Those that have been through it, say that the experience of being in a combat zone is like no other. It is all consuming.  In so many ways it eliminates the real world of life and its mundane everyday chores and problems.  
Yet the men and women engaged in that effort, bring with them a life experience composed of precisely those problems.  Sometimes the military is a means of escape, sometimes a training ground for life, frequently life changing.  Yet most soldiers, men and women alike, must return to that real world. And when they do, everything changes once again.
That’s the story that Helen Thorpe tells about three women in Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War.
My conversation with Helen Thorpe:

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