I Have a Partner Not a Caregiver: I Would Be Lost Without Her But I Don't Want Her to Become My Nurse

This is the QB armband I wear to help me remember chores.

The last thing I would ever want to be guilty of is calling for a ubiquitous model for the household division of labor, but the breadwinner family model doesn't always match my values. When I left the Army I never cited PTSD, but I did cite the inflexibility of the Army's career track for officers. Specifically the common process of moving every three years made it impossible for me to support my spouse's career ambitions. Despite the fact that my first wife left me while I was hospitalized for PTSD and mTBI, I am still grateful that this decision has ultimately let me support my wife's career.

Despite my best ambitions I am terrible at doing my share of the household chores. I think that this is common amongst veterans. Terms like caregivers have arrived primarily because some injuries are so severe that they do require full time support, but also because PTSD makes it hard value non life threatening phenomenon. Let's face it, after war most of our brain power is used to analyze perceived threats. Doing the laundry on time is hard when we constantly feel threatened.

But we have learned to never to make excuses and this was the very reason I left the Army. I have always wanted to support my partner's career as much as my own. A breadwinner model family may work for most veteran caregiver relationships, but this does not always recognize how our country's values have changed to provide equal career opportunities for each sex. More importantly, I prioritize values and this is an area in which I am falling short of my own expectations.

Like many mTBI sufferers I often find myself in a room with no idea why I am there or on the trail alone with no idea how long I have been there. I have come to realize that my memory is only reliable when I consistently pattern my behavior and have constant reminders. Specifically, I have had the most success by replicating the way I inspected equipment prior to combat. My mind's focus on threats still recognized this need and the behaviors I designed after suffering from mTBI work well. I have tried cell phone alarms, an iPad calendar, chalk boards, a PDA etc., but none worked in long term. I think it is because my battlefield mind doesn't focus on those that I never used in combat.

Recently, I have gained a better awareness of my memory lapses. My watch broke and I temporarily borrowed my wife's. While it had the date, it did not have the day of the week on it. Sometimes I used my phone, but more often I would simply forget what day it was. I missed numerous appointments until I got a new watch. I was still forgetting household duties because I had a written schedule that wasn't readily available. Keeping my syllabi open on my desktop prevented schedule mistakes with my course, but this did little to help outside of the classroom.

My ROTC Cheat sheets helped me with memory.

Like the difficulties I have grasping my own identity and my forearm tattoos, I realized that I always kept important tasks and grids on my non-firing forearm with my watch. Any graduate of Ranger school knows how to constantly check their watch, no matter the stressor, so they can get off the objective before artillery is called on your position. I began to realize that I constantly lose track of tasks because I am startled, but no matter what I checked my watch. If I used the same quarterback style armband that I did on raids (I actually rested my map there most often), then I might do a better job keeping up with my chores.

I don't know how this going to work, and I was reluctant to embrace method because it would visible to everyone. However, I have done more permanent things to my body to fight for other aspects of my identity. Being a supportive husband is also a vital aspect of my identity, and I have begun to realize that I need to do whatever it takes. For me it is more important to have a partnership with my wife than have someone who cares for all of my needs. I may not be able to keep up with her all the time, but it is important to me that I do all I can. If I can write this blog and display my life bare before this audience, then I can wear something on my wrist that might be a little embarrassing.  If I want to be great partnership, then I have to employ the same strategies, with the same vigor, that I do to define who I am or use to support my comrades in arms.

