According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is defined as a condition resulting from exposure to direct or indirect threat of death, serious injury or a physical threat” (VA, 2010, p.1).The recent analysis and reporting on PTSD by Veterans groups and the medical community is commendable. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs in June 2010, there were 171,423 deployed Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with PTSD, out of total of 593,634 patients treated by VA (www.va.gov). Thus far  84,005 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veteran patients have been granted VA disability compensation; of that about half for PTSD.Often disregarded is the fact that many of our wounded veterans are surviving injuries that would have resulted in their fatality in wars past. Given the escalating costs of medical care and budget constraints it will be interesting to see if Congress maintains it’s commitment to supporting the troops after they have left the battlefield.

To read the rest of this blog or more like it check out http://thefrontlines.com Or if you have a question or comment please email me at askthewarrant@thefrontlines.com. Thank you.

Very respectfully,

The “Warrant”

Fronts Change. Memories Don’t

First of all, the things that are eating at us are difficult to deal with. The memories suck and we think that revisiting them will make things worse. We don’t want to go back to where we were, but we can’t escape it in our dreams or when certain conditions instantly thrust back there. When it does, we just want it to be over so we seclude ourselves, clam up, or drink our consciousness away. Some turn to drugs to feel good again. We feel like monsters, inhuman and unworthy of normal relationships. People just don’t get us and we get offended by that. There’s a song that helps me get through those times by a band called Skillet. The song is – aptly enough – called “Monster.”

Sound familiar to anyone out there? The worst thing we can do is what Skillet says in the first verse:

The hardest thing for troops suffering from PTSD to do is hold it in and pretend that nothing is wrong. For nearly six years, I pretended I could control the “monster” within me. Writing definitely helped, but it still masked a great deal of what I was going through. I still didn’t talk about the exact things I was dealing with inside. But, that is precisely what we need to do.

I’m not talking about just standing out on the sidewalk and spilling your guts to the first bum that you come across. I strongly recommend seeking professional assistance, especially if you’re still active duty. Our psychologists are specially trained to deal with our particular issues. If there is a group nearby, you can’t beat going.

Dealing with PTSD can also give you a feeling of hopelessness. I’ve felt it. I still feel it. You feel useless and like nothing will ever go right. You want it all to end and it’s at this point that some feel as if suicide is a viable option. There’s a song for that mood that I also turn to when I’m in that deep, dark place. It’s called “Jump Rope” by Blue October.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend about my progress in counseling. I explained that talking with my doc made me cry like a baby. He said, “CJ, I thought you were trying to remove that stigma. You weren’t crying like a baby. You were crying like a man.” It made sense in a way. Reliving those moments in my life that have affected my very psyche has been the most difficult thing to do in my life. But, THAT is the ONLY way we’re going to get better.

We have to talk about what we experienced. My grandfather was a belly gunner and bombadier in a B-17 and B-24 during WWII over Germany. He never talked to the family about what he experienced over there. He never talked about his fears, his thoughts, what he did and what he saw. Whenever I’d ask my father about grandpa’s experiences, he would explain that just didn’t talk about it. When I got home from Iraq, he began opening up to me. I was a kindred spirit as a combat veteran. We understood each others’ fears and worries.

There is nothing in this life worthy of taking my own for. There are ups and downs, especially while dealing with PTSD. It’s a roller coaster ride of emotions, visions, attitudes, experiences, and feelings. Counseling helps us to cope with that, not suicide. Suicide doesn’t end problems, it creates more. YOUR problems might go away, but you’ve just created problems for so many others.

Another stigma that I had to get over was the stigma of taking anti-depressants and sleeping pills. I delayed asking for medications because I didn’t want to be “that guy” that needs pills to enjoy life. But, I learned something. Diabetics have to take medications to stay alive. People with high blood pressure or heart problems take pills every day to stay alive. What’s so different about us having to take a pill to stay alive? It’s another stigma we need to get over. Some people take blood thinners, we take anti-depressants. If I can’t sleep because my mind is racing or I’m too anxious, what’s wrong with taking a sleeping pill?

Seeking help is easy. If you’re just looking for information, the Department of Veterans Affairs has set up a very informative site that is host to the National Center for PTSD. Family members, friends, and troops can ALL find good information about the disorder and learn how to recognize the signs and symptoms in themselves and loved ones.

If you’re active duty, almost every post has a mental health department at the post clinic. Getting help is a simple act of walking in and asking to speak with a doctor. Most clinics are very discreet so that you don’t have to advertise why you’re there. You will be asked to fill out some paperwork and most times will be seen immediately by a doc. Sometimes, you may have to make an appointment unless you are feeling hopeless or like you want to hurt yourself.

