ANOTHER WAR, BUT NOT ONE WITH BOMBS

Sometimes, they dream what they have given up. The feel of drugs in their
brains. The rush of drugs through their chests and arms and fingertips.
Maybe they sweat in their sleep. Maybe their hearts pound.

Then they wake up. They wake up with a powerful craving.

"The dreams will go on for a month or more," says Doug Van Scoy, director
of the Salvation Army's substance abuse program.

Of the 175 to 200 men who pass through the Army's 90-day program each year,
he says, "98 percent use crack (cocaine) or a combination of drugs and
alcohol."

Modern pharmacology makes the pure alcoholic seem almost quaint. But as any
recovering alcoholic will tell you, for self-destruction, an excess of
alcohol remains effective.

In life, there is more than one kind of war. The one being fought in a
second-floor Salvation Army dormitory in Greenville is America's longest.
Here, war is intensely personal. It is witheringly fierce.

Only about one-third of those who begin the 90 days will make it though.
And even then, when those 90 days are up, the war won't be over. A landmine
will lie ahead, Van Scoy says. "When they go back to the same neighborhood
they came from and the same friends."

The Army's alcohol and drug rehabilitation program for men has existed for
a number of years. Something similar for women is in the planning stages.

The men's program involves individual and group counseling, A.A. meetings,
high school equivalency classes, Bible study and 40 hours a week of work in
the Thrift Store or the kitchen or in housekeeping. No one leaves the grounds.

The program can accommodate 24 men at a time, in six spare rooms. Breakfast
is at 6 a.m., chapel at 7:30 a.m., curfew at 9 p.m.

One evening a month, in the dining hall of the Salvation Army compound,
victories are acknowledged. Certificates are handed out to the newest
graduates. Tuesday night, there were four.

The audience was small, composed of others in the program, two previous
graduates, Van Scoy, Stanley Melton - commanding officer of the Greenville
corps - Melton's wife, Carlene, and a sister and a friend of a graduate.

The graduates wore jackets and ties. Kevin Lewis. James Cannon. Capers
Owens. James L. Robinson.

Van Scoy called them to the podium, one by one, shook their hands and gave
them framed certificates with "special recognition" printed on them, among
other words.

Lewis held his certificate in both hands. He kept looking at it. Pride
burned in his face. Robinson, when called to the podium, broke into an
elated grin. As did Cannon. As did Owens.

When Owens spoke, dignity struggled with emotion. He said, "This illness I
have, it took me a long time to accept what it was. I thought it was going
to take everything away from me."

The graduates embraced with the joy and thankfulness of survivors in
wartime. Survivors of an old war, and one much closer than Afghanistan.