Why the Mount Dessert Island Historical (MDI) Society Matters for PTSD: Another Fundraising Opportunity

As I have indicated before, I use running to manage my anger, to keep my weight down while taking miztazapine, to help me stay present, and to connect with others who like to push themselves further everyday. Occasionally I am asked to run in order to raise money for a worthy charity and I am compelled to do what I can. Also, it is great to support established charities in order to gain more experience fundraising. I hope I can carry the lessons learned into fundraisers for the The Military Experience and Arts and Team Red, White and Blue in the future. With all the cognitive problems I have with mTBI, I need to practice things a few times before I can get the hang of them and these charities both help worthy causes and teaching me the ropes of fundraising.

In addition to my running I try to hit the trail every weekend with my wife and our dog Darby, because I think making new memories and observing beauty is as valuable as therapy. I used to think you could replace old memories with new ones, but I think that is impossible with trauma. However, getting out on mountains, pushing myself physically and being rewarded with their beautiful summits centers me as well as anything else. Living less than two hours away from Acadia National Park, has made MDI one of the most significant places in my life and for my family. I proposed to my wife on Cadillac Mountain, we were married in Northeast Harbor, and out favorite post hike restaurant knows us by name-it helps to bring a giant Rhodesian Ridgeback every visit.

Darby on Cadillac Mountain

While it is great that this location is significant for my life and my renegotiation of place following Iraq, it may seem unimportant to others suffering from PTSD, and the family members that support them. Nothing could be further from the truth. My colleague, Tim Garrrity, who works there is exploring a topic vital to our understanding of the difficulties suffered by military spouses. His research explores a spike in women's deaths during the Civil War and popular notions of death as a result of broken hearts. While MDI's population was far to small to justify general claims about military spousal deaths after Civil War it provides local context for a phenomenon that could have occurred more broadly. His small study, if emulated by other scholars, has a lot of potential to broaden our understandings of the difficulties suffered by military spouses. This coupled with the research of Erick Dean Jr, and Diane Miller Sommerville on Nostalgia and Confederate suicides as a forerunners to PTSD has the potential to provide deeper understanding of how trauma affected Civil War actors.

My wife is raising funds too.

For me it was a no brainer to support this cause. I love local history, I think the exploration of war's affect on the home is as important as its affect on the fighters, I love MDI, I love running, and I love helping out friends when they ask for it. For you it may be harder to justify helping the MDI Historical Society, but history is important and there is such a narrow field of scholars, and a slimmer number of historians, that value the study war's affect on the home. These posts can average over 500 views and if everyone gave a couple of dollars it would reach the society's goal and really make a difference. I know money is tight for vets, but just $2.62 (donate here) from several people will go along way to support such a worthy cause led by a scholar committed to studying women's history in relationship to war. If you can't support it financially share the post with others and maybe others can help. For me I have found that supporting worthy causes reminds me that my life was always committed to service, and that I should not change just because of the burdens caused by previous service. If nothing else find a cause to support and raise some money for it or give it your time and effort. Giving makes you feel good no matter how hard life gets. Sometimes I get so stuck on my own baggage that I forget to do the basic things that bring you the most joy, like charity and helping others.

Seconds Away From Suicide: Readily Will I Display...

On the 5th of April, I burned my wrist pretty badly while making some home-brew. My wife had the car at the time, but, before I would even call for help, I had to clean the wort off the floor (wort is beer before yeast is added). I saved all of the wort so I could finish that batch. The Ranger creed may seem like a silly mechanism to discuss suicide, but the Ranger creed is what saved my life when I had loaded gun in my hand. This example of me cleaning up my mess before even calling someone in order to go to the emergency room illustrates just how the sixth stanza of the Ranger is webbed into fabric of my being. It is what prevented me from taking my own life.

Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on the the Ranger objective and complete my mission, though I be the lone survivor. Rangers lead the way.

After I came home from the Surge, I could no longer conceal the problems I had for years. In crowds, I got so overwhelmed that I would almost pass out. I had to stop driving because I almost ran off the road twice, when I thought there were IEDS. Panic attacks almost made me lose consciousness. The mTBI symptoms were worse then, limited spatial awareness and vertigo characterized my life. When my neurologist recommended an inpatient program, my battalion executive officer told the personnel officer that he did "not have time to deal with a Captain with PTSD and mTBI," while I sat outside his office. I was the most battle tested officer in that battalion, and I felt like Boxer from Animal Farm: once I was used up, my battalion was happy to ship me off to the glue factory. My doctor stuck to his guns and I went to an inpatient program in Richmond, Virginia, and then in Salisbury, North Carolina. During my hospitalization my ex-wife decided that her chemistry professor was a better choice.

