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thedrifter
06-13-06, 06:46 AM
Return to civilian life no picnic
For vets, ordinary frustrations can bring extreme anxiety
By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH
Knight Ridder Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Every time his wife slammed the shower stall door, Pete McCann jumped.

When a jar of pickles shattered at Price Chopper, Chris Baer landed on the floor, too.

And when a Mr. Goodcents customer complained to owner/manager Tony Rider that her sandwich was wrong and he needed a lesson on doing the right thing, she touched a nerve.

"I totally lost it," said Rider, 38, a Marine reservist. "I told her, 'Do you have any idea who you're talking to?'... I've been to Iraq twice, trying to do the right thing..."

These veterans, like thousands more returning from deployments, are finding that re-entry into civilian life can be rough. A recent Defense Department study of combat troops returning from Iraq found that one in every six soldiers and Marines reported feeling depressed and experiencing other post-traumatic stress symptoms within months of coming home.

It's not easy to feel safe again after living in a war zone.

In Baghdad, a dead animal in the road could hide an explosive. A stalled car could be a bomber waiting for troops to enter the kill zone. The need to be constantly aware of everything creates a sort of hyper-vigilance.

It's a sense that veterans can't automatically turn off when they come home to a safe environment. Old routines are gone. Sleep patterns are disrupted. Even the sounds of home unnerve ears accustomed to war.

"The biggest adjustment is going from 18-hour days, seven days a week, with no days off, to working a 40-hour week based on the clock," Baer said. "From that tempo to civilian life, it's incredibly slo-o-o-o-w."

Baer, 41, is an Army Reservist, a major with 24 years of experience. He commanded 141 soldiers in the 369th Transportation Company for a year, boots on the ground, in Iraq, ending in March 2005. Even with his experience, he still flinches at loud noises. And then he adds, sheepishly, that he probably flinches because of his military experience. He laughed as he recounted the dropped pickles.

"You go from shopping in the store getting vittles to having an IED go off," he said.

When he returned from Iraq, it took him three months to sleep regular hours. Even then, his bed felt too soft.

It takes Baer about three months to be himself once more.

"I tell my wife if I get up in the middle of the night it's because I can't turn my brain off," he said.

He warns his men not to expect too much from themselves.

"I tell them to try as hard as they can not to jump into being a husband and/or father. We all need time."

Pete McCann's wife, Katrina, laughed as she heard the shower door story.

"I had no idea it reminded him of mortars," she said.

Her husband, a reserved man, smiled and looked down. The couple had been married only a short time when he was deployed to Iraq. Their lives were just beginning to entwine.

His biggest fears coming home after a year were that his wife would have left him because of the stress and that their two Jack Russell terriers wouldn't remember him at all.

But 30 seconds after his return, he said, those worries dissolved.

McCann, 28, is a National Guardsman with seven years of experience who deployed with Alpha Company, 1140th Engineers out of Farmington, Mo. He was in-theater for Operation Iraqi Freedom for a year ending in February 2005. When he returned home, the first noticeable change was the more relaxed pace.

But it was anything but relaxing for him.

"I worked at a life insurance agency, and it just was too hard to do that any more," he said. No routines. No fixed results. That was too much, he said. He even tried to stick with chow hall times until his wife pointed that out to him.

"I eat when I'm hungry," she said.

Since February, he has worked at Superior Wood Products, a cabinet-making shop in Trimble, Mo. Just a driver at first, he now manages delivery times, employee work schedules, customer service and orders. The job is similar to what he did in Iraq. As a platoon leader, he organized convoys, laid out route clearances of bombs and insurgents, and worked delivery runs between Baghdad and another base.

His civilian job has "an uptempo pace, too," he said.

Except, of course, he doesn't have to watch for roadway bombs anymore, something his wife noticed he seemed to be doing when she was driving recently.

Meshing two lives isn't easy, Pete McCann said, especially after the closeness that troops develop on deployment. Troops share so many details and images, military slang and surreal can-you-believe-this moments, and those same stories lose something in the suburbs.

"I could explain it all day and I still couldn't explain it," he said.

Tony Rider wipes the counter for the umpteenth time, straightens his green butcher apron, dons clean gloves and asks each customer: "For here or to go?... Do you want the meal with that?... Chips or a cookie?"

In this Mr. Goodcents store in Kansas City, Kan., only a few customers notice the display on the wall: A paper American flag dotted with white stars and comments such as "Semper Fi" and "We love you!" Two newspaper articles about a local Marine serving in Iraq.

As one customer hands Rider a few dollars, she has no idea that the man who just sliced her pepper cheese paper-thin led a unit of Marines into combat, that he fought battles in which Marines died to allow a city to vote.

She doesn't know that he's served three times in war: two tours in Iraq and one in the Gulf War in Kuwait. That he wrestles daily with conflicting pride for his time serving his country and sadness for the time he lost as his children grew without him.

He tells her thank you. Washes his hands again. Waits for the next customer.

Rider, 38, knows a lot about switching from military life back to civilian. After 14 years of service, he knows which after-effects will hit him first.

"Basically, anything that reminds me how hard it was for my kids on me being gone," he said. "You come back to a relaxed environment and you realize that a lot of stuff people worry about is really trivial. I get upset because, come on, you guys have no idea how small this is.... We're a pretty spoiled society."

After the tempo of war, being home gives him time to think.

Maybe too much time.

He's caught himself looking from side to side as he drives, trying to be aware of his surroundings. He's caught himself losing patience, especially with people who seem "inconvenienced" when they talk of war.

He tries hard not to react to loud noises because he doesn't want his three daughters to see him scared. "They see me as proud," he said.

He's trying to make up for lost time with his kids.

He spent weeks with his oldest practicing for a father/daughter musical.

His 5-year-old daughter keeps asking him over and over, Will you be here for my birthday? He missed two of her birthdays. Not this one.

He volunteers at the YMCA. He's a Youth Friend. He's a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He likes staying busy.

In Iraq he had to learn how to focus on the moment. Thinking about home brought pain. He might start wondering if his tiniest daughter, just 4 months old when he left, would remember him. Or he might imagine his oldest crying because her daddy wasn't home.

He tries to remind himself that it's because of his children that serving his country is so important. "I don't want my kids to grow up in fear of getting on an airplane or being in a public place where large groups are gathered," he said.

Still, his new loss of patience bothers him.

"You can't be in the quick-service industry and not have patience," he said. "My wife told me that some of my employees thought maybe I've been a little distant... . I probably am a little more reserved now."

So Rider, a Baker University business graduate, has decided to sell his two Mr. Goodcents franchises.

"It's time to move on," he said. He'll find something new to do. Maybe in corporate America. Maybe somewhere else.

He likes to share his experience. On a recent day he talked to a group of third-graders who wrote to him when he was in Iraq. They wanted to meet him, their Marine. They wanted to ask him about war.

"War is not good," he told them. "Nobody really wins."

They asked him if he was scared in war.

"Yes... . It's very scary."

He looked at their faces, faces so much like his own girls'.

"War is not good," he told them again.

A few days later, Rider re-enlisted. He has six more years to go.

Ellie