A few weeks ago, I had a mental breakdown from a combination of multiple levels of stress. I walked into the hospital to speak with my doc, but he wasn’t there. I explained that I really needed to see someone and they were going to set me up to see another doctor. I did a quick self-assessment and realized I was going to be able to make it until the next day. About ten minutes after I left, I got a phone call by one of the other docs to ensure that I was really okay. I was still sitting in my car in the parking lot of the hospital. That simple gesture of getting a follow-up phone call did wonders for my state of mind. You don’t hear about these good news stories, but they’re out there. Our military health professionals do care about us personally and individually. But, they can’t help us if we don’t seek them out. There is no magical potion that will take your pain away. The first step is the hardest, but the best one you’ll make!

If you’re unsure of where to go, click HERE.

The Army and military at large are working overtime to find ways to remove the stigma of PTSD within the force. It involves a change in the mindset of troops, some of whom have looked at any mental health issue as a defect and weakness for years. As part of my role as a senior NCO, I came forward about my battles with the anxiety disorder as a way to combat that belief and get troops to trust us when we say it’s okay to seek help. I wanted to lead from the front on this issue.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

Anyone who has gone through a life-threatening event can develop PTSD. These events can include:

* Combat or military exposure
* Child sexual or physical abuse
* Terrorist attacks
* Sexual or physical assault
* Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
* Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

PTSD is not limited to combat actions and is not a violent disorder. There are some who can become violent, but for the most part, it isn’t. The problem is that the media image of PTSD involves linking crimes committed by troops to the disorder and giving the impression that ALL Soldiers are pre-disposed to violence if they are diagnosed. This is simply not true. Service members with PTSD who commit crimes commit crimes because they’re criminals! Using PTSD as an excuse for illegal behavior is a cop-out and a true sign of weakness.

The principal at my kids’ school sought to capitalize on the public perception of PTSD and use it for her own gain to discredit me. The problem is that my PTSD has nothing to do with violence. So, let me tell you what I deal with on a daily basis.

I’ve had nightmares for years which began to get worse the past couple of years. These nightmares involve certain experiences I had in combat. One of them I documented in a journal entry titled “My Crispy Guy Extraction Kit.” On 6 April 2003, I wrote the following post from my position just south of Baghdad and after the first “Thunder Run” into the city:

A little later in the day a guy came to us and asked if we could escort him to pick up the remains of one of his family members killed by one of our tanks. He said that he was afraid to approach the vehicle for fear that he would be shot as well and they wanted to give him a proper burial. We escorted him out to a burnt out car where inside was the extremely fried corpse of his son, slightly hunched over towards the passenger side of the vehicle. The family broke down immediately and I couldn’t stand to look or smell it myself. I felt desperately bad for the family and for the first time actually started to feel remorse for my presence. I left the family for a few minutes to gather myself and just recollect.

When I returned the family was trying to get the corpse out of the vehicle but they didn’t have anything with them. It just so happened that I had about 5 pairs of rubber gloves that I kept in my pocket for administering first aid to Iraqis as well as some 550 cord and large trash bags. I don’t know why I had that stuff, but it became apparent it was exactly what we needed. As we pulled the son from the car, parts of his body were seared into the vehicle. As we pulled on the torso, his legs came apart from it and we had to get them out separately. When we fully reclined the body to pull it out of the vehicle, a wet substance began oozing from wounds in the back of the head. They say that when your brain is damaged it becomes complete mush. This was unbearable and I almost lost the contents of my stomach. It took some time, but we were able to gather all the body pieces from the car and place them in the garbage bag. When we were done, the family thanked us profusely and invited us to be guests of honor at the funeral. We felt awkward accepting an invitation like that and told the family that they should have a private funeral. They offered us food or water (which we politely declined) and we went on our way.

The image and smell of that body, the first one I had to encounter so close in such a condition, continues to haunt me. I dream often about that event and at one point, the corpse comes alive and tries to grab me. At that moment, I’m jolted from my sleep in a sweat, breathing heavily.

I get extremely nervous in crowded situations and become hyper-sensitive to my surroundings. Before entering any building I make a quick survey of all people around me and seek out any and all exits. I sit with my back to a wall so I have a good view of people approaching me. I get startled and anxious at unexpected and loud noises. What I don’t get is violent. What I don’t do is threaten people. I’m a very blunt and impassioned person who has strong beliefs. When you challenge those beliefs, I CAN get loud and some can get intimidated by that bluntness.

One of the common features of troops suffering from PTSD is anger. When initially confronted with an extreme threat, anger is a normal response to terror, events that seem unfair, and feeling out of control or victimized. Anger doesn’t always translate into violence. Civilized people know how to intelligently deal with anger and find outlets for it. I like to think I’m one of those civilized individuals. But, I won’t sit back and be steamrolled or treated disrespectfully. I refuse to be bullied by ANYONE, especially people charged with educating my children. Especially people who work for ME. When I – or any citizen for that matter – have a question for an elected or government official, we [both] deserve and demand a response.

