This week in LEO, as part of the newspaper’s look at the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, Mat Herron has a strong profile of former Louisvilllan Brandon Sword, who nearly died when a building he was inspecting turned out to be booby-trapped. A link to Mat’s story is just to the right on this page.

Clearly there is no shortage of stories about soldiers who’ve lived through hell, only to find they still live in hell and probably always will.

For instance, the new Rolling Stone magazine has a pretty interesting profile on Blake Miller of Jonancy in Eastern Kentucky.

The headline: “The Troubled Homecoming of the Marlboro Marine.”

The subhead: “This is the face of the war in Iraq. The mind behind it will never be the same.”

Part of me wants to preface this post by saying, “If you’re not tired of reading sad stories from the Iraq War, check it out …”

Then I realize, of course, that that sort of thinking is part of the problem. When we avoid the more difficult parts of reality, those things are left to fester. We sure as hell can’t forget the men and women whose lives have been jacked by this goddamn war.

Read the Rolling Stone piece here. (CS)