have coming home after serving multiple tours. Society expects our soldiers to just come home and pick up where they left off. Unfortunately, that is an impossible task. It can take years to live a normal life, and being part of a war is not forgotten in a lifetime.

Considering budget cuts to veterans programs and recent revelations about Walter Reed Army Medical Center, it seems we are woefully unprepared to care for the long-term mental health problems of hundreds of thousands of veterans who will someday return from war-torn Iraq.

The Bush administration is correct in saying that if we leave Iraq, “they” will follow us home. The sad thing is “they” will follow us home in the tortured minds of our soldiers and Marines.

STEVE VELASCO

Costa Mesa