PTSD and the Young Soldier

Although many say there is a difference between Iraq and Afghanistan there must be an assumption made that all trauma is the same. It doesn’t matter if you were landing on a beach in the far east, fighting the hedges of Normandy, on the frozen reservoir, fighting in the hot jungles of Vietnam or fighting against another hidden enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan. All trauma is the same.

I used to think that my story was the only story until I started listening to other veterans. Then I realized that everyone has an equally important story. And when they describe trauma it appears the trauma is always the same in its life changing horror.

What is important is not to hide from the traumatic event as many veterans have tried. The idea is to turn toward the horror and to embrace it as a long lost friend. To get real close to it and to discuss it with others.

I was an infantry platoon leader in the worst years of the Vietnam War - 68 and 69. And I experienced many deaths of soldiers under my command and of the enemy at my hands or at my direction. It left scars deep in my core and it took me all of ten years to turn and face it. I call that period my ten year Vietnam drift.

I had lost my youth and at 21 and 22 found myself facing horrors that should never have to be faced by anyone - much less a young man. I became old at 22 and when I retured home I hid. I didn’t want to talk and everyone’s carefree attitudes toward life bothered me. So I hid in the mountains. I took my dogs and moved into a trailer in the hills of Blue Lake, California. I lived there hidden in the Redwoods for over a year. I actually had to brace myself just to go into town to seek provisions. And I was scared to death that someone would actually try to engage me in conversation.

I never could sense that maybe I had some difficulties. Until my good friend, Max Cleland, who was the director of the VA at the time, created the community Vietnam Veteran Outreach Centers. They still exist today. So I stopped by one and listened. And what I heard was my story. Not once but over and over again. So I returned and started sharing.

Having been from a long line of officers it was unheard of for officers to admit that maybe they had some problems. Or that officers handled their own problems. And my dreams and memories seemed unsurmountable. Finally my friend and counselor, Jack Jones, a marine who had stepped on a land mine, made a suggestion.

It was after I had told him about my difficulties with people, with life, with staying put in one place for too long, with broken or troubled relationships, with not be able to hold jobs and with an anger hidden somewhere deep inside me.

He asked if people bounced off of me? I quickly proclaimed, yes, as if it were some sort of a personal badge of honor. So he suggested that I sit in front of a mirror and look at myself with the question that maybe I was the problem. Maybe I was the reason people were bouncing off of me...

That froze me in my tracks and for the first time I saw what other people see. And I began my healing. That was around 1985 or so... I lost many good years and walked away from many good friends who were just trying to help in the only way they knew how. I just was not able to admit that I had problems.

Finally I heard some magical words from a Psychiatrist at the VA. He said that I was different from any other Vietnam Veteran he had ever met. He said most are hiding from their demons but that somehow I had turned and embraced them. When I heard those words I knew right then and there that I could help others find their way.

Let me assure those of you who are in the midst of your "drifting" that you are not alone. That you do not have a mental problem so don’t act like you do. You have an emotional scarring that will be with you until the day you die. The sooner you turn toward it and embrace it not only in that moment will you begin healing but you will also be in a position to help your brothers and sisters who have lost their way.

Have you looked into that mirror?