To the Editor:
Re “Why Would Anyone Miss War?,” by Sebastian Junger (Sunday Review, July 17):
The idea that young men (and now women) want and need a rite of passage into adulthood that takes them out into the world to test and prove themselves, and that includes high stakes, extreme challenges, extreme bonding and risk of death, is as old as the Trojan War and older.
When warriors return home, it’s hard for them to find the same intensity of experience, sense of pride, belonging, meaning and value in working at a big-box store, or standing in line for unemployment, or in the desultory social chaos and trivial pursuits of civilian life. It’s easy to see why they miss war. What’s harder is to see how they manage to let go of it.
LEORA BARISH
Venice, Calif., July 17, 2011
To the Editor:
As a retired airline captain, former Marine Corps helicopter pilot and Vietnam veteran, I can tell you that troop assaults, medevacs and dicey extraction missions under fire provided a life-intensity high unequaled in the rest of my 70-plus years of life.
Most honest combat vets will tell you, perhaps not eloquently but in their own way, the same thing: essentially that combat is in our human DNA and demands to be exercised.
But as we’re seeing now and in retrospect have seen in all wars past, war grinds the psyche down, and everyone has a limit before crumbling. Some succumb sooner while others have a higher tolerance and go on, reupping again and again. The question is, Can we humans evolve peacefully, or will we succumb to instincts we can’t transcend?
ARNOLD REINER
Pensacola, Fla., July 17, 2011
