Theresa Mickelwait, Brad Connelly, James Marques, and James Scheffler.

A decade of homecomings from Iraq and Afghanistan

By Elizabeth Sheeran

Somerville’s George Dilboy VFW Post was filled to capacity on Veterans Day, when Veterans Council member Bob Hickey spoke of “a new generation of veterans.” In a room full of heroes, Hickey talked of the heroes of today: the hundreds from Somerville who have served since 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan and sometimes both. The ones who haven’t even begun to think of themselves as heroes.

“They don’t want any special attention and all the hoopla. They just want to come home and go back to doing what they were doing before they went,” said Somerville Veteran Services Director Frank Senesi.

Talk to Somerville veterans about coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan, and a hero’s welcome is indeed the farthest thing from their minds.

For Somerville native Jim Marques, who has served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, the little things matter a lot. “Just getting back to regular society where you can get a Dunkin Donuts coffee,” said Marques. “Just normal everyday stuff that people take for granted. Most people just can’t relate.”

Writing from his current post at Camp Dwyer in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Marine reservist James Scheffler, who also previously served in Iraq, most looks forward to simply falling back into life with his Somerville neighbors and friends, including local amateur theater groups.

And then there are the practical challenges of coming home. “I actually accepted a layoff to come on this deployment, so finding a job will be one of the first orders of business,” wrote Scheffler, who was an IT systems administrator in civilian life. “I’m trying not to worry about it, but with news of the economy looking bleak, I am less than fully confident despite being a college graduate.”

Nationally, new veterans have faced higher-than-average unemployment. In Somerville, Senesi said his office has had good success finding jobs for returning vets, since a lot of area employers who are hiring are hiring mostly veterans. He said many veterans are taking advantage of the 9/11 GI Bill to return to school, and many are reservists, whose jobs are “waiting for them when they come home.”

But the reality for reservists can vary quite a bit. Marques, who works with touch screen technology at a company in Methuen, said his employer has kept his job for him after every deployment. Some reservists take layoffs, like Scheffler, which can save a job for a fellow worker.

When Air Force reservist Theresa Mickelwait returned after being deployed during the initial invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, she was shocked to find her job at a bio-technology firm had been eliminated, just days before she was scheduled to return to work.

And that was only one of the challenges Mickelwait faced coming home in the first wave of post-9/11 veterans, when the nation had yet to develop the support infrastructure that has been built up over the past decade to ease the transition. Life in the desert had taken a physical toll. She had to learn to drive all over again without always looking for an escape route. And there were the memories.

“I did see and experience things that nobody should have to,” said Mickelwait, an emergency manager who to this day will not watch movies or news programs about the war. She said she found the support she needed by joining the VFW, and the Dilboy Post at Davis Square remains a life-line for her today.

“It was easier to spend my time with men who were 30 years older, than with kids my age who did not have the same experience,” she said. “At the VFW there’s almost a code, and you can tell without having to talk about it when someone is having a bad day. Nobody’s going to ask if you killed anyone. Nobody’s going to ask what you saw. Nobody’s going to ask, ‘what do you think of the war?’”

Every veteran’s homecoming is different, said Marques. He said he doesn’t even put himself in the same league as combat veterans, since his three tours in war zones were as a civil affairs officer, working with locals to rebuild infrastructure. But as a veteran, he hopes to encourage people to learn more about the military’s mission to build stability and peace. “It doesn’t help our cause to say things like, ‘kill all the Muslims,’” said Marques, “Have some respect for people, because most of them are really just like us.”

Marques said most of the public has been supportive. “A lot of people have been good to us, whether or not they agree with the war. I think we learned our lesson as a society from Vietnam,” he said.

But Mickelwait said she has experienced anti-military sentiment directed toward her right here in Somerville when she’s been in uniform. And she has a hard time hearing people say they support the troops when they are vocally opposing the war effort. “It makes it harder to do our mission,” she said.

Still, she has no problem being among the small minority of Americans who have made the choice to serve to keep the rest of us safe, even knowing that she will need to leave her three-year-old daughter behind on her next tour. “The way I see it, I take the hit so you won’t have to,” she said.

Unlike in past wars, where the draft meant that almost every family had someone who served, today’s all-volunteer military means that less one percent of the population is making the sacrifice for all of us. But military families say they do feel special, but they don’t feel unique.

Jody Connelly, whose son Brad enlisted this year fresh out of Somerville High, said she knows “quite a few Somerville boys” who are serving too. And she doesn’t question her family’s sacrifice. “It nearly broke my heart when he said he was going in. I cry almost every day. But for this country, it’s worth it,” she said. “It was his choice and his choice alone and I will never forget that. I’m so proud of him.”

The all-volunteer military means that those who choose to serve are serving more tours overseas, and returning multiple times to the most dangerous places in the world. Senesi, the city veteran services director, said that’s beginning to take a long-term toll on families, and on the veterans themselves.

According to the Veterans Administration, one in five Iraq or Afghanistan veterans suffers depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), where veterans relive the worst of their war experiences long after they’re home. But Senesi said those numbers will rise over time because PTSD can often take years to emerge.

“We’re seeing it now. But it’s going to get much worse,” said Senesi. “It only takes a little bit of stress or anxiety in their life for PTSD to come out. Especially doing the two, three or four tours. It’s going to come out eventually.” But he added that the Veterans Administration and other organizations have come a long way, even just in the past few years, in being able to help today’s veterans with the challenges they face.

“We fought so those after us wouldn’t have to. But things change,” said Hickey, of the Veterans Council. “Now, it’s our job as veterans to take care of the veterans who are coming back. That’s what it’s all about.”