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How Long Do Wars Last?
by James Glaser September 30, 2010 
In 1943 the Marines made their first amphibious assault on the Island of Tarawa. In three days more than 990 Marines and 30 Sailors had been killed. Last Saturday, the US military brought the remains of two of those Marines home for burial. 78,000 American troops are still missing from World War II. Yes, the shooting and the dieing is over, but for the loved ones of those missing, there is no end. All over America there are VA Hospitals with veterans from many of our wars, who never got to come home. With the advancement of medical care, more and more veterans will be living out their lives in a hospital bed. Growing up, my dad would always stop at the Saint Cloud VA Hospital to see a high school classmate who never made it out of the hospital from the Korean War. After I joined the Marines, my dad told me he would visit, but the guy never said a word in all those years, and a lot of parts of him were missing. When I was in the VA Hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin, I met a fellow patient who had been wounded on Guadalcanal, and was still in Tomah VA 50 years later. He said he could still hear the wounded Marines screaming on the beach. His war has lasted a long, long time. There are still over 2 million WWII vets and as far as I know, Frank Buckles is still alive at 109, and he is a WWI veteran. How long does a war last for the children of those killed? For that matter, how long are our two current wars going to last for the children of Iraq and Afghanistan. It isn't only soldiers who get PTSD. Can you even imagine if from let's say, the age of 4 to 14 you lived your whole life in a combat zone? That war will be with you till the day you die. All over the world children, farmers, and just ordinary people die or lose limbs to land mines from past wars. Every so often workers are killed in Europe when their excavating equipment hits an unexploded bomb from WW II. President Obama talks about bringing the troops home from Afghanistan next year, and many Americans will think the war is over, if he indeed does that. However, in truth the war in Afghanistan, now our longest war in history, will last for decades in the minds and bodies of the veterans who fought, and maybe for a hundred more years for the children in the war and children here at home who lost a father, or mother or had one maimed for life. Wars last a long, long time. |
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