Is It Really Worth It???

I was listening on the radio coming home tonight that an estimate 1 million american troops have served over in Iraq. The all ready pressed health care system is facing a potential deluge of tens and thousands of soldiers returning home from iraq with mental health problems.
An army study showed that 1 in 6 american troops had reported symptoms of major depression, serious anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some experts predict this number could climb to 1 in 3, which is the same rate as that found in vietnam veterans.
Stephen Robinson, a 20-year army veteran said, 'there's a train coming that's going to be packed full of people who are going to need help for the next 35 years'. The psychological toll on these troops cannot even begin to be understood by me because i do not have a clue what it is like to be on the front line. Psychiatrists say the kind of fighting scenarios that the troops have had to deal with have contributed greatly to this high number of mental heath issues. These would include the recent retaking of fallujah, which the troops were put in to spooky urban settings with unlimited hiding places, the impossiblity of telling iraqi friend from iraqi foe and knowing that every stretch of road may conceal an explosive device. These situations the troops are in everyday make a deadly cocktail, with the adrenaline-gone-haywire reactions there is always going to be ever lasting emotional scars.
It is important to note that not all troops will experience this type of combat and therefore not all are going to be exposed to the same horrors. By comparison with the troops who served in vietnam, the soldiers in iraq have far better mental heath support and will probably return home to a more understanding public.
A war is not meant to ever be over, there is never a victor and a loser. The fall of the sadam dictatorship would have come at a very costly price. However, some of the soldiers that have been injured or scared mentally for life will be paying for the rest of their lives.