by Gina Hamilton
Coastal Journal staff

BRUNSWICK - Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) changes lives.  Despite the help offered by the V.A. and Vet Centers, acknowledging that a soldier or a loved one needs help is difficult, and encouraging a loved one to seek help is also difficult.  These are four stories from returning Iraq vets, and the wife of a returning vet, as they describe the PTSD they or their partner suffered after returning from deployment. 

These individuals all agreed to tell their stories to help other vets struggling with PTSD.  They are all seeking help through an independent group, designed to help veterans, that is not associated with the V.A.  None of them currently lives in Maine:

Rob D. served in Iraq for three tours, and was totally physically disabled by an improvised explosive device a month before his last tour was supposed to end.  He spent a year getting his body put back together at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  But he also came home with post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

“I have been out of the Army over a year and I am 100% disabled from the V.A. I physically can't work, so all I do is sit all day thinking, and I can't sleep … there has got to be more to life, I am at the end of my rope,” he said. 

He discussed his thoughts of suicide.  “There was a time last week when I almost ended it all, I don't think my wife understands and I don't know how to explain it to her. I know she loves me, but I don't love myself.”

Because of his physical injuries - Rob lost part of a leg, a knee, and had to have a hip replaced, as well as suffering a skull fracture and spinal injury - he was honorably discharged from the Army in 2007.

And he is bitter about that. “I spent 12 years of my life in the Army for them to just throw me out,” he said. “I was a Senior NCO, and it was all I knew how to do.  Now I can't even do that.  I am a scab on society.”

Rob is having serious financial problems, too. “I did not ask to get out! So I watch my bills fall behind, and if something does not change, I will either be on a street corner, or dead, and I refuse to beg … I am too honorable for that.” 

Rob reported nightmares, and daytime flashbacks.  He also has almost constant headaches.   He also reported serious problems with irritability, so much so that he lost the first job he had after being discharged, while waiting to be disabled.  “I get into a lot of fights,” he acknowledged.  “Usually over petty stuff.”

He also said he had developed a fear of heights, something he had never had before (“I was HALO (parachute) qualified,” he said.) and he also reported that he had developed “a hatred for almost everyone and everything.”
Another soldier, Taylor C., who had served two tours in Iraq, had been home about nine months when he began to notice symptoms of PTSD. “The two most disturbing things to me are anger and sleeping,” he said.  “The slightest thing can throw me into a blind rage.  I've put holes in the walls from punching them.  I've never struck my wife or kids, and I never will.  But I have no patience whatsoever.”

Taylor described issues of anger while driving.  “Road rage is a problem now also.  My family and I went to the movies a few months ago, and while driving home a car cut us off.  I started chasing them screaming out the window that I was going to kill them.  My wife told me I was scaring her and the kids, and just like that I was back and everything was fine.”
As with many veterans, Taylor experiences problems sleeping.  “I get about three to four hours a night now.  Most times just as I'm drifting off, I hear gunshots, explosions and more recently, voices.  I'll jerk awake.  The first few times I would ask my wife if she heard anything ... that's how real they sounded.”

Other times, he wakes in the middle of the night breathing heavily, but can't remember his dreams.  “My wife told me that one night I was talking in my sleep and was saying what the effect of different weapons on people was.  The sleeping problems aren't every night and I've learned to take a breath when the anger comes on … my wife thinks I should see someone.”

Post traumatic stress disorder affects the partners of returning vets, too.  Andrea M. said that she did not feel that she and her husband had any help when he first returned.

“My husband has been back for 2 1/2 years and we have never received any help with our experience. He was in Iraq for 14 months.  When he got back he was brought to a base in Missouri, dropped off, and I picked him up.  No party, no welcome home, no thank you.  I never even got to meet the other soldiers he went with or their families.  It was the worst homecoming… 

When we got home we tried to just go on with life...he went back to school, we had our second child, we bought our first house, and we never worked on us or dealt with our feelings.  He went to a brief counseling and just thought that he was okay.”

Andrea's husband suffered from 'survivor's guilt.' “He said he felt guilty because he was not in the 'line of fire' and that he wouldn't have as many problems as those that fought everyday. He was in maintenance and stayed on a base at the Baghdad airport.” 

But things weren't okay.  “We just hit rock bottom. He has been self-destructing for 2 1/2 years and so have I.  He just had an affair and has broken my heart.  I do know that is due to the lack of help and work when he returned.  I'm going to forgive him and we are going to start counseling and we hopefully will get back what we lost during those years.  How do you get back the love you so deeply had before they came back as strangers?”

Adam B. talked about some of the reasons why soldiers, like him, do not want to seek help upon returning.  “When I got home, I so badly didn't want to be like my partner.  He immediately sought help and was put on a ton of meds.  His unit pulled his ability to carry a weapon and he no longer carries out any police duties.  That is something that I know my unit would try to do to me, so I cannot ask for any help from my base hospital.  If I do, they (my unit and Life Skills) will take my weapon from me and assign me to some type of office job.  No way do I want the stigma of being ‘nuts.’  No way.”

He also feared for his future career ambitions. “If I am not mentally healthy, I cannot become a recruiter.  So I don't go to the local base hospital.

“I seem to hear phantom explosions and incoming rockets.  The last time I heard a phantom rocket was one day when I had only been home for about two weeks.  I had a jet fly over my house and I took cover in my living room.  Who the hell takes cover in their living room?  It has been a year since I pulled out of Fallujah, a whole year.  Why can't I seem to return to normal?”

Soldiers like Adam have legitimate concerns.  When they speak out to doctors on base or the media, they run the serious risk of being drummed out of the service, or in some cases, court-martial.  In December of 2006, National Public Radio ran a story about a soldier at Fort Carson in Colorado who was suffering from PTSD.  The soldier, Tyler Jennings, had attempted suicide.

He came to that decision after seeking help for his symptoms, and later being hazed by his commanders.  When his superiors told him they would discharge him from the army, he decided to attempt suicide.  The attempt failed. 

However, when he called the next day to say that he would be checking into a hospital, his officers sent Military Police to arrest him for being absent without leave.

Later, even though he had sought help for PTSD, Jennings was threatened with court-martial for symptoms that are typically associated with PTSD.  Only the fact that his case had received national attention averted the trial.

A negotiated deal allowed the 24-year-old Purple Heart recipient an honorable discharge instead of facing court-martial on a long list of charges, including drug abuse and failure to show up in formation. The black mark of "commission of a serious offense," which Jennings did not specify, will remain on his record.

He will lose his college benefits and must repay the $15,000 bonus he received when he signed a six-year re-enlistment contract.

Army Surgeon General Kevin Kiley and Maj. Gen. Robert Mixon acknowledged last week to media that commanders should be better trained to identify mental-health problems. According to one Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, that's an important step.

"Fort Carson is showing it has people who care about this issue," says Steve Robinson, government relations director of Veterans for America. "There are still many, many issues to address, including what will be done for the soldiers who fell through the cracks but brought this issue to light."

Kiley was at Fort Carson as part of a military-wide study to recommend improvements to military mental-health services, particularly for troops with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Troops should not view seeking help as a "career killer," he said.