The story continues......

I'm pretty much playing catch up.....or rather, I'm getting everyone up to speed to what got me to where I am today. So, the blog continues. This is very therapeutic actually...if you grow bored, move on to the next blog lol. Especially if you know me and therefore already know most of this stuff.

So, in March 2004 we're heading back to Kuwait. This story is going to make some of you laugh, others will just scratch your head. But its ok. Here goes....

I'm sitting in the center seat of an LMTV with no turret. In other words, if anything happened, I was pretty much a sitting duck. But, thankfully, not much did happen. Except when we drove through a city center and were weeding our way through traffic. The humvee in front of us was passing a tomato truck when you heard the loudest boom ever........amazingly none of our vehicles were hit. We hauled ass as the truck driver got out stomping the ground pissed because his rear axle is gone and there are tomatoes all over the road.....the passenger yells "THANKS!" as we fly past.

Did you laugh? I sure hope so. I cling to these stories because they help bring light to a very depressing few years.

Once we're home, I hit the highway and realize despite having not seen much of anything, I'm scared to death to drive on the roads. The barriers.....had to avoid them at all costs. Found myself driving white knuckled and dropping my speed to like 25mph driving to Cove. I figured this was merely temporary, and eventually I managed to deal alright so I didn't think so see anybody about it. But I had my moments, or rather "episodes" over the course of the last 7 years....I just chose to ignore them.

So the one year anniversary of DJ's death comes and I'm feeling pretty shitty. Then, a few weeks later, November 29th 2004, we're at PT when CW2 Evans, CW2 Gardner and SPC Brown depart for a VIP mission with some head honcho's from 4ID. Their headed to Corpus Christi (spelling?). We watch them fly over the PT field after leaving the helipad at 4ID headquarters, and that's the last time we would ever see them alive. They crashed in Waco. They asked for volunteers to help the recovery flight crew....I did not realize what that meant at the time. Carrying body bags to a refrigerator truck from the cabin of a blackhawk helicopter is a memory I never ever want to have, I want it gone. If I could erase it, I would. Especially knowing the people inside those bags.

Everyone watches in amazement when you see a Soldier at a funeral or a memorial with a rock hard face....wondering if they have a heart or if their just cold. We learn to turn our emotions off after trauma. And the more you heap trauma into our laps, the more closed off we become. We only speak with those who experienced what we experienced and we shut everyone else out. Most Soldiers feel their completely alone because they don't have anyone to talk to. We PCS, or like me everyone ELSE PCS's and we have all new faces around and we're not about to open up to any of them. So, we end up emotionally turned off to everything that surrounds us. We stay in that combat mode 24/7....double, triple check the locks, jump at the slightest sounds...we're hypervigilant to everything that is around us...we avoid trash on the roads, we are irritable, we're easily aggitated, and some begin self medicating. The stigma that was with mental health issues kept most of us old timers out of the doctors offices. That red flag would end our careers. I think that's one of the reasons I didn't seek help til just last year. Because I knew the stigma was there, I'd seen what it did to others careers. I love my job, so it was the last thing I wanted to do........but I had to seek help.

Most Soldiers, when they go home, the last thing they want to do is talk to their family about what they encountered. And yet, most push us to talk about it, which fuels anger because that's the last thing we want to think about.

My PTSD really didn't flare up to the point where I am now until this last October. My best friend, Craig, lost his wife to a battle with pneumonia. I was with him when she passed away, we were the only two in the room with her.....it awakened the demons that have been buried in my subconscious for years. I began suffering from insomnia, couldn't eat, or rather wouldn't, panic attacks, anxiety, my memory was shot, I was a Staff Sergeant holding an E7 position and I was dropping the ball left and right. I was falling apart. It took a great deal of courage to seek the help I so desperately needed, and I have no regrets....because if I hadn't, this blog wouldn't exist and I'd be yet another statistic they base their annual suicide prevention training off of.

Again, thanks for reading......I'm going to call it a night, I think I've pretty much got you up to speed on me....