Letters: A soldier’s post-war fight

Re “Healing Sgt. Warren,” Oct. 6

As I read this story, my heart lurched with its only fractional understanding of the ache that belongs to Jonathan Warren, Scott Stephenson, their families and military peers. But these are the grievances that (unfortunately) don’t surprise me.

So here is what troubles me: Warren opted out of group therapy, and his college campus therapist wasn’t trained in post-traumatic stress disorder. The Veterans Affairs hospital in Long Beach told him it would be months before a one-on-one PTSD specialist could see him. That Warren only began the process of healing because he happened upon a flier that offered a trial treatment is alarming.

I understand that our men and women returning home from battle are oftentimes forgotten. But I also know that many are taken care of in a basic way. My problem is they are not taken care of wholly.

Yes, I want our veterans housed and fed and integrated back into society. But these people have a basic right to their spirit, and it sounds to me as if we’re turning that right into a privilege. And that’s unacceptable.

So now I support our troops. And I support the battle they fight.

Laura Donney

Los Angeles

This is a haunting story. The sergeant’s question — “What did I accomplish over there?” — reverberates and demands an answer that shall never come.

This needs to be required reading before some tassel-loafered member of Congress demands we place boots on the ground.

Walter Carlin

Del Mar

Thank you for the piece on Warren and the previous one on the couple in which the returning veteran was struggling to get sober. Their stories help to show us the true cost of war.

If only this kind of reporting were included with shoot ‘em-up video games; maybe then young men and women would be less eager to race into combat.

David Salahi

Laguna Niguel

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