Soldiers Turn To Hurling For Peace

All Things Considered:

Hurling — not to be confused with the winter sport of curling — is a combination of football, ice hockey and lacrosse. Picture guys in helmets with sticks: They use the flat end to whack a fist-sized ball up the field, on the ground or in the air. There's checking, a lot of scrambling for the ball, and sprinting — and the pitch is even longer than a football field.
Celtic warriors brought this high-contact field sport to Ireland thousands of years ago. But its physical intensity and fast pace still attract soldiers today.
"I've said that stepping off the pitch is something like stepping off the field of battle or coming off a mission," says National Guard Capt. Rob Burnham, who is a member of the Barley House Wolves, a hurling club in Concord, N.H.
He says more than half of his teammates are combat veterans.
"It's something healthy, something physical that allows you to blow off some steam. And something to look forward to that's different than being member of, say, the VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars]," he says.

That's pretty neat.  I've never actually watched hurling, but I understand it is absolutely a brutal sport.  Im glad they find something to do together to blow off steam, although it is worrying thinking about the guy saying he just feels nervous around civilians all the time.  What these guys have gone through might make some sense in a worthy cause, but I don't think the wars we've sent them to quite qualify.  The hardships these guys have suffered are much worse than the benefits we've extracted by sending them to fight.  We owe them greatly, and I wish them the best in the future.