Another excellent film on the homecoming aspect of this is The Best Years of Our Lives. Not 100% on your point, but Dana Andrews' character does reflect a certain part of your OP theme - in particular, he had it much better in the war than he did back in the world.

Yes, it is dated and filmed in black and white. Yes, Dana Andrews' acting was just a little off-key with the rest of the film (but I think, in hindsight, he kind of just looks "not great" by comparison - and he does hold his own in some scenes with Frederic March - no small feat). However, brilliant film from beginning to end - capturing the physical, mental and emotional damage to soldiers returning from a fairly positive overall war experience.

Nice juxtaposition, too. Frederic March plays a middle-aged, well-to-do banker who serves as an infantry top sergeant during the war. Dana Andrews plays a kid in the prime of his life - literally from the wrong side of the tracks, who serves as an Army Air Corps officer and returns to his humble parents and trashy blonde bimbo wife. Harold Russell plays a fresh out of HS and into the Navy kid who loses his arms and has to deal with returning to his lower middle class home, the literal girl next door girlfriend and prosthetic hooks in place of arms and hands.

Harold Russell (because no Lieutenant Dan CGI back then, won the part, essentially because he was convincing enough and was actually missing his forearms/hands and used prosthetic hooks) won a competitive Oscar for his role the first (and only) I believe for a non-professional actor in such a category. He was also awarded a special, non-competitive award because the powers-that-be did not consider him a serious threat to win the competitive award - making him doubly rare in that he won 2 Oscars for the same performance.

Truly a great film - one of our first dramatic portrayals of PTSD and March and Russell deliver some of the most memorable and mesmerizing portrayals of veterans I've ever seen. Myra Loy is solid as March's wife, as well as Teresa Wright who plays March's daughter (and gets involved with Dana Andrews character, despite his being married).

This post was edited on 10/9/15 at 7:24 pm