Thomas Wolfe\u2019s 1934 novel \u201cYou Can\u2019t Go Home Again\u201d popularized that exact phrase, which for nearly 90 years has explained that, after you\u2019ve had life-changing experiences, you can never quite return to the way things were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Service members often feel this way when they return home from war, notes author and long-time combat reporter Sebastian Junger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think veterans feel that they\u2019re a kind of a less, maybe a lesser version of themselves when they\u2019re back home,\u201d he told Military Times Sunday at the three-day MCON miliary culture conference in Las Vegas. \u201cThey mature very quickly, and they change and they grow and they get stronger \u2014 all these things that we all know are good. Then you come back […] and you feel like \u2018Oh my god, this is this is a step backward. This is the place where I was a child. I\u2019m not a child anymore.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Junger likened this phenomenon to the civilian experience of returning to your childhood bedroom after years away, noting how often we feel like we\u2019re in high school when we visit our hometown during the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it\u2019s very disorienting,\u201d he said. \u201cI think people can have that even if they\u2019re in their 30s and 40s and coming home to a marriage with children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, the return to civilian life from war also brings the challenge of feeling like there isn\u2019t much purpose or common bond within the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe demands of combat, the benefits of combat, and just being in a close unified group are so enormous,\u201d Junger said. \u201cThey play to such ancient human values of altruism, and connection and courage that they\u2019re very hard to give up in civilian life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Junger\u2019s work with veterans spans the length of the Global War on Terror. He produced the critically acclaimed documentary film, \u201cRestrepo,\u201d which followed troops in Afghanistan\u2019s Korengal Valley, in addition to three war documentaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has written extensively of the importance of having a community in his 2016 book, \u201cTribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,\u201d and has suggested one of the ways to make it easier to come back from combat is to avoid self-alienation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Veterans, he notes, often struggle to assimilate back into society because they view themselves as different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cStop thinking that you\u2019re special,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are special. You had experiences that few of your peers had. If you keep thinking of yourself as someone who\u2019s special and different and better, you\u2019ll never reincorporate into the civilian world of just ordinary people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author and combat reporter Sebastian Junger explains the difficulties of returning home after war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":91043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":68,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,23,68,12,26,13,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3271],"class_list":["post-74696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-military-culture","category-news","category-newsletters","category-off-duty","category-your-navy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"X7AURGXFFVA3BBJ4ZAEGCBUK3A","arc_canonical_url":"\/off-duty\/military-culture\/2023\/11\/15\/author-sebastian-junger-explains-why-its-hard-for-troops-to-come-home\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n