We’re working on removing the stigma of PTSD within the military, but I don’t see seeking treatment as a problem within this community. The problems I’ve encountered going public about my battle with PTSD have all been within my civilian community. People just don’t understand anything about the disorder. All they know is what they hear. We need to get more stories out there about Soldiers with PTSD who aren’t criminals. Soldiers who have found ways to cope with their emotions, experiences, and anxiety.

I’m not perfect in those areas, but I had the pleasure of being helped by a GREAT doctor at Redstone Arsenal. I’ve asked him to come on the radio show or let me write openly about him, but he doesn’t want the attention. He enjoys what he does and what he does he does well. Before I left, I told him that he may have ruined my experiences from here on out. I will judge every therapist according to the standard that he set. When I needed him, he was there. When I felt like I was about to implode, he was there. He gave me his personal phone number and always made himself available. He wasn’t overly critical and helped me work through personal issues. As I debated various courses of action during extreme times of stress, he cautioned me not to make any big decisions in my current frame of mind.

Since going public about PTSD, I’ve gotten a lot of encouraging emails from across the force. I’ve been saddened by some stories from troops who didn’t feel like they were getting the type of support that I feel like I’ve gotten. I grew to love and admire the various other veterans, current and former, whom I met with in weekly group therapy. I was privileged to discuss my experiences with veterans from Vietnam, Korea, Desert Storm, Haiti, and others. I learned a lot from these men and realized how lucky I am to have the support structure I have in this day and age. Some of these brave heroes didn’t seek help for more than 40 years because of the “stigma” of mental disorders. I don’t know how I survived six years and hearing these men’s stories gave me confidence and optimism.

Had I not sought help when I did, I ran the risk of ending up the way many of them did – divorced and drinking heavily. It’s no secret that many troops facing PTSD have turned to drugs and/or alcohol which has caused strains on otherwise great marriages. I found a way to prevent that from happening and I’m going to discuss it in my next post.

In the meantime, if you’re a Soldier who is suffering from PTSD let me leave you with these quick words of advice. There is hope! You are normal. Life IS worth living! Suicide (and homicide) is NOT an option and will NOT help. Hang in there and please contact me if you don’t think you can wait until I write my next post.

For you ignorant buffoons out there that don’t understand PTSD and want to paint us with a broad brush, please read THIS website.

This past week was one of the worst weeks I’ve experienced probably since I left Iraq.

As you know, I’ve decided to seek help for some of the issues I’ve had since returning from Iraq in 2003. For more than six years, I’ve worked very hard hiding depression, nightmares, and social discomfort. I haven’t slept more than four hours straight without medication in that time.

But, there came a point where I felt very hypocritical telling my Soldiers it’s okay to seek help for mental health issues while I was still hiding my own. Truth be told, there were many people who weren’t fooled by my acting. How can I, as a First Sergeant or a Senior NCO, tell my Soldiers to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself? So, in June, I wrote “One Step At A Time” making my commitment to my troops – and myself – public.

One of the things I wanted to do was convince troops out there that it’s okay to seek help. The Army has made a very public plea to troops to get help without worrying about their jobs. I promised to document this here and I plan to do so honestly and openly.

Let me start by saying that my unit completely pissed me off after my announcement. After reading my post, my higher headquarters undermined my efforts to seek personal help and performed a command referral citing ONLY what I had written and not my job performance, actions, or leadership ability. How can I tell Soldiers about the self-referral process when I’m now being FORCED into counseling?

It’s important to understand what a command referral is since it’s not always negative. A command referral forces the health care system to see me. Appointments must be timely and there are repercussions if the system doesn’t do their part. Once that was explained to me, I calmed down a bit, but I didn’t like the fact that now my unit would have access to some of my records. The Doc explained that they don’t get specific information, even for a command referral. I was told the unit wanted to ensure that I got the help I needed as a basis for their decision. Great! So, why hasn’t anyone in my chain called or emailed me in over six weeks since I began this process to see how I am doing?

Thankfully, I don’t need their fake interest to get better. I’m doing this for ME and no one else. I need to get fixed because PTSD can be (and has been) destructive to me and those I care about, not because someone in the military told me to. So, while I ask the question about where they are, I really don’t care.

Every week, I visit with a doc locally for about an hour to break down the walls and get to the heart of my problems. In the past six weeks, I’ve hit rock bottom as we slowly destroy all my defenses to get to the heart of the matter – those significant events that have altered my state of mind for so long.

