Was that a twinkle in the old men’s eyes? They stared down from framed oil portraits at the Fifth Regiment Armory the other day, and their names were Zollinger and Burgwyn, and Gelston and Warfield and others, all lined around a big, murky second-floor room. And maybe the old ghosts were pleased at what they beheld.
For here at the armory were more than a dozen Maryland National Guard members, home from the fighting in Iraq, and they were telling Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Gov. Martin O’Malley about the troubles re-entering civilian life: The psychological shifts, the troubles slowing down, the inability to reconnect with families, the stuff that never makes headlines because we’re too busy counting the dead or confronting the politics of the moment.
Does anybody understand?
“A grateful nation,” Mikulski told them, “never forgets.”
“We’re grateful to you,” O’Malley said, “and we want to do right by you.”
They were talking about increasing mental health funding and cutting through bureaucratic walls. They were hearing about post-traumatic stress disorder and other combat-related illnesses — and how, inexplicably, the federal government doesn’t provide the same help to National Guard members as it does to active-duty enlisted personnel.
“Thank you for what you did for America,” Mikulski said. “Now America wants to stand up for you.”
That’s when you noticed the old paintings on the walls.