I KNOW A FEW veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War. These are not old men, most of them were born in the 1960s, though some are older. The reason I know they were in the war is that they have alcohol problems. They have trauma. That’s why they drink. Two of them, while drunk, have looked at me, especially when I don’t shave, and had some flashbacks and started mumbling about mujahideen and trying to converse with me in Russian. These people know I am an American and don’t speak Russian, but some switch goes off and they think they are back in the army. I just learned that one of them is now in jail for beating his wife in a drunken rage. As someone said the other night, “The thing about war is that the dead come home but the living stay on the battlefield.”
north! 