In honor of Veterans Day, we’ve put together a small selection of stories about veterans from our archive.
“Everyone Walks Too Slow,” by Daniel Lang (October 23, 1943)
Jim Carlyle, a twenty-eight-year-old Marine who was wounded at Guadalcanal, talks about coming home.
“Home Again,” by Daniel Lang (September 4, 1971)
A man finds that his attitudes about race, politics, and war have changed after his time in Vietnam. “Combat in Vietnam has made changes in my thinking. Maybe they won’t last, but for now they have me imagining I’m leading two lives.”
“The Real Heroes Are Dead,” by James B. Stewart (February 11, 2002)
Two veterans’ intertwined lives, from the nineteen-fifties through 9/11.
“Lost Son,” by Calvin Trillin (March 14, 2005)
The family of Brian Slavenas, who was killed in action, can’t agree about how to understand his death. “Brian, like every other male in the family, had done a hitch in the military right out of high school … [but] Brian’s family on his mother’s side had, instead of a military tradition, a tradition of opposing wars.”
“A Return,” by Ben Bradlee (October 2, 2006)
Bradlee, who served on a Navy destroyer during the Second World War, writes about reuniting with his fellow-sailors and talking about his experiences for nearly the first time. “In 1946, who cared what you did in the war? I thought that the people who sat around and talked about their war were terrible bores.”
“A Soldier’s Legacy,” by Ben McGrath (August 4, 2008)
After a soldier’s death, his friends and fellow-soldiers ask how his homosexuality should fit into his legacy.
“Virtual Iraq,” by Sue Halpern (May 19, 2008)
Can virtual-reality simulations help traumatized veterans? One soldier tries “an experimental treatment option called Virtual Iraq, in which patients work through their combat trauma in a computer-simulated environment.”
“Atonement,” by Dexter Filkins (October 29, 2012)
A veteran reaches out to the family he harmed in Iraq. “At two-thirty that morning, eight years after he had sprayed bullets into cars filled with Iraqi civilians, Lobello turned on his video recorder.”
“In the Crosshairs,” by Nicholas Schmidle (June 3, 2013)
Chris Kyle was one of America’s most dedicated snipers. His attempt to help a troubled veteran ended in tragedy.
“The Return,” by David Finkel (September 9, 2013)
One soldier’s experience in a treatment program for P.T.S.D.—“a twenty-three-bed psychiatric facility called Haven Behavioral War Heroes Hospital, in Pueblo, Colorado.”
The entirety of the magazine’s archive, going back to 1925, is available online.
Illustration by Matt Dorfman.
