The Nightmare Cure

3:30am, I stir in my sleep. Maybe he came to bed already? But my outstretched arm feels no warm body and finds only a cold empty space…..again.

I can see light dancing on the wall downstairs, reflecting the muted TV’s flickering images. I slip from my bed and quietly make my way to the living room. As I approach the sofa I already know the scene that awaits. There bathed in the light of the television he is slumped, passed out, vodka spilled across his lap while still clinging to the empty glass. I take a moment to regard this sight putting aside the conflict of emotions I am experiencing (pity, sorrow, anger) and take care of the situation. He looks so vulnerable, almost fragile, and I curse the demons that haunt him so.

Leaning forward I take the glass in my left hand and gently touch his leg with my right. "Honey....babe....come to bed” I speak softly so as not to startle him. The grip on his glass grows tight and he groans some incomprehensible words of objection. I make my appeal again “its 3:30....come to bed”. This time his eyes open briefly, he utters, “I’ll be right there” and closes his eyes again.

Knowing that he will not "be right there" I turn off the TV, feeling helpless and hopeless I admit defeat and retreat upstairs. At some point between 3:30am and the time morning comes he will have found his way to bed; too drunk to be troubled by the horrific nightmares of the combat veteran.

Sleep well my love, sleep well.

Screw Christmas!

So another Christmas is in the bag, and I am grateful that it passed by with minimal amount of agitation and upset. I’m sure there are other spouses out there whose combat vet was deployed over at least one Christmas, if not more, and finds the holiday just too much to bear. As December 25th approaches I become more and more apprehensive as I know I will be playing dual roles of sympathetic wife and placating mother as I try to keep both sides of the camp happy at home.

Bill hates Christmas, and all the trappings that go along with it, and is at great pains to remind me that he is only allowing a tree in the house “for the kids sake” permitting it to stand for the shortest amount of time that doesn’t constitute cruel and unusual punishment in the minds of a 7 and 14 year old! The tree literally goes up the day before Christmas, and is located in a room where Bill does not have to look at it except when passing through. The lonely Noble is the sole decoration in the house; there is no bunting or wreaths on the door, just the tree, nothing else, zero, zilch, nada.

Christmas day passes in a blur, with the kids opening their presents before Bill even gets out of bed, and I make sure to bag up the paper and bows they have left strewn across the living room floor before he gets up. No special meal is on the menu and I leave for work with a thermos of soup (I always work Christmas day at the jail) and my family is left to fend for themselves with microwavable ready meals.

The tree comes down literally on the 26th, and is removed from the house along with the wrapping paper and Christmas cards and taken to the burn barrel for incineration, symbolically purging the day away as if it never happened….and I can again breath a sigh of relief, it is all over for another year.

Puppies Behind Bars

In 2008, my husband Sgt William Campbell was the first OIF veteran to receive a service dog from the charity Puppies Behind Bars (PBB). PBB is based in New York and trains inmates to raise puppies to become service dogs for disabled OIF/OEF veterans as well as explosive detection canines.

This video shows the reunion between my husband and the female inmate that raised his dog Pax. I cannot fully convey what an incredibly emotional trip this was, nor can I over-exaggerate the number of Clonazepam my husband took to deal with the event! The reunion was captured by Glenn Close and her production team and resulted in a full-length documentary. The following clip is just a snippet which was used on Oprah's website to help promote the PBB charity.




Glenn Close, from her website, www.fetchdog.com,

I have been inspired and moved by one story after another, but never as much as I am by the story of Bill Campbell and Pax … Pax was first socialized and trained by Laurie Kellogg, an inmate at the maximum security Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. So a dog, initially loved and trained by a woman who has lost her freedom, but wants to give back to society, is enabling the life of a veteran of the Iraq war who was imprisoned by his disabling injuries. The story speaks for itself.

Please visit Puppies Behind Bars website for more information www.puppiesbehindbars.com