In the face of a political “common-sense” that the post-9/11 wars have been absent from the public domain, I focus on the figure of the traumatized US soldier who, I content, is the war as it appears on the home-front. I ask, What political work does this figure do? What has been asked of those citizens “who have not served” (the so-called “civilians”) vis-à-vis those who went to war and now suffer its consequences? Most broadly, I explore the ways in which an ethics of care (even if largely a rhetorical one) displaces the possibility of politics itself—that is, it displaces a critical and urgent reckoning with the last 20 years of what have come to be named the Forever Wars. Sponsored by Peace and Justice Studies, Student Engagement, International Studies, Sociology, and the Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center.