The home cannot be a front we leave closed simply because it is harder to care about washing the dishes when you've held human viscera in your hands. Our partners can be so important to our well being and we should not concede this ground even when they are rushing forward to care for our needs and support us however they can. Most importantly, we can't let our spouse become our nurse at the expense of intimacy, romance and spontaneity. I personally value the deeper connections that are made in a partnership more than I could benefit from any treatment regime, and I am hesitant to ever yield the title of wife/partner. Some veterans will never be able to contribute to their household chores and I am lucky to contribute: it is a privilege I should appreciate rather than abandon just because it has become difficult to make it a priority. Growth doesn't make a lot of highlight reels or montages in action movies, but the way we manage our homes is vital to our relationships. It is not the stuff of movies, but is the substance of a healthy relationship. In a pragmatic sense, my relationship with my wife is what kept me going when things started getting dark, and all I could think about was suicide. Though it requires work and daily effort to support her, the payoff is significant for both of us. More importantly, making my wife happy makes me feel good and real achievement is measured in how you treat your family, not medals, scare badges, plaques, number of combat missions, etc. Mission focus can never make us forget that we have no greater mission than supporting our loved ones whatever family model reflects our values.

Fighting the Battle For Your Indentity One Tattoo at a Time

The work of Jonathan Shay, on the Odyssey and the Iliad, illustrates the long history of the phenomenon of PTSD. Shay cataloged Odysseus's effort to return to an immemorial sense of home. Though I value the majority of Shay's claims, and I applaud his life long commitment to helping veterans I am however, troubled by a few of the approaches he has taken into his study of PTSD. He seems to wipe away all of the chauvinism in the Odyssey and in veterans as if it were caused by PTSD. This has real problems because, as this blog shows, women in combat are actually more likely to have PTSD because the increased risk of sexual trauma. Moreover, he portrays PTSD as a completely determinate condition that a veteran cannot be self aware of or win his internal battles. Certainly these symptoms are hard to shake and are permanent, but as veterans we do have power to fight for our identity and preserve themselves.

I think a key obstacle in retaining the best parts of our identity is breaking away from the aspects of the immemorial homeland. Certainly at war we use the concept of home as place for our minds to escape the harsh realities that we lived in. I often wish that instead of the figure of Odysseus we looked at the life of Aeneus. He was a Trojan figure who lost his homeland and was forced to rediscover and redefine one after the Trojan war. I wish that instead of trying to regain a sense of the immemorial home, we would struggle to redefine our home after war has changed our lives, and preserve the best parts of our identity and our values.

One way that I have fought for my identity, both consciously and intuitively, has been with tattoos. After the suicide bombing I slowly recognized that I could not feel anything but anger. I noticed that I could not develop a close relationship with anyone (accept other people in my unit) and I was becoming an individual obsessed with instincts and self preservation. I tried to go to church, but all of the silent prayer made me have flashbacks (my first serious flashbacks came at services) and all I could do was sit there and be angry. I could sense that I was loosing who I was and my value system. I had experienced other veterans who began to think of all Arabs or Muslims as terrible. I feared that I might lose my moral compass because of how angry I consistently found myself.

Team RWB

I had seen and experienced what it was like to watch a man's life end and I was afraid that I could never forgive myself if I ever took an innocent life. As a person raised in a religious evangelical family, I was a faithful person. I could no longer endure church services, but I wanted to express my values in a way that would constantly remind myself who I was. I started by expressing the hopes that I would never taken an innocent life by tattooing a double edge sword and the words god's breath on my firing arm. I could effect what I could effect, but I desired divine intervention every instance that I used my weapon. I had a great desire to never be the agent of the horrible things I saw after the suicide bombing.

There was something really freeing about that experience and it made it easier to grasp who I was. PTSD as a culturally negotiated and defined soul challenges our ideas about our self, but as a simple neurological phenomenon it damages the place in our brain that manages conscious memory, and identity. Both have extreme impacts on our lives so tattoos can become powerful reminders of who we are when the world that we know falls apart. I recognized the utility of wearing my values on my sleeve so when I was having trouble conceiving of them so I permanently placed on my body.

I recognized that with grace and perseverance that any storm could be weathered. There was a simple solution. I tattooed the words on my forearms and recognized that my greatest resource was myself. The left forearm would be perseverance because "the first rule in a knife fight was that you are gonna get cut, get cut in the left forearm" and reinforced my desire for divine help with grace on my firing arm. I deployed again and it was the worst year of my life. I had serious PTSD and mTBI, but I was officer and lives depended on my performance.

