Veterans, Online, in Their Own Words

For all its ongoing financial trouble, you have to give The New York Times credit for exemplary Web work. Last week, the paper ran a remarkable interactive feature of Michelle Obama's family tree, and even asked readers to chime in if they could add information to her tree's missing branches.

Among the other gems is the "Home Fires" section. Subtitled "American Veterans on the Post-War Life," it's a blog that gives U.S. veterans a chance to tell their own, often moving stories of life at home after war.

Right now, the veterans featured on the site include a mix of men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's one thing to look at our ongoing wars as historical and political events. It's another thing entirely to see them through the eyes of people who have been there and back, often with scars to show for it, be those physical or psychological.

In a posting this week, Michael Jernigan's "Living the Dream" talks about his post-traumatic stress symptoms and the variety of recurring nightmares he experiences. In one, he is alone in an Iraqi city at night. He's lost his gun -- which is a big no-no for Marines -- and has repeatedly had to engage in hand-to-hand combat in darkened hovels and alleyways to attempt to get it back. Along the way, he recovers the firearms of other soldiers, but never his own.

Many Americans live every day with the legacy of fighting these wars, and it's good that the Times has gone the extra mile to show what life is like for those who carry the scars.

Photo courtesy of The U.S. Army, via Flickr