WASHINGTON—Honoring Veterans Day is about remembering the sacrifices of the fallen and the struggles of those soldiers who come home wounded by war.
It’s about pondering the toll of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the over-stressed less than one percent of the American population that actually serves in the military, and this year it forces the country to ask whether General David H. Petraeus and his family are part of that wider toll.
This Veterans Day falls amid the wreckage of one of the most distinguished military careers in modern history, and what those who know Petraeus well say is an uncharacteristic failure of judgment and lack of discipline.
It turns out that the venerated four-star general is perhaps not so different from the 800,000 men and women who have served multiple combat tours, many of them suffering the strains and invisible wounds that can fracture families, break marriages and crush spirits.
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