I was broken and worn down, but I had my values on my sleeves. My attitude was terrible but my performance never waned. I could perform my job, but everything was painful. I left the Army bitter and alone. I began blaming myself and thinking that is my fault that I had succumb to an invisible wound. I began to believe that I was letting soldiers down in Afghanistan. I should be better by now, right? No one would ever concede that I even had any problems because I was articulate and I was in shape. No visible wounds.

I began to really despise myself and believe that it was my fault. I was weak, a coward, or immoral. Three tours in Iraq as infantry platoon leader and Iraqi Army Operations officer was not enough service. I was letting my country and soldiers down. I was training Cadets and no matter how well I did by winning the top instructor award, I was not doing enough. I was not on the line fighting, keeping soldiers alive, bringing drinkable water to villagers, and safeguarding civilians. I could do more, I thought it was my fault that I was no longer fighting. Their was something wrong with me.

But this was bullshit. Sure the feelings were strong and survivor guilt is unshakable, but my logic was absurd. I had done everything I could, fought as hard as I could, and longer than most in my situation. An army officer who fought on the line for 20 months before company command is more than rare. An ROTC instructor who despite serious medical issues won the top instructor position has done enough. A historian working to challenge the notion that PTSD has existed and been a problem for every generation of American veterans is still producing fruitful work and still serving soldiers. Nothing was good enough so I  had to step outside of my emotions and look at what I contributed on paper. In writing.

Just like when my world first collapsed I had to give myself a visualization, on my body, that this was not my fault and in a lot of ways I am better. I was beginning to become open unashamed and even in ways proud of my struggles after my service in Iraq. I read Hemingway's "The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, many are strong at the broken places." Though I did not yet feel strong, I again decided to fight for that idea. To place it on my body as commitment to myself and my identity. I also wanted to to use Hemingway because, in the end, he lost his battle with mental illness and took his life. I wanted to be reminded that even in a victorious idea that we, who have had our identity challenged by the crucible of war, have to fight everyday to preserve ourselves in spirit and in body. That this is both a neuro-chemical battle and fight for our own souls.

There is nothing wrong with anyone of us who struggle to come home. Tolkien's famous "not all who wonder are lost," is such a fitting metaphor for the long road home. I think it is a never ending battle to preserve our identities and I would challenge others by stating that the fight is worth it. If you have this conflict your are not alone, this is not a new problem, you are not weaker and the world needs people who have been broken by trauma. Tattoos are culturally ubiquitous in our generation but they can be a kind of cognitive therapy. An idea that you choose to embrace, even when you don't initially feel it, that changes patterns of behavior and eventually emotions. We can only spend so much time with our therapists, but our greatest resource is ourselves. So fight for yourself as hard as you fought for your country.

I would urge others to share their tattoos stories in the comments.

The Terrible Moments That Define Us

Warning: This contains profanity and descriptions of war wounds.

One of my greatest sorrows is how some of the most memorable and significant events of my life were driven by bind hatred. I want to talk about an event that has challenged the very fabric of my humanity and has changed me.  An event that probably lasted less than ten seconds has irrevocably altered my life. During my second deployment as Anti Tank Platoon leader I was serving as the escort for my Battalion's Operations Officer Major (now Lieutenant Colonel) Massaracahia. While placing our vehicles in positions to move out we heard an explosion. After the fact we learned that a mentally ill women,  reported to be carrying a baby and, most likely remote detonated, blew up on a crowd of civilians waiting in line to receive compensation for damages to their homes (sustained during a massive clearing operation of the city). This was the most horrific event that I have ever experienced. There is still blood stains on my boots; blood that literally and figuratively will never wash away.

Because we were already in position to move my platoon was among the first elements to arrive and because my platoon had less than 4 soldiers who could dismount their vehicles, I went out to help who I could. I ran out with a combat life saving kit and came across the most significantly wounded human being I could ever imagine. At first he simply looked as if his injures were a severed leg, but when I tried to lift him his torsos gave in ways that they should not have. Gravity rather than the sinews of his body held him together (this moment was something I could not even remember in therapy and was blocked out until I wrote this account). His torso was rocked with multiple injuries that I could not even see through all of the blood and charred clothing.

