Songfacts®:

• This is a track from Rifles & Rosary Beads, an album co-written by Mary Gauthier with US veterans and their families. She told UK newspaper The Sun:
  
  "'The War After the War' is a song about what veterans wives go through when their partners return home wounded. It was co-written with six spouses, and the words are theirs. They often feel invisible, yet they carry the full weight of war every bit as much as a soldier. They are soldiers too, absolutely."
• Mary Gauthier is part of an organization called Songwriting With Soldiers, a nonprofit that pairs professional songwriters with veterans. She wrote Rifles & Rosary Beads from the stories the former soldiers told her about their experiences on the frontline.
  
  "We just create a safe environment and we bear witness and non-judgment to their stories. We sit and listen, and then we turn it into a song with their approval. So they get the final say whether it's right or whether we need to work some more," Gauthier told The Boot. "The process is very cathartic. There's almost always emotion involved - especially because they're wounded and they're carrying a lot of trauma."