Needless to say, life was not going well and I was leaving the Army just days after getting out of a hospital. I was packing up my home to put it on the market when I looked at a Beretta pistol. Why not end it all right now? The unit I fought in for years thought I was a piece of shit, my family had not even seen me after I came home, and my wife was shopping around for a replacement. I still had the hospital bracelet on and now I was about to be on the street alone. No pay, no purpose, no family, no support at all. Just alone in my thoughts. I cocked the gun, but before I could lift it up my Ranger brain took to action.

The flood of the, stress chemical, cortisol, was something I had become accustomed to using in combat. In most cases you use the surge of cortisol to fight or fly, but as an officer I employed it to think through outcomes. When I held that gun in my hand I thought through what would happen. The Army would do nothing... I would just be another number. Maybe friends might find out, and be more sensitive when they had soldiers struggling with PTSD.  Probably not though, they always had their soldiers' best interests at mind. My mother would be devastated, but my father would just write my suicide into his latest narrative of war making me a sinner, and turning me against God.

Serendipitously, my boots from Ranger school were in my eye-line and reminded me of what I was capable of handling. Sure I wanted all of that to end, but I felt that way in Ranger school too. I used to say to myself, "I don't want to quit, I just want this to end." When you're walking in the middle of a swamp no one is coming in with a jungle penetrator to take you home. I would just make it to the next rest halt. This was the same, but what was the point? What was my purpose anymore? I left the Army because I wanted to make a difference with my pen. All of my "disabilities" were going to make that nearly impossible. So you're saying there is a chance. I was never a smart Ranger anyway, I was always a tough one. Everyday I was at sick call getting something drained, taking crazy low distribution antibiotics, getting all the skin taken of the bottom of my foot, yet everyday I would smile while humming the Ranger school hymn, "I'll Fly Away."

I knew how to find my way in misery; without thought I dropped the magazine, removed all the rounds and threw them into the woods. At the time I had no idea of what my mission was, but I was damn sure going to fight onto that objective. The whole world seemed to have turned on me, but, so what, just hum that hymn, drive on and somewhere in the process I will figure out how to get better, or learn how to enjoy the suck. I kept one Ranger school boot on my desk and one on my dresser so I would always be able to remember what I was capable of overcoming.

I can't tell you why things got so bad for me, but what I do know is that I did nothing to cause it or deserve it. I certainly am not weaker than I was before. If anything I am tougher mentally than my body is physically, and I should take it easier when my body is giving me queues like "Hey stupid, your wrist has second degree burns on it... someone else can clean the floor later on."  More importantly, when you have stepped up to save your own life, every milestone gets a little sweeter. My relentless mission focus is, more often, an annoying characteristic that pushes me way too  hard, but it also brought me through the most difficult time in my life. A time when I had no support at all. Now when I hold my wife, play with my dog, drink with my friends, and work with my colleagues, I am so grateful for the man that pushed on when there was no indication that I could never make a positive impact on the lives of others again.

You can see my burn and Darby's awesomeness

When we were kids we never think that, "seconds away from suicide," would end up on our bucket list, but I am so happy that I had the courage to live on unashamed. I have been lucky enough to put more on my bucket list after that day than I would have had the courage to dream of as a child. I hated Ranger school, but, like in combat, its ideals have never let me down when the world becomes dangerous or chaotic. It is often said that the Army never trained us for coming home, and that is generally correct, but it did teach us values. Learning to translate core values into a life out of uniform saved my life, and I would be lost without things like the Army Values, Warrior Ethos, and the Ranger creed. The road home is not easy and it sucks more often than not, but that doesn't mean that its is not something you can't enjoy or find fulfilling. It certainly beats Ranger School.

Remembering The Boston Marathon Attack: There Were More Heroes than Villains Today

A Veteran from TRWB using his shirt as a bandage

It is often assumed that the memory of an event is solely based on what actually happened, rather than a process that occurs overtime and through a purposeful process. Like many other veterans, this day was harder for me because all the images of carnage conjured up memories of similar tragedies. I have been watching the images and has sent me back to the aftermaths of suicide bomber attacks on civilians. That is my weight to bear and is less important than trying to make sense of days like today. All of the television footage of the explosions do not hold a candle to what was actually experienced.