I would be a bold-faced liar if I said this has been easy. Revisiting some of the things I’ve tried for years to forget has been one of the most stressful things I’ve done ever – probably even more stressful than the events themselves. In combat, I’m armed and can defend myself. In the doc’s office, I’m completely naked (not physically, sickos!). I have no walls or vehicles to hide behind.

During my first extremely tearful visit, I briefly touched on why I was there. I told Doc about some of the events that I have had nightmares about for years. Last week, after weeks of counseling, advice and friendly conversation, he decided that I should write down one particularly troubling event in as much detail as possible.

When I published my journal after returning from Iraq, I intentionally self-edited. I do not regret anything I did in Iraq, but there are some things I’m not proud of having to do. I’d do it again if placed in the same situation, but I’m not happy about it. Doc told me – and I agree – that in order to overcome what haunts combat vets, we have to talk through it.

For the past week since that visit, I’ve focused on trying to write this story. I was supposed to write it down and bring it in to talk about this week. Since that appointment, every moment of every day I was thinking about what I had to do. Frequently, I sat down at the computer to begin writing and each and every time I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. As yesterday’s appointment got closer, I got more and more stressed out that I hadn’t written this story yet. I did not sleep for virtually the entire week.

When I got to Doc’s office yesterday, I told him I just couldn’t do it. I explained how stressed out the “assignment” made me feel and that I hadn’t slept even with my medication. He asked me if I was able to at least talk about the incident and he would write it down. I told him I would try and I did. In excruciating detail, I relayed the events of March 23, 2003 in As Samawah, Iraq.

I couldn’t breathe. I was crying so hard, I could barely speak about that day. As I choked out the story, Doc wrote down every word. Before we began this exercise, he asked me where my stress level was on a scale from 1-100. I told him I was at 100 at least. I was shaking. I knew what was coming. After telling this story, he asked me where my stress level was. Honestly, I had dropped to about 40. A 10-ton weight had been lifted.

Docs have a great way of stating the obvious. “That is absolutely horrible that you had to experience that,” he said when I had finished. “I can’t imagine how you have dealt with that for over six years.”

But, talking about it helped. It helped tremendously and my stress scale had dropped to about 20. By the time I left, I didn’t feel stressed about anything!

As far as I can remember, I’ve only told even a broad version of this story once before. Of all the people I could have told this to, I told it first to a Code Pinko outside Walter Reed a few years ago. She made the mistake of bringing up all the innocent people who we’ve killed in Iraq and I blew a gasket. One of my Freeper friends had the foresight to pull me back recognizing the rage building up inside of me at that comment.

Can you tell I’m putting this off as long as possible? I don’t have to do this, but I think it will help me. And if it helps me, I hope it will help those of you suffering from similar issues to tell your stories so you can also heal.

There is nothing worse than when a Soldier is called upon to take the life of an innocent person. While the media and anti-war goons get a kick out of broadcasting how uncaring we are when innocents are killed, I think the fact is that anytime a Soldier realizes his actions contributed to the death of innocent people it kills that Soldier inside. Our purpose is to protect the innocent. We take great pains, many times at our own peril, to protect the innocent. But, sometimes, we have no choice. That doesn’t make me feel any better about it, but I had no choice.

Such was the case on March 23, 2003. I had no choice. A member of Saddam’s Fedayeen was providing covering fire for a mortar position. We had already killed the fighters manning the tube once, but they really wanted it. As fighters would approach the tube, we’d mow them down. The diner on the corner across the street from the tube no longer had any windows in it, leaving behind a 3-4 foot wall behind which Iraqis were hiding.

At one point, a Fedayeen fighter appeared behind the wall grasping an Iraqi woman by the neck. His AK-47 was resting on her right shoulder and he was firing at our position. There was no clear shot. Blood was pouring out of the woman’s right ear as she screamed with each squeeze of the trigger by the fighter. She was a wearing dark, long sleeve traditional Iraqi dress that buttoned up to the neck.

This event took no longer than about 10 seconds from start to finish, but it felt like hours. I aimed straight for her chest, hoping to take her and the fighter out in one shot. As she fell to the ground, I squeezed another round at the now-exposed fighter who was also beginning to duck behind the wall. The force of impact forced him to fall backwards and I never saw either of them again.

What kind of human being uses an innocent woman as a human shield in combat? What kind of monster forces another human being to kill completely innocent people to save the lives of others?

I see that woman often in my dreams and sometimes while I’m just sitting, minding my own business. I see her lifeless body fall to the ground in super-slow motion and the look of shock in the fighter’s eyes as he probably realizes how exposed he now is without his flesh shield. His AK is still resting on her shoulder as she falls and before he can lift it, he is propelled backward as he himself falls victim to my aim.

That 10-second incident has taken six years of my life. There are other things that still haunt me, but none as much as this. This incident kicked off the next two weeks of sustained combat I would encounter. And it altered my compassion for humanity.