Read this from Walt Whitman, and find it still relevant today:
The Real War Will Never Get in the Books
To the ... [men} stricken by wounds... at some time in the course of the contest were of more significance even than the politcal interests involved. Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and interiors...the real war will never get in the books.
Glad you're home, D.