With the shock-wave of high explosives sensations of heat and concussion hit you before your brain can process the image. So the television cameras are less of  an expression of the actual experience, instead, they provide an illusion of clarity. When you see people still running forward its because their brains haven't even put two and two together yet. It is worse for the injured because they are physically affected by the injuries prior to even full rationalization of what is happening.

When you come to a location after a bombing, people have almost no understanding of their injuries. The adrenaline of the attack will cover up the pain, but there is still such a look of terror. I was just standing here and there was this loud noise, heat, pain, and I am now on the ground. The emotional shock of the event almost overpowers the physical aspects until the chemical groups that manage adrenaline fade away. Medical professionals call this the golden hour. Shell Shock was the moniker of the First World War because it speaks to the confusion and chaos that goes on in the brain in the wake of explosions like today's. These chemicals often damage memory and will always make these memories difficult without the tragic nature of their content.

Watching the images of people on the ground just looking around aimlessly illustrates how the events are much more chaotic for people present. The capturing of multiple still images does very little to capture it. Just think of the smell of it. You never forget those smells and anything that reminds me of the smell of burning flesh make me sick for weeks.

Despite the horror and misery that these poor runners and bystanders absorbed today, no justice for the terrorist(s) who did this will make it right. The important part of the narrative that will diminish over time is the human capacity for compassion illustrated by this tragedy. It is important that we remember the good that was demonstrated today. Watch the video. One person or a small group of people did this, but before the smoke cleared people were running to help. You could see some bleeding themselves and doing all they could to save others.

That doesn't make everything better, but when things like this happen it is important to note that when one or maybe ten people conspire to do something this terrible, hundreds of people will rush into that danger to help others. There is no divorcing today's attack from the tragic impact it has made on the lives of the injured, but it is another reminder that their will always be many more people rushing to help. Some people have no problem doing terrible things to innocent people, but more people will fight to help the injured. In senseless tragedies we see the worst of a few people, but the best of so many more. It doesn't make the suffering from today's events any less acute, but it does speak to the human spirit and how we can stand in the face of tragedy. In the coming weeks we are going to be bombarded with what went wrong today, and I am sure there may be some finite oversights that could have prevented this. However, there were many more good people stepping up as heroes than there were terrorists using the misery of the innocent to draw attention to their cause. We would be wise not to forget this hard earned fact, that many more first responders and bystanders did all they could to save lives today.

Combat Narratives Part 2

Our first official campaign was against the Iraqi Republican Guard, a highly trained mechanized division under Saddam Hussein. They never ran from or surrender to our overwhelming force.  The 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division had over 20,000 enemy kills in three campaigns. My crew was the spear tip and I drove for 172 hours in the largest tank battle in the history of war in the 100 Hour Ground War. The Army VII Corps' mission was to cut off the Iraqi Republican Guard supply lines before our descent into Kuwait and attack, attack, attack everything along the way.

My squad

Blazing 50 Mph across the sands towards the front line, my 32 ton combat loaded Bradley drove over a sand dune into a landmine field stopping us in our tracks and throwing everyone inside forward. Sgt Tickle flipped out and started cussing why we had stopped and I could hear my captain in the background cursing. As they both continued the barrage of swearing and demanding I screamed, “Shut the fuck up and look out your window, we're in a landmine field!” As reality sunk in, I assessed our trajectory into the field and found we had landed at an angle and missed detonating a single mine. What took less than two seconds to get into, took us about 15 to 20 minutes to get out of. A paltry amount of time when you have all you need; but our job was to guide our tanks into battle. Being 20 minutes late was not an option. In this moment we melded as a squad, we had becoming one body. I felt a welling of emotions circling despair; I was to succumb or prevail and tuned into my machine, environment and crew in a way I had never experienced.

Sgt T had to stand out of his hatch exposed giving directions to thread us back through our tracks laid, without any deviance from the trail. Sgt Tickle to me, “Straight, stop! Left back, stop. Right, back, stop. Forward left, stop!” As I was driving blind as my thoughts went to a conversation we had the night before. I was complaining about driving for two days straight without sleep, and Sgt Tickle says, “The only way your backup driver is going to drive is if you are dead! Got that soldier?” Welling with pride from the high praise to his biggest pain in the ass private. I had his implicit trust and felt respected and honored. The instant bond enabled me too read the inflections in his voice, his marked tone indicating we were on the track in the sand. An abrupt, “Straight ahead! Right, straight, left.”

