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ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, 2007. “When we first buried my son,” Paula Zwillinger says, “I would look around the cemetery and count the stones in his row. Then it got to the point where there was another row, and another row, so now I don’t count…

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, 2007. An Iraq war veteran close to tears crouches down beside the grave of a friend in Section 60. Said to be suffering from extreme PTSD after surviving five IED explosions, he has lost many of his closest friends to the war.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, 2007. Two young boys play in a tree across from Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, the area designated for those in the military who have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. Army Colonel Paul Michael Kelly, 45,…

DEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, 2008. Despite the surgical setbacks, Nelida feels progress is being made. “In the beginning,” she says, “Jose was not feeling pain. If you touched his head or rubbed it too hard or pried open his fingers, he didn’t feel…

WEST ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS, 2008. When the doctors first called to tell Nelida about her son, all they could say was, “What a terrible waste; he’s going to die.” But they somehow stabilized him. He was in a coma, on a breathing machine, then…

WEST ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS, 2008. Having lost 40% of his brain in the explosion, Jose spent three years in military hospitals and underwent nearly two dozen surgeries. “At this point,” his sister, Elizabeth, says, “he cannot walk, talk, drink,…

WEST ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS, 2008. Nelida Bagley slips into the darkened room on the fourth floor of the VA Medical Center, puts her lips to her son’s forehead, reaches for his hands to unclench them. “You’re upset, aren’t you, that I left…

RAMSEY, MINNESOTA, 2007. “Why did you have to go and do that? Why did you do it to yourself?” Clarissa asks. Jonathan had been placed on a waiting list—he was number 26—at a Minnesota VA Hospital after allegedly telling counselors that he was…

RAMSEY, MINNESOTA, 2007. Clarissa Russell was twenty-two when she met Jonathan Schulze. “A very good-looking guy, a Marine,” she said. She knew Jonny had been in Iraq, but he would very seldom talk about the war. Only later did she learn that he…

MINERAL, ILLINOIS, 2008. The day Dusty returned from Iraq, his longtime friend, Sarah, rushed to him and gave him a big hug. If she’d noticed the changes in me, he explained, she didn’t show it. “It was just that Dusty was home.” The two…