Guest Post - The Silent Demon

"Always remember, if you have been diagnosed with PTSD, it is not a sign of weakness; rather, it is proof of your strength, because you have survived!"

-- Michael Templet, author

Guest Post: The Silent Demon

My husband and I are (like many of you) well aware freedom is NOT free! How much does freedom actually cost our troops, families, and veterans emotionally, mentally, physically and financially? Through a series of blogs I will be sharing from my personal point of view the ins, outs, ups and downs of what not only my husband and I have gone through, but what we have also seen others go through. 

When my husband entered his only duty station, I became a volunteer Family Readiness Group (FRG) leader. I was shocked helping the troops and their family’s daily deal with issues that were too taboo to speak of. Anyone who knows me personally knows that when I came into this world the device that shuts my mouth was never installed! My husband and I are very thankful for all we do have make no mistakes about that. We are thankful he returned from Iraq alive. We are truly blessed to have each other and a roof over our heads. My concern was that, if we were struggling this much, I could not even imagine what others are going through. What about the other thousands of troops and veterans whom are homeless left on the streets to suffer the cold hard winters that go days without food or water, perhaps to die in the end? To be spit on and treated like less than garbage and whose families have left their sides because the government has made it next to impossible to get the proper help for our veterans unless you played by their rules. Many could not handle the battle alone! These are people who were willing to stand in a uniform, years before ready to fight to their last breath, for our country.

This has been a subject of concern for me since I was a child, writing letters to my local politicians as soon as I could hold a pen, and yes, every president of the USA has probably received a letter written by these hands since I could write. Maybe I should have drawn them a picture and they would have understood my concerns better.

Eight years later (yes I know many others have been fighting for their benefits longer than I have been alive) letters and emails get written yet lost on our politicians desk until election time comes close and they chose to do a great deed to make themselves look like a super hero because they have chosen to help a troop, veteran or a small group of those listed above in desperate need. Then they all prance around every media resource possible like the latest celebrity waiting to be bowed to. The acronym PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is whispered like it’s a dirty crime. In my book, it is a crime; a silent demon that our government and politicians allow to roll off their lounge like popcorn at a movie.

Many would rather not see or hear of this silent demon. Many do not realize and some do not care how debilitating combat (PTSD) alone can be even without other diagnoses combined. Any PTSD can be crippling and defeating but here I am speaking of combat PTSD. Here are just a few examples: Scheduling doctor appointments around your county’s school bus scheduling so you are not on the roads at the same time as the buses are and the children and their back packs get off the bus. Hoping there is not a discarded soda can on the side of the road were someone just insisted on using mother earth as a personal landfill. These all can be triggers and many times the family ends up with the diagnosis of secondary PTSD which can make it more difficult to take care of the veterans and their well being.

The relationship between husband and wife often times change, if it lasts at all. Many times it seems for a military member or veteran to survive in this world the silent demon takes over as they push those that love them away so that they may save them from the horror.

This demon has won this battle and some of our government and politicians are sure enjoying the show. Maybe we should ask them if they need some salt or butter for their popcorn before the next show starts. In closing I would like to express my gratitude and sincere respect to all of our military, their families and our veterans even though to say a thank you does not seem like near alone enough!

~Gypsy/Truth Dreamer, March 12, 2015~

I thank Gypsy for yet another fine Guest Post, and pray she continues to put her mind to paper for her sake and, in this case, for the sake of all veterans suffering the debilitating effects of PTSD.  

Thank God I never had the opportunity to experience the horrors of war up close and personal.  I was a member of the cadre of planners that sat back in relative safety to plot the destruction of the enemy while trying to bring our troops and aircrews back in one piece.  This was so much easier with nuclear warfare in that we were part of the deterrence factor; that imminent destruction of millions upon millions of innocent men, women, and children, everyone hoped would never come to fruition.  The insanity of the outcome is that we would probably win the conflict and lose the war.  The aircrews would almost certainly return home to die of radiation exposure, and we would finish launching the bombers, grab a few lawn chairs and some beer, and go sit on the porch at the entrance to the facility and wait for the incoming submarine launched ICBMs to warm up the cold northwest day.  The stress we endured dealt with being party to destroying the planet.  The cure was learning to forgive ourselves, which was relatively easy since the destruction never came to pass.  But combat related PTSD is an entirely different animal.