Me

I kept an eye on the horizon for the enemy and the ground for unexploded ordnance, not just for me but my brigade to follow. The problem compounded by staying awake for days peering out four periscopes ranging from 8 o'clock to 1:00 o'clock in the heat with fatigue and boredom made it especially hard at night watching the one-inch by half-inch red nighttime lights on the rear my leading vehicles. One on the right most vehicle of the 1st brigade and the left most of the 2nd brigade; my first job was to keep in between each with a mile in between in a reversed diamond figure with 3rd brigade on the rear single point. Keeping my eyes on two read lights on the back of vehicles 1 to 2 miles from me became a dancing ritual of fidgeting and flexing my body and wiggling and squinting to stay awake. After two days of no sleep, I though four days would be impossible – seven days only if my life depended on it.

Before we went into battle while sitting on a ridge waiting our orders I watched the Multiple Long Range Rocket systems launched live rounds from behind, hailing the night with eerily beautiful red streaks filling the horizons. Underneath the belly of the deadly mosaic red lines our Apache helicopters erupted with Hell-fire missiles, snaking through the air without aim and at the last-minute ministering vaporizing showers of demise. Coming through the nighttime curtain of fire where our artillery rounds lobbing to find their targets with a core shaking boom, boom, boom resounding a boosted repetition of bursting bombs rending reality from unlucky enemy crews. Beneath the Apaches our M1A Main Battle Tanks were firing and hitting the enemy tanks with columns of flame erupting 100 feet in the air, flipping turrets end over end atop jets of roiling plasma. In the closest I saw bodies rendered, splayed and sprayed within the ejecta in showers of molten metal and steel. The first a religious experience, the next several thousand was getting the job done. I heard somewhere from the muted distant, “Move out!”

Dodging bursting bombs while wreathing and fracking my spine. God help me! He answered, smothering me with heaps and mounds of apathy. Driving through eruptions of earth and reason, exploding ordnance ringing off the edges of my Bradley as shock waves tumble through my steel trap. Bracing against my slanted seat and butterfly steering wheel and driving the blade deep into the enemy. The physics of war upending earth all around as we thread between artillery rounds, to the right one of our Bradley's throw track in a hard turn in the sand. I slammed the gear in reverse and backed out of the artillery barrage driving 50 mph trusting my Track Commander with his steady sharp commands of, “Left, right. Straight.” I was watching as the lobbing bombs attempting to find our target, “Boom!” and a pause further away, “Boom.” Sgt Tickle says, “Right! Straight. Left, right, left.”

We pulled back far enough to dismount and watched one of our Bradley's repair track in an artillery barrage inside a ferocious tank battle set against the fiery sky. After letting down the back troop-hatch to let the guys get a breather, I got out to join them so we can watch our guys changing track. It took them and outstanding 15 minutes of a 45 min process. As we stood together on the back hatch watching the battle, we begin to hear a pesky whistling sound coming in, louder and louder. As we all started looking around, KA-BOOM! The heated blast rung my ears and my skin went dry, just out of the kill zone considering none of us took any shrapnel. I was in the driver's seat from the back landing hatch screaming at our team before half of them got in, “Get your fucking asses in!” As I started to raise the rear dismount hatch, looking back over the gear as the last soldier jumped in as the seal set shut. My head was ringing as I slapped the driver's hatch release for the second time; combat operations when the drivers hatch door clangs.

Somewhere in the blazing haze of timelessness after our third engagement Private E1 and PFC Lee's assignment was the cleaning our dead vehicles of weapons and intelligence. We were walking side by side each taking a 180 degree sector to scan. Our M16's slung in the ready as I look off into at scorched earthed damns hiding distorted hulking bombed out shells, shuddering and wondering how anything survived and where all the bodies were. Private E1 says “Lee, check this out!” With his right foot cocked back ready to kick tuna fish looking can with shinny spider legs. Instantaneously I grabbed him and his gear pitching us both over, body slamming Private E1. Then jumped up cussing, “You stupid ass mother-fucker! You almost kicked one of our air-dispersal anti-personnel mines!” I was not recommending him for a promotion.

