A very long and powerful piece by the BBC interviewing 4 U.S. soldiers 10 years after fighting IS (or it's precursor?) in Iraq and their return to civilian life.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Iraq_legacy_of_warIn 2007 the BBC’s Mark Urban was “embedded” with a platoon of soldiers in one of Baghdad’s most violent areas. Ten years later he tracked down four of the men from the unit. What effect did the war have on them?
The combat infantryman or “grunt” is the basic building block of military action. But this indispensable ingredient in war is also, historically, the type of soldier hardest hit by the experience. They are the most difficult to integrate back into civilian society when it’s over. The soldiers we interviewed had other options but had chosen the infantry. They wanted to fight. We were on a media "embed" with 2nd Platoon, a unit of 40 men that was part of A or Gator Company of 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment (referred to in US Army-speak as 2-12 Infantry). In all the unit served 15 months in Iraq - an extraordinarily long tour even by the standards of the US Army at the time, which generally set a one-year maximum. The unit would do a six-day stretch in the al-Dora market, followed by one day off back at a nearby base, and then back to the streets. Their enemy used hit and run tactics - concealed bombs, sniping, or mortars. So 2nd Platoon seldom saw their foe, but lived for many months under constant risk, with all the strain that that involved.