* IRAQ TO IOWA: When The War Comes Home

THE HOT POTATO
Serving Up a Weekly Helping of
Sustainable & Organic Gardening, Food, Health, and Community

by Adam Brockman & Aireen Joven, October 2007, #32

THIS WEEK’S DISH:

IRAQ TO IOWA: When The War Comes Home

 

 
“The most damaging feelings are those that are never discussed.”
- Dr. Don R. Catherall, as quoted in The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook: A Guide To Healing, Recovery, And Growth by Glenn R. Schiraldi, Ph. D.

“The first step in dealing with trauma is to recognize its impact. A traumatic event has many possible impacts. It can impact your feelings, thoughts, relationships, behaviors, attitudes, dreams, and hopes. However, it can also be a way to find a new direction and purpose in life.” -from Chapter 1 of The PTSD Workbook by Mary Beth Williams, Ph.D. and Soili Poijula, Ph.D.

 

THIS PAST weekend, Aireen and I attended the wedding of my brother near the Iowa/Illinois border. It was an especially emotional occasion, not just because my brother is the first of four brothers and three stepbrothers to be married, or because of the beautiful wedding ceremony that took place overlooking a picturesque lake and surrounding trees from a hillside pavilion. My brother, a soldier in the U.S. Army, recently received deployment orders to go to Iraq in November.

I am one who believes that every situation in our lives holds a lesson, an opportunity for insight and growth. What we deem to be coincidences are actually signs of a universal order that brings to us exactly what we need to hear or see at that given time, though we often don’t realize the full repercussions of these synchronicities until later. People, places, and events arrive in ways that may seem random, but are actually signposts of guidance and awakening if only we can look deep enough to understand their meaning. Such synchronicities occur in our lives all the time, and the more we align ourselves with our life’s mission, the more we align ourselves with the rhythmic perfection of life that is happening around us at every moment. Often times, the lessons learned are painful, and we often resist rather than face our fears and the darkness that we see in ourselves and the world. But such lessons are put there precisely so that we are able to acknowledge and understand this darkness.

CARRYING A LOT OF STUFF

As Aireen and I were leaving our hotel room to head back home the day after the wedding, the handle on a paper grocery bag full of our stuff broke, and the bag toppled to the floor. We had several bags to carry, and in our haste we had neglected to pack them all properly. As we shuffled around our belongings, trying to fit the broken bag into an even bigger bag, Aireen remarked about us having a lot of bags.

In our shuffle to get our things packed and meet our family for the three hour drive home, we had barely noticed the young man standing by the washer and dryer just across the hall from our hotel room, watching our struggle with some amusement. “You think that’s a lot of stuff,” he said, “you should have seen what I had to carry when I was in the service.” He started naming off all of the armor and weaponry that constituted the close to ninety pounds of ordinance that he carried on his body everyday as an MP (military policeman). There was the twelve-gauge shotgun that he used to blow open doors, a handgun, a machine gun, ammunition, and a whole host of other weaponry.

As he spoke, we learned that he was an Iraq war veteran who had been, in his words, “blown up” by a bomb while driving in an armored vehicle. Luckily for him, he said, his vehicle had just been equipped with the proper armor prior to the attack, or he may have been more seriously injured, maybe even killed. As it happened, he suffered and continues to suffer from a traumatic brain injury, one of the most common and serious injuries among Iraq veterans returning home. Though he had no outward physical injuries from our understanding, the effects of the traumatic brain injury had left him with impaired motor skills, short-term memory loss, a loss of thinking ability, and phases of dizziness. Once an avid multi-tasker, like juggling laundry, paperwork, and watching tv, he related how he now has trouble focusing on one task at a time. He is no longer allowed to operate a motor vehicle. During a conversation with his wife, he was alarmed when she reminded him that he was repeating things he had already told her an hour and a half before. Although he could remember childhood events with clarity, he had no recollection of telling her any of those things.

MARK’S STORY & POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Besides the traumatic brain injury, Mark [not his real name] was also struggling with the intense emotional and psychological effects of living in a war zone. The majority of veterans who return from Iraq and Afghanistan, even if they weren’t in combat, are afflicted with PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD occurs when an event or environment is so intensely fearful, threatening, or otherwise traumatic, whether physically or emotionally, that a part of the affected person literally shuts down. Unable to fully process the traumatic event or environment, the overwhelming emotions that were not fully integrated and processed are stored away in the body, where they continue to effect the person’s behavior and emotional state long after the perceived threat or traumatic event is over.

