BOOK REVIEW: Hell on the home front

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http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-081113.html

They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars: The Untold Story by Ann Jones

BOOK REVIEW: Hell on the home front
Reviewed by Prashanth Kamalakanthan
Nov 8, '13

WASHINGTON - In his final letter to his family, 30-year-old Iraq war veteran Daniel Somers wrote of having never returned from war. "In truth, I was nothing more than a prop", reads the suicide note dated June 10, 2013, six years after his final deployment. "In truth, I have already been absent for a long, long time."

As the US-led war in Afghanistan draws to a close, Washington will tout the absence of combat troops in that country. Looking toward a scheduled withdrawal date of 2014, President Barack Obama has proudly announced hat "our troops are finally coming home".

But in what state he cannot say. For as the soldiers start streaming back, they will have absences of their own. Many will be disfigured, missing parts of the bodies they left with. Others will return in boxes, gone altogether. For some, like Somers, it will take longer to understand what was lost.

"There are some things that a person simply cannot come back from," he wrote in anguish.