I see all these young, smart, intelligent people coming to this town with big dreams of standing tall to protect their country and family and friends, they leave to go off to war and come home safe from this battle field of gun fire and bombs and snipers, yet somehow they don’t actually come back complete and we never seem to actually get them back completely the way they were when they left. Why because they come home with all this stuff in their heads that they had to do the things they went threw and stuff they seen over there, and instead of helping them deal with this we are just to busy enjoying them being here with us. So what do they do they turn to alcohol and drugs to try to forget and bury what’s trapped in their heads, and we end up loosing them anyway in car wrecks or some even by their own hands. I am not just assuming this is what is happening I know this is what’s going on, I cam to Tennessee for the future of my children to come. I came to Clarksville for a young man who I love and care for as if he was my biological son. I thought that if he had family here close to him it would help to make it easier for him when he came home from Iraq, but little did I know that I wasn’t properly prepared to help him.

Instead he shut down on me, this same boy who use to confide in me with everything. Who leaned on me when ever he had any problems, refused to open up to me and let me help. His reason was “ I love you to much mom to hurt you like that , I can’t bare the thought of putting the same images in your head that I live with, or the images of what I did over there or went threw” the love they have for us, the love we have for them is actually what hurts them the most because in order to protect us they think they have to block us out of that part of their lives. And since they have no one to turn to, they turn to a bottle of liquor, or some drug that someone gave them at a bar or party and it becomes their salvation. And do you know what happened to this boy I loved so much, they kicked him out of the army and sent him home, because they couldn’t handle his drinking problem. This makes part of me mad because he joined the Army to give his daughter a future and now they just threw him away and he went threw this all for nothing. But part of me is happy cause he is back with his whole family and his little girl and I’m hoping that will help bring him back completely from this hell he was in. and I will still always be here for him, with a huge home cooked meal waiting for him if he ever decides he is ready to lean on me again.