Combat Narratives Part 1

The soldiers of Delta Company, 6th battalion, 6th Infantry of the 1st Armored Division were sitting around the television in Bamberg, Germany. Rumors were going around that we would be called up and mobilized to go to Operation Desert Shield. The scrolling list of divisions being activated for deployment came down to ours, my heart sank. I was trembling and knew if an armored division was going that I would see combat. Feeding the rumors was our abrupt training from the boxy Vietnam era M119 armored personnel carries to new $2.5 million Bradley Fighting Vehicles. I was a Private First Class 11 Bravo with a brand new Expert Infantry Badge. The 11 Bravo's mission was running 5 miles one day and force march 7 miles with full ruck sacks the next, 6 days a week while the Bradley crews trained to drive, fight and command.

Dco 6th/6th Infantry, 1st AD

Late in the day our captain called us into the hallway outside his office and read the orders. It was then I decided to become a driver instead of the 11 Bravo dismounting and clearing trenches out the back of our Bradley. It was fun in training, but I didn't think it would be in combat. It turned out that our driver wasn't taking his job serious so I stepped up and asked to take his place. The next day I was sitting in the driver's seat familiarizing myself with the controls. I caught on pretty quick except for the steering was tricky, you have to give it gas to turn and the brakes consists of letting off the gas pedal. We went out everyday to train on a two-week threshold till we had to load up our vehicles to ship them out, I didn't receive the 3 months of training everyone else did.

In two weeks I learned how to drive my Bradley Fighting Vehicle before we loaded them up at the rail yard. During a late night training mission in Germany, around one am it was cold and wet with a heavy mist in the air. We were convoying on a narrow 16 feet wide road with our 14 foot wide Bradleys when we came upon narrow road on a sheer cliff. Turning is also transmission driven, to make it work you must hit the gas pedal. The more you turn the more power needed. I let off the throttle and the rubber padded tracks began to slide toward the edge, as I was peering down the cliff I punched the gas pedal just as the road disappeared underneigh us left turning as hard as I could. We stopped sliding and turned with only a half a track left on the road. The guys in the back never knew they were almost part of a training fatality.

Our Bradley and Crew

We sat on our asses for two weeks when I arrived in the sandy lands of King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia. The warehouse we were bunking in was setup for soldiers awaiting vehicles to come into port. I found out later that the same building we were in was hit by a scud missile two weeks after we left, killing a couple of National Guardsmen. After our vehicles came in we had them painted in desert camouflage. Then we lined up to load up on missiles, 25mm armored piercing sabot rounds along with high explosives rounds, 7.62mm and 5.56mm ammo and grenades. We made all our checks and topped off on fuel and moved out to our base to set up.

Our company set up our first base camp in a low-lying area. By the time we finished setting up the tents, it started to rain. I had last guard duty, so I hit my cot. When I woke we were in 2 feet of water and someone was telling me to get out of bed we were moving out. A little lake had filled in so we packed everything up again and moved out to another base. After setting up our second base, we got into mission mode. We started training for offensive maneuvers immediately, in Germany we trained on defensive. Once in training maneuvers we received orders to retreat. I started turning my vehicle in a tight turn and threw our track in the sand. It took us about 4 hours to put the track back on, I would not make that mistake again. We trained on and around our base for about three and half months with the bombing of Baghdad in the background day and night. I still hear the boom, boom, boom, boom; just like yesterday.

Earlier in the week we received reports the Iraqi suicide bombers were dressing as Bedouins with captured military equipment. While on guard duty one night we spotted a slanted box on tracks, an M119 armored personnel carrier about the penetrate our perimeter  The M119 keeps coming. We try to radio him, no answer. The vehicle on our left fires a warning shot, it keeps coming. We radio again and fire a second warning shot. The vehicle breaches our perimeter as we dismount and surround it. By all rights of war we should have killed this vehicle, but out pops a second lieutenant out of his hatch. It was a tense moment. Private Roman and another of our great sergeants lead our opposing force with fingers on triggers of our M16s, our barbed wire caught up in his tracks. He was on the wrong radio frequency and didn't know the password, so we held him until higher up said it was okay to let him go.

Base camp life was pulling guard duty four hours on and four hours off, write letters and train for offensive maneuvers  One day during maneuvers we got the word to move out, I gunned it and blew the motor. So we spent the rest of the day helping the mechanics put in a new motor and transmission. It was a nice break in our regimen and I found out how much the motor can take in the sand and that would come in handy later in combat. We were getting close to moving out, Christmas had come and gone. I got to call home around that time. I was ready to go, it was February when we bugged out toward Iraq. The bombing of Baghdad everyday and night was wearing on me, all I could think about was how many people our bombs were killing. I was ready to go when we mounted up and headed into Iraq.

