Fort Hood has been in the news all today, on my radio as I drive from house to house visiting patients. It’s a tragedy I have no comprehension of, no way to make sense of. But the people who serve, who live on the bases, who suffer the wounds of war– they know. Max Cleland, who lost three limbs serving in Vietnam, and in peacetime served as a powerful advocate for veterans in Congress, has written a short op-ed in the New York Times…

“EVERY day I was in Vietnam, I thought about home. And, every day I’ve been home, I’ve thought about Vietnam.” So said one of the millions of soldiers who fought there as I did. Change the name of the battlefield and it could have been said by one of the American servicemen coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan today. Wars are not over when the shooting stops. They live on in the lives of those who fight them. That is the curse of the soldier. He never forgets.

The entire essay is here. Excerpts can’t do it justice, so go on over to NYT and read it in full.