I have talked to many kids that have gone off to battle and come back adults, if they came back (the fact they're sitting in front of me is no guarantee of this).  We send relative "children" off to fight our wars and witness unspeakable horrors.  We have done this for all wars.  There was a time in our past when we, as parents, actually tried to prepare our children to become men prior to fighting our battles, in hope that our preparations would enable them to do us proud, come home safe, and cope with the trauma (which pretty much meant not talking about it which was felt would be tantamount to whining).  But that was then, and what the hell did we know?  

I think, for the most part, our society stopped raising young "men" some time back, probably when we stopped parenting and started relying on schools and the government to raise our kids and teach them values which, when things started going south in life, gave them full permission to cry like little girls.  Now we simply send children, virtually unprepared for life much less death, off to foreign countries to die in battles they probably aren't even prepared to understand the politics that caused them to be where they are, if they can find where they are on a map.  The only kids that are actually trained to fight and survive would seem to be the Special Forces, and even they can be brought up on charges for doing their job when they return home.  Is it any wonder these folks feel lost or forgotten?  We send babies to grow up on the field of battle.  Talk about your school of hard knocks!

Now some will say that these are young men that go off to fight, and many of them, lately, have been Reservists and Guard troops.  Many of them were stocking shelves at Walmart, pumping gas in Oregon, flipping burgers at McDonalds, or doing some other guys taxes in the local "quickie-mart" the day before the deployed.  These "prepared" soldiers are what we used to call "weekend warriors."  One weekend a month, how prepared can you be?  I had the privilege of babysitting many green lieutenants assigned to Intelligence for their mandatory two week per year reservist stint.  What fun.  The "regular" military might tell you one is never truly prepared for war; and this coming from guys that live the life.  Can you imagine how it hits the weekend warrior who rather be back pushing paper at some stock brokerage firm because he foolishly never really thought he'd ever be called to fight?  Many of these weekend warriors have died alongside the regulars.  I always hope they died well; heroes all!

The old heads might say they pine for the glory days of war, the waving your arm over your head with a yell of, "follow me boys!" as you shove the stub of a cigar between your teeth and charge out of the foxhole, hoping the "boys" are actually following you, firing your machine gun one handed, on full auto, as you pull grenade pins with your teeth and toss them with the other hand while remembering the words of General George S. Patton when he said, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.  He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

There was a time when we were pretty good at that.  But, those were the days when every kid wanted to play army, dig foxholes, throw dirt clod hand grenades, and you and your squad would squirt gun to death the guys from the next block over.  When we joined it was simply a matter of turning the game into reality and learning not to throw up at the sight of blood and guts.  Yeah, right.  I'm not sure what incentive has such draw to bring a young person to the meat grinder now days.

If I sound a bit pissed, I probably am.  Every time I see a Wounded Warrior ad I ask myself why we need them.  Why isn't our country doing what this organization had to be formed to handle.  The current VA hospital scandal answered all that.  Criminal, treasonous, and a slap in the face to every veteran, wounded or not.  With all we volunteer to sacrifice, this is the thanks we get when we need it?

So, what's the answer, drawing down the military and then relying on a draft when we need more, poorly trained, fodder to litter the field of battle?  Maybe it would be better to take the tact of some countries and have a mandatory two year military commitment, like that would ever work here.  There is no answer that we will ever agree on and put into action, at least not until this country is invaded or our innocent are killed with continual 9/11 attacks that change the minds of those people living with their heads in the fantasy sandbox world of "peace on earth."  No, we will continue to send "children," ill prepared for the horrors of war, to fight and die, or return home a puzzle, with missing pieces.  Perhaps our best hope is just to convince the country not to turn their backs on our brave men and women when they return home all grown up, and all screwed up in the head from what we put them through.

Then again, there's always that fantasy world of "peace on earth."


Editor's Note:  

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion.  It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other.  An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth.  After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human.  God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.
  

Pastor Frank Anthony Villari

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path."