How Veterans Can Help Bridge the Civil-Military Divide
Servicemembers and civilians are tuned out of each other’s lives and challenges, which only deepens the rifts between them.
One day in August 2014, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. A news alert tersely stated that an American journalist, James Foley, by militants from the Islamic State, which had swarmed through northern Iraq just two months prior. Service members and veterans looked on with horror as Islamic State fighters committed atrocities and overran bases which had once housed tens of thousands of US troops—overturning everything US service members had struggled to build. I showed the
