By Gianluca Cinelli

America has struggled to reintegrate soldiers returning from overseas since the Second World War, as John Houston’s documentary, Let There Be Light (1946), shows. Houston’s film, initially rejected by the military, was broadcast only in 1981- that is, by no chance, one year after the American Psychiatric Association had coined the famous acronym PTSD. For decades, the problem of psychologically injured veterans remained taboo within the military, and those affected by posttraumatic syndromes were forced to hide their pain away, deal with it alone, and pretend they were strong and never in need of help. By the early 1980s, though, the US were flooded with traumatised veterans from Vietnam, who struggled to go back to their civilian status and find their rightful place in society. Many of them became homeless, addicted to drugs and alcohol, as their families broke up and their social bonds dissolved. A recent report states that “despite comprising less than seven percent of the United States’ adult population, veterans make up over eight percent of the incarcerated population within United States jails and prisons” (Gallagher 2026). As the US engaged actively in international wars since 1991, deploying tens of thousands of servicemen and servicewomen overseas, the number of veterans returning with physical, psychological and spiritual injuries increased dramatically.

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The Veterans Journey Home project is an initiative of Warrior Films, consisting of five documentaries written and shot by director Frederick Marx. The five documentaries, available on the Warrior Films’ website (https://warriorfilms.org/veterans-journey-home-2/), are Solutions (15 minutes), Ben’s Story (53 minutes), Kalani’s Story (30 minutes), On Black Mountain (49 minutes), and Leaving it on the Land (80 minutes). Each of them explores one aspect of war trauma in veterans, with and without combat experience. By letting the protagonists of his stories speak directly, Marx unfolds touching narratives that trigger empathy and compassion, not only for the veterans but also for their friends and families…

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The same sun scorched downtown Los Angeles that had seared the Iraq desert. Army Private First Class Samantha Cummings stood at attention holding a stack of boxes, her unwashed black hair slicked back in a ponytail and knotted military style. She stared out from Roberts Shoe Store onto Broadway, transfixed by a homeless man with hair and scraggly beard the color of ripe tomatoes. She’d only seen that hair color once before, on Staff Sergeant Daniel O’Conner.

The man pushed his life in a shopping cart crammed with rags and stuffed trash bags. He glanced at Sam through the storefront window, his bloated face layered with dirt. His eyes had the meander of drink in them.

Sam hoped hers didn’t. Since her return from Bagdad a year ago, her craving for alcohol sneaked up on her like an insurgent. Bathing took effort. She ate to exist. Friends disappeared. Her life started to look like the crusted bottom of her shot glass.

The morning hangover began its retreat to the back of her head.

The homeless man vanished down Broadway. She carried the boxes to the storeroom.

In 2012, Sam passed as an everywoman: white, black, brown, Asian. She was a coffee colored Frappuccino. Frap. That’s what the soldiers nicknamed her. Her mother conceived her while on ecstasy during the days of big hair and shoulder pads. On Sam’s eighteenth birthday, she enlisted in the Army. She wanted a job and an education. But most of all she wanted to be part of a family…