Certain triggers, called flashbacks, are incidences, people, or places that mirror the original trauma in some way, and can cause a wide array of reactions ranging from a complete emotional shut-down to uncontrollable fits of rage. During these flashbacks, the PTSD survivor can be completely unaware that the trigger is different from the original traumatic event or environment. In addition to flashbacks, PTSD survivors can experience untriggered bouts of depression, anxiety and fear, panic attacks, emotional numbness, and intense feelings of disconnectedness with other people and the outside world, in general. Many of those afflicted with PTSD do not even know that they have it. In many cases, the trauma becomes so much a part of life or was so overwhelming that the PTSD survivor does not even remember the trauma, or they mistake their symptoms for normal.

Serving as the point-man on house-to-house raids, Mark would use his shotgun to blow off door handles before his buddy kicked the doors in, after which he was always the first man in the building. Today, though he’s no longer in a war zone, if he can’t see through a door as he approaches it, he starts to panic and have anxiety attacks. If there’s a window on the door, he feels a little better, because then he can be sure that there is no one on the other side waiting to kill him. He was so traumatized by the overwhelming fear and uncertainty of what lay behind each of those doors in Iraq that, even in a place of total safety, the fear comes rushing back. The sound of firecrackers triggers memories of bullets, and large crowds of people arouse fear and suspicion.

Mark is from a different state, and was staying in Iowa for medical treatment. He explained to us how at a local haunted house hay ride event where he had just volunteered, his job was stationed near the parking lot instead of around the loud bangs and noises in the haunted house areas. In Iraq, Mark explained, he could never be sure who the enemy was. There was no place on the streets where he felt safe. The first few nights he was at the hotel, he was in such a state of depression and fear that he literally thought he was going to die.

THE GROUND TRUTH

A few months ago, we saw a very powerful and moving documentary that explored the psychological and emotional effects of the Iraq war on soldiers, and the struggles of some of these soldiers to cope with PTSD while trying to get jobs and go back to leading “normal” lives in the civilian world. This documentary, The Ground Truth, should be seen by anyone who is concerned with the health and well-being of our veterans, and who wants to know the hidden costs of this war and war in general on the men and women who are fighting in it everyday. These are men and women who are stepping onto the streets of a foreign country, not knowing where the next bullet or bomb will come from. One man in The Ground Truth is haunted by his participation in the killing of innocent Iraqi civilians. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have lost their lives in this war. How many more soldiers are similarly haunted? When you have crossed that kind of line, where do you go to find healing? Who will understand?

Seeing that documentary was a life-changing experience, but of course, meeting a veteran who was willing and even anxious to share his story was even more powerful. Here was a man who had literally been through the hell of war and made it out alive, only changed, shaken, and wounded in ways that many of us may never see because we do not understand what war is like. Not only does he struggle with his physical recovery from the traumatic brain injury every minute of the day, he must cope with severe PTSD, the challenges of receiving healthcare as a veteran, and being away from his wife and daughter, knowing that soon he will be missing for the second time in a row his daughter’s birthday.

MAKING A PERSONAL CONNECTION

I am afflicted with severe symptoms of PTSD, not from war, but from an abusive childhood, and because of my own struggles with trying to lead a normal life despite flashbacks, depression, and emotional outbursts, I can understand some of what Mark and other veterans with PTSD are going through. One of the most devastating effects of PTSD is the sense of isolation, of feeling disconnected with yourself and those around you. Friends and family members of those who suffer from PTSD are rarely able to understand the seemingly irrational fears, emotional withdrawal, and dozens of other symptoms that their loved ones are experiencing. Finding people who understand and are willing to share their stories or listen without judgment is often crucial to the very survival of the afflicted.

We were very happy to hear that hotel’s staff and Mark’s local doctors were giving him excellent and compassionate care. In the course of our conversation, Mark related to us that several other wounded Iraq war veterans happened to be staying at the same hotel, receiving treatment from facilities nearby. It was not merely coincidence that these wounded veterans were inhabiting the same hotel as my brother and family, on the day after my brother’s beautiful marriage and just one month before his unit is scheduled to go to Iraq. Nor was it a coincidence that we had our encounter with Mark in the hallway. Both synchronicities were there to teach us, to help us realize the utter seriousness of the situation we are in.

WELCOME HOME, COME HOME SOON

I wish there was some way I could tell all of this to my brother, in a way that he would understand. Maybe he already knows. Either way, I cannot help but feel sad and a little scared that he might be going to a place where everyday people are being killed or scarred for life, and I pray, as I did when he was in Afghanistan, that he will be protected and find peace wherever he goes. I ask that all who read this pray for my brother to return home safely. Let’s pray for all of the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they may return home safely and soon, and let us also pray for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. And to all those whose lives have been forever changed by war and violence, we send you our love and prayers. You are not alone.

As we said goodbye to Mark and thanked him for sharing his story with us, I shook his hand and wished him welcome home.

–

The Ground Truth -
Recruitment & Basic Training Clip

 

The Ground Truth Trailer

 

Soldiers with PTSD