The decompression is a great thing, of course I wanted to come home just as badly as anyone else, I enjoyed my 4 days in Limassol, and aside from a few MINOR events, it went well, those who got in shit were taken off booze and that was that. Troops coming out of theatre need a third location to relax in, a place where they can be with their buddies, blow off some steam, and go on a little bit of a bender with those buddies. As for your comment about alcohol being a tool for the weak to relax, I won't even bother, others have chimed in on that, and those others know what they're talking about.
Piper, cops that get in the shit normally get a critical incident debriefing shortly after its all over and done with. Theres a big difference between that, and getting in the shit overseas. There was one time when anyone from the Psych part of the medical branch came out to the field to chat with us, and that was the day before I got on the Chinook out of the field.. and it wasn't anything formal, just a Col walking around having a chat with the troops, which was nice, but could have been better served somewhere else in the tour (i.e post OP Medusa). At no point after any of our engagements did we take time to chat with the padre about it, we watched our arcs and kept working, it would be nice to have incident debriefings quickly, but it's just not possible.
As for the professionalism, I agree 100%, but like you said, they came back from something you haven't been close to doing, and thats where it ends for you. People are reading into this way too much, a few guys got loaded, got in a fight, and then the police came. There's nothing different there than a scrap happening at the River Club, or any bar district in Canada on a weekend for that matter. These guys represent the Canadian Forces, but like everywhere in society, it takes 1 person to screw it up for the rest of us.
It's easy to armchair quarterback and look down on people.