It’s been four months and 10 days since my little brother Dylan left for Iraq. Like most with families whose loved ones are serving in the war, I’m terrified. If Dylan comes back, he’ll be a changed man.

When he had been in Iraq for less than two weeks, he’d already been confronted by the grave reality of his job: as he kept watch from his tower, he noticed a potentially dangerous civilian emerge from his car and head toward my brother’s base. My brother aimed his gun at him as a precaution. He glanced back to the civilian’s car and noticed the man’s infant son, sitting in its backseat staring at my brother.

“No wonder they’re so paranoid here,” Dylan wrote.

That very paranoia has spread like an infectious disease into my mind and many others who are nervously awaiting soldiers’ returns.

Although the news and other media spend countless hours updating us on the political side of the war, there is little out there that shows the anguish of the families who have to deal with the personal side of it. Our country is tense with fear – a significant chunk of its youth is sprayed like spray paint over a far-off battleground – but all we hear about is our skyrocketing national debt. Perhaps it’s better that way – after all, what can we do?

When a suicide bomber exploded in Dylan’s dining facility this past December, the only reason he wasn’t a victim was because he randomly decided to skip lunch that day. We waited for four days to learn that although the men killed were in his very brigade, he was not one of them. Yet we all felt overpoweringly helpless.

I correspond online with a man named Jay, 25, who says he’s a soldier currently serving in Iraq.

“The hardest thing for my family is the constant worry that if the phone rings, it’ll be bad news,” Jay said. “The hardest thing for me is being here for a year and not seeing my daughter.”

When Jay returns, his family will most likely be overjoyed. But will Jay?

A common side effect of having been in such an unstable environment for so long is posttraumatic stress – a problem the U.S. Army is trying to salvage by a simple step recovery program. But with a skeleton program and thousands of soldiers undergoing extreme stress, how well off will these soldiers be?

The results of war are rarely pleasant. Families are changed forever and some soldiers are scarred for life. If there were a simple answer, you can bet I’d be giving it to you right now. But since that is impossible, we should all try and take steps to feel as though we’re not so helpless after all: buy ribbon stickers voice our support, and write letters to our soldiers overseas. We can also use our voices by writing letters to our congressmen and elected officials – when soldiers do come home, they should have proper use of veterans services and facilities, many of which have been drastically consolidated and compromised (Illinois has the worst record for this in all 50 states). Lastly, we should have a conscience. Our media may not focus on our country’s heartbeat, but it’s there.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.