This can greatly affect the family because the relationship between the returned veteran and his family can be questioned as to whether or not it will be reestablished. E. James Lieberman explains to us how this can be a crisis in his article American Families and the Vietnam War. He states that In a few cases the husband's absence was welcomed outright; in others the wife's loneliness was partly compensated for by her new responsibilities and stature, which she was not inclined to give up; hence, a crisis of reunion(Lieberman 709). It all depends on how the family defines the return of the veteran. In the play we can see the way that the Mother has different ways of defining the Fathers return, which can be either vague or bitter.
Not only can we see that war causes veterans and families to be very irritable to one another, but also it also causes a loss of motivation due to such a big traumatic event such as injury or health problem or losing a friend or loved one. In the case that we see in the play, I think that it is mostly the stress of coming home after deployment, or retirement, even if such a life event does not seem traumatic. Some people that come back from the war seem to have lost interest in many things, even though theres not an obvious explanation. In Rachel Dekels article, she tells us how the same motivation is lost with the wives of the returned soldiers in her article Being a Wife of a Veteran with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. She states that The wives engaged in an ongoing struggle to maintain their separateness from their husbands to preserve sanity, autonomy, and independence (Dekel 32). Note that the wife also goes through a lot also because of the stressful moment of the veterans return. It is safe to say that the effects of stress can cause a lot of pressure to the head of the household.
As we know now, newly returning veterans are at risk for depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and alcohol use disorders.