I was an Infantry soldier driving on point for the 3rd Brigade, my job was to lead our M1A1 Abrams Tanks into combat. Broiling inside my body armor and a full body zip up fire-retardant suit, covered by an olive drab chemical warfare suit commonly used in Germany during the winter. It was one hundred and ten degrees outside and 160 degrees inside the belly of my Bradley sitting next to a 600 HP Cummings turbo-charged diesel engine and separated by a 3/16” steel plate; with a ledge perfect to cook my Meals Ready to Eat. Sipping water became a survival skill and the only way to make your alloted three quarts a day last. During training missions I got in the habit of leaving my hatch open due to the heat and fought with my track commander to have it open until combat operations.

On or around February 22, 1991 we had reports of regular infantry soldiers in Saddam’s army surrendering in droves. The following day we saw thousands of people scattered in the shimmering heat surrendering some with weapons milling about lost in and billowing sandy red tinted sky as our tracks rolled by. At home in Kentucky we have rolling hills and trees everywhere so my sense of the horizon broadened tenfold when nothing stood in the way of belly of the desert. Our assignment was to get online with the rest of the VII Corps on the Iraqi border to cut off the Iraqi Republican Guard from retreating. We set out in convoy toward the front line. That night we received an after-action report, five Marines killed when a Stryker came across an enemy T-72 tank with its turret turned around. Geneva Convention Rule of War for surrender. When the marines encroached enough they turned their barrels around and killed our five Marines. I was shaking all over, mad as hell and wanted revenge.

After 24 hours of continuous driving we convoyed down through a wadi, a low-lying basin perfect for a desert ambush when I saw swimming silhouettes of people and jeeps on our left flank night sky. I reported to my Track Commander Sergeant Dan Tickle, small in stature but great at command. I hated him in garrison but loved him in the field, I would have given my life for him if I didn't kill him first. The Ground War had not been officially set off yet, so we had to get permission to fire upon an advancing enemy. They kept coming, higher up ordered our company online and our command vehicle fired three warning shots, boom, boom, boom. Then death squeezed from the gunner's fingertips with 25mm automatic fire boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The next day our after action reported we had killed 30 Iraqis trying to surrender. The silhouettes on the horizon have haunted my sights and nights since.

Symptoms Appear Suddenly But Control You Over Time

By Travis L. Martin

My hands shook for the first time after an ambush on one of our convoys in 2003. I figured it was the adrenaline; but it didn’t go away.

We came home to protesters outside the gates of Turley Barracks in Mannheim, Germany.

The next year, while serving in garrison, my friends made fun of me because I was always covered in sweat. Typically, I sweated the most when out in the city or in a confined area with lots of civilians. Maybe I was just fat?

We all drank. I drank my entire first deployment’s savings away. I’d wake up shaking uncontrollably and blacked out three-or-four nights a week.

I had never heard of “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

Add another deployment in 2005.

I went through withdrawals the first two weeks.

It was infinitely more luxurious with the hot chow and air-conditioned rooms. We were better at our jobs the second time around, too. But so were the bad guys.

I returned to Germany and finished up my four-year enlistment in 2006.

Sometimes, it took me an hour or more to get out of the bed. The dreams were so violent. I couldn’t imagine how a good person could dream up such horrible things. I shook everyday: in formation, before PT, when talking on the phone. Eventually, I isolated myself.

I passed barracks inspections with flying colors. My room was immaculate, the product of hours and hours of crawling around on all fours, picking lint out of the carpet, scrubbing the wall lockers with lemon-scented pledge, and meticulous spacing between the hangers on which my uniforms hung.

Maybe all those stupid rules taught in basic were invented by other soldiers with shaking hands. Maybe they were looking for some measure of control in the outside world because they couldn’t find it within themselves.

I decided to get treatment.

End, Part 1

Travis L. Martin served two tours of duty in Iraq as a sergeant in the 51st Transportation Company. He holds an MA in English from Eastern Kentucky University, where he founded The Journal of Military Experience. Currently, he teaches and is a PhD student at the University of Kentucky. His research interests include trauma, autobiography, and war memoirs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Cardiac Lab Procedure at the VA Hospital in Houston Texas

I had been having chest pains for a couple of months, which finally manifested themselves into my conscious realm of not being able to ignore them any longer. As it so happened I had chest pains while seeing my Prime Care doctor at the VA and he put me in the hospital. OK, we will find out what is going on.

