"Mr. Swift was among thousands of young men who flooded to Kyiv from the West, including American veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many said they were drawn to the cause of a democratic country resisting a larger autocratic one.
But there was another side to Mr. Swift’s quest, as revealed in interviews with his colleagues and a memoir he published online under a pseudonym. Mr. Swift was part of a large group who spent years fighting America’s war on terror and have struggled
to settle back into civilian life.
The military has acknowledged the impact on servicemembers and their families, particularly special forces, who suffered the outsized casualties during the later years of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Long deployments have pushed up divorce rates, while suicides among special forces spiked to the highest in the military. The government has launched programs to help lessen the psychological burden on spouses as well as troops.
Daniel Glenn, a psychologist who works with veterans at the University of California, Los Angeles, said many tell him that the U.S. military does a great job preparing them to go to war, but not to return from it.
“They’ve been in some of the most intense, dangerous, awful situations. They’re really good at that,” he said. “Comparatively, back in the civilian world, everything feels mundane. It’s hard to have anything that feels like a rush or makes
you feel alive.”
Many of the men who fought with Mr. Swift said this feeling was part of what drew them to Ukraine. "
https://www.wsj.com/articles/navy-seal-ukraine-daniel-swift-a97491cd
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