lived next to me, I saw him try to stop drinking twice--he went three days both times and told me he had to drink because of the shaking and the irritability.

One evening, however, he sat down next to me—drink in hand—on the front steps of our shared townhouse while I was smoking a cigarette.   I asked him if he drank this heavily before going to Iraq.  He said no.  Not like he does now. 

"I probably have PTSD but you don't see me whining about it like all these little pussies nowadays."

Then again, he said, it wasn't Iraq that messed him up but what happened afterwards.  His best friend was his battle buddy (the Army's solution for rise in suicides) and he called him one night and Sgt. Maj. missed the call.  Sgt. Maj. found out the next morning that his battle body used his at home gym to strangle himself.  Sgt. Maj. said he would never forgive himself for missing that call.

As with most things I am told, I knew my words would be meaningless.  My heart ached for him and for every other broken soldier wandering around, blindly trying to cope with their pain.  We sat there in silence.

Spring was bringing out the first of the bunnies from the fields across the street. 

"You know what?  I would really like to get a brick and smash that rabbit to a pulp right now."

 I shook my head in disgust and stood up.  The confessional was over.

"You know you need help, right?"  I asked in front of my house door.

He laughed.  I didn't. I threw my cigarette into the planter on my porch and said goodnight before going inside my house.  I locked my front door and went upstairs to check on my babies, promising myself they would never join the military—not even the Air Force.

A 2008 RAND study reports that at least 1 in 5 soldiers are returning from war with PTSD.   When are they going to do a study on the spouses and children left behind in these wars?  What have we lost in service to this country?