Early the next morning a young woman came in pushing what I thought to be an EKG machine. It turned out to be my doctor pushing a notebook computer on a cart like contraption. I use the words young woman loosely; she did not look old enough to be out of high school. Really, no exaggeration on this point. She introduced herself as Dr. ??? and I said OK. She also informed me she would be the doctor performing my procedure in the ‘cath lab in a few minutes.’ In a few minutes; I had gone from waking up to being primed for a cardiac procedure in a few minutes. NEAT… Dr. ??? is asking me questions and typing her data into the computer as we speak. Man, this is neat… This doctor comes to my room herself to get my info. Wow… Did I mention that I was her first patient and that she was so excited that she literally ran all the way from the cath lab to my room to get her lab rat ready? She did not mention that to me at the time either.[...]

Dreams

I took a couple of elective courses during my Masters’ work and came away feeling like the courses were established for “normal” people and not Combat PTSD veterans… I know you are going; DUHHH!!!  I was hoping to find some answers other than in the numerous psychopathology courses I had taken on why my dream world is so much better than my real world.  I don’t mean the night mares, flashbacks and hallucinations; I mean real pre-combat like dreams.  The think I wanted an answer for “why aren’t I an active part of the dreams?”

A phenomena related to the dreams is that I don’t even recognize the places or people, and I am not a part of the dream.  I am aware subconsciously that I am observing things; but I am not an active part of the interactions of the characters that make up my dream world.  Is this a preview of my next life?  Is my subconscious picking up on wishes and/or subconscious parts of my pre-combat self that was good and innocent to the cruelty that man can inflict on man in the name of war?  I am even able to feel emotion in these dreams; unlike my post-combat self that many times have to manufacture emotions to satisfy the needs of others.  I am not saying this is all of my dream world, because it is not.  But it is the part that I do not want to wake up from.  This dream world is so much better than the real world that I exist in on a daily bases.  Reaching out to satisfy others needs in not part of my dream world.  The emotions I observe are not pretentious, but overtly genuine.

How many of us have wanted to reach out and give our wife, husband, or child and give them a hug; but this terrible disorder keeps us at arm’s length?  My wife tells me she understands; but this is only empathy and not true understanding.  Myself, along with many of you, I am sure feel different levels of sorrow for our loves ones.  Why could they have not loved someone else?  Why did they get stuck with us?  Someone who is capable of returning true unadulterated love and emotions from a person that has not seen the horrors of war?  Why did our children have to have someone like us as a parent?  Why could they have not been blessed with a parent who still viewed the good in things and not the negativity that accompanies Combat PTSD?  I will talk more about this at a later date; but I hope this some small manner answers a few questions for the family members of Combat PTSD veterans.

Rob

Female Combat Veteran Reaches Out For Help

I received this comment on the 20th of February from a female combat veteran.

PFC.Army2007 said...

I am a sister, a daughter, a mother, a wife, a combat veteran. It's sad to say that after all this time the horror I have experienced in the war still haunts me. It is affecting my relationship with my children and my marriage to my husband of 10 years. I felt so alone sometimes...empty...mad...I can see myself changed after my service and I don't know how to fill the emptiness inside me. Things around me in the civilian world still triggers my memory. I want to forget everything and move on. I couldn't.... I found my self sometimes staring at a distance...screaming silently inside of me...tears would fall down my cheeks..my husband would ask.."Whats wrong? Do you want to talk?" I always say nothing...I felt that I need to enlist in the service again just to feel whole again...I don't know what to do....

My suggestions,

Welcome home. Some suggestions...do not reenlist...that will make your situation worse and you could possibly loose everything. Right now you feel like everything is wrong. Today you have been experiencing delayed reactions to the insanity of combat but did not have time to process during the threats to your life. If you would have felt what you feel today on the scale you experience today, while in combat, then you would of had a greater chance of getting killed.

What you are experiencing is a normal reaction that happens when we leave the adrenaline driven world of combat and then transition to home in the "real world" (which to us seems to be a false reality). Our world view have been completely and permanently altered by what we witnessed. To describe "what I did" in combat usually leads to use of the word "witnessed." I can only reconcile my spiritual side by seeking the perspective of a witness; to never forget, to be vigilant in advocating for the mentally wounded and to find a personal purpose from the insanity of war. This was paramount for me to move past the position you reside in now.