War changes people, the events and sights these men see will forever be in their minds, haunting their dreams and their everyday life. Men leave as nobodies and come back as heroes but not without scars on their bodies and scars on their minds. The events that unravel right before these brave men’s eyes are some that others will never understand. These brave souls come back with memories and misery. War leaves many men with psychological problems, physical injuries and often times heartbreak over fallen comrades. The events these brave men are put through during the war many times leaves even the strongest of men with scars on their brains. Many of the men come home and are unable to live the life they once lived before they put…show more content… Men come home with bullet holes in their skin, missing body parts or burn marks from explosions. In The Things They Carried, Lee Strunk, “ stepped on a rigged mortar round. It took off his right leg at the knee” (O’Brien, 1990). Lee was left twitching on the battlefield losing absurd amounts of blood, finally the other men came to his rescue and sent him off in a helicopter. Lee had always told Dave Jensen that if he ever had an injury that would leave him in a wheelchair, he wanted Jensen to kill him. To men in the war, having an injury so severe that they are unable to walk, was a disgrace. They did not want to be pitied by others, they felt that life simply was not worth living if they were tied to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. War injuries are another last effect of the war, they do not miraculously heal themselves when the soldier comes home, these men live with the physical scars on their bodies every day. In the article For Many Injured Veterans, A Lifetime of Consequences by Rich Morin, Morin states, “Veterans who suffered major service-related injuries are more than twice as likely as their more fortunate comrades to say they had difficulties readjusting to civilian life” (Morin). These men come home with a piece of themselves missing but they also come home with added terrors and…show more content… Everyone loses loved ones during their life, but not many watch their loved one be killed and take their last breath of life. During combat, soldiers are faced with the hell of kill or be killed. Death surrounds them from time to time but nothing is more difficult that seeing your best friend, brother, a fellow soldier shot and killed. When asked how he coped with the death of his friends, Thomas Michelson told the story of his friends who were due to come home the next day but were shot and killed. Michelson said, “I didn’t really cope with it at all. They were due to come home, they were going to leave the next day, get on a plane to come home. They went to say goodbye to their friends, a gun went off... they were in body bags coming home...that did not help anybody's attitudes…” (Michelson). To lose a loved one takes a huge toll on a person, but to be next to someone as they are shot and killed makes that toll to the next level. These men have to live every day with that image in their mind of their brother taking their last breath, it is a haunting memory. In the novel The Things They Carried, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was faced with this nightmare when he saw Ted Lavender shot and killed. In the novel, Kiowa states, “The lieutenant’s in some deep hurt. I mean that crying jag-- the way he was carrying on-- it
