Can you describe how you felt coming home from a deployment or combat?

just remember being very withdrawn and still am to this day

Am I still a part of my family since each of family will be a little bit older, experienced more, grown & matured individually? Will relationships resume in step prior to departure or will require starting all over anew?

I'll keep this brief.. I felt anxious and honestly addicted, like I needed to go back, I hated everything normal back state side.

Lonley

it was strange and bittersweet. sure to my position as engine room shutdown watch supervisor my team didn't get to leave until 1 or 2 hours after everyone else. the loved ones that came to welcome the ship were gone. there was no celebration. just an empty pier.

the hardest part to explain is that the friends left behind didn't stop living their lives. a lot happens in 6 months. it was hard getting to know close friends again. even worse, trying to fit in with the new friends they had made.

Felt real good

Came back from Nam Temp 142 landed at O'hare Chicago Jan 16, 1971 wind chill -80 below. I wasn't given all my medals cause of the protests spitting baby killers. Got home and had to turn on the furnace all the way up to 85 while I was cold and everyone was in shorts and t-shirts. It was so quite that I was used to rockets that I slept in a iron bath tub and my mother cried when she saw me there. I was going to get a job at a Gas Station and my brother said that there are a lot of robberys and shooting of attendants so I tell him that people have been trying to kill me for a year. After years at the VA I passed my Agent Orange Test, Hearing loss but want to give me a hearing aid now, PTSD etc. 180 percent disabled and settled for 100%

After a brief time on detail in Tirana, Albania when I returned to my base in Germany, I felt empty, confused, depressed, shameful, and forgotten.

I spent 23 years in the military and every time I got deployed, I looked forward to coming home. Once I did get home it took some time for things to get back to normal. My wife and daughter had their own routine. I felt like I didn't belong.

Really disconnected. Aggravated that no one seemed to care. Took years to reflect on my experiences & expectations coming home. I remember feeling like my sacrifice was not appreciated so it felt very insignificant to me. I never talked about my deployment afterwards and to this day feel awkward bringing it up to people.