He was bleeding from his head, but his worst injuries were on his left leg. Even with the damage to his abdomen I hoped  maybe he could be saved so I struggled to find a place to put a tourniquet. But, his left hip more resembled ground beef than human flesh and it was hard to tell where the wound began. It was difficult to determine what parts his body was intact and what had liquefied. His leg was still technically connected, but by what I could not determine because it all resembled a bloody and dirty gelatin warmed by the sun into a substance that was slightly between liquid and solid. No place for a tourniquet and the wound was far to large for an occlusive dressing. This poor man whose only crime was trying to replace the damage cause by a major U.S. operation was going to die and there was nothing I could do. Worse, in that moment despite the carnage I noticed that their were multiple supporting elements coming to help and that the security was getting really disorganized.

I was a platoon leader and though every fiber of my body just wanted to comfort this man who was going to die. I could not save him and now this poor bastard would die alone on street corner in Tal A Far Iraq. I will never forget the look on his face when I left him there to die. He did not know I was leaving to keep others alive and that real threats were trying to exploit our lapsed security (threats I would help eliminate). That poor man just thought I had given up on him. It was like watching a man's soul die along with his body. I am sure there have been worse moments, but I cannot fathom a greater amount of grief that has ever existed than watching his face as I left to take charge of the perimeter. I know that I did the right thing, but he did not understand. He died on that street alone and abandoned as an expectant casualty.

I wanted to curse the world that made me look a man in his eyes, realize that he was beyond help, and move on to things that I could effect. I wanted to say fuck the universe that made me have to be so callous and so methodical. For a moment I hated a world that possessed hate to such a degree that a man might see another man suffering, recognize the tragedy, and be forced to move on because he was an expectant casualty. If I or someone I loved was exposed to a similar circumstance all I would wish was that someone could comfort them. But, I had a platoon to manage and the area was less than secure. I thought to myself "I can feel this later but I have a job to do right now." I would not be able to feel anything but anger for years.

I will never dispossess that moment, with the sorrow and empathy that I gained from that man's terrible injuries. Moreover, how I left him their to die alone. I will possess that man's humanity to my last breath. Yet, I have no idea who he actually was, what he did for a living or even his name. Watching a man in such pain, with no help for survival, die made me feel like I let him down. It broke down cultural barriers. No worldview is worth what happened to that poor man, and you would have to be taught to hate others your whole life in order to justify the brutal killing of civilians. I just cannot fathom what it took to commit such a terrible atrocity.

I hope to never believe so passionate about a cause that any actions are justified. Because when "the ends justify the means" where does it stop before another innocent man is lying on the ground bleeding out with no possibility of aid. I came from that broken, but better. In the years that followed I would be asked to train Iraqi units. My empathy for the Iraqi people became the source of strength for the most difficult time period of my life. But that is another story altogether. It is not necessarily the moments by themselves that define us, but how and what we learn for them. In the same set of circumstances, other men, even better people might have learned another lesson. In the end all I know is that I did all I could do and that is enough. I was not then nor am I right now afraid of what I felt in those moments (though at times in between and certainly in the future I will be). But, I have had to fight to get there and I will have to keep fighting in order stay where I am. All of that is worth it because that poor nameless man's life is not wasted because I struggle everyday to never forget what hatred brings to our world and that beyond all the misery of that moment, which will never go away or be made better, I am so beyond lucky to have survived it. Better to have my moral compass still intact. This has been the hardest battle I have ever fought, and I think I winning.

My take away is simple. Do something tangible that helps others everyday. That is all I could do then and it is all I can do now. But, that is not a burden, rather it is a hard earned privilege that I am lucky and better to have gained. I owe that nameless man who taught me this terrible, but valuable lesson and I owe myself to have the courage to face it and apply it. Lest it be for nothing.