mTBI, PTSD and Stress (Catch All)

[MikeF]

Until next time...

Walk with me....

Invitation open...

[davidbfpo]

Mike F,

At first I was puzzled and on second reading found some understanding. No good at poetry though. It helps if - even on a small scale - some of the journey has been travelled personally and then the insight comes.

Thanks

davidbfpo

[MikeF]

What is the point of all of this?

This is just my White Paper on PTSD and mTBI.

See as a survivor, I didn't know how to step out of the arena. I had to figure that out myself. So, I did something audacious. You now have a case study to read. Take your time with it.

Now, maybe y'all can figure out what to do.

As for me, I'm actually going home to just be normal for once. Life is way too short to be spent in the insanity of war.

Thank you for your patience and time. I hope that I did not offend anyone.

Peace

[Tom Odom]

What is the point of all of this?

This is just my White Paper on PTSD and mTBI.

See as a survivor, I didn't know how to step out of the arena. I had to figure that out myself. So, I did something audacious. You now have a case study to read. Take your time with it.

Now, maybe y'all can figure out what to do.

As for me, I'm actually going home to just be normal for once. Life is way too short to be spent in the insanity of war.

Thank you for your patience and time. I hope that I did not offend anyone.

Peace

Anyone offended by that does not count...

Thanks for sharing, Mike

Best
Tom

[slapout9]

For MikeF.

Brothers In Arms-Dire Straits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

[Ken White]

good pick, Slap...

[MikeF]

Initially, I did not know where this would lead.
Just one long brutal honest conversation.
Throughout this process,
I found the true meaning of Easter.

Not just turkey, yams, and jellybeans
I found love
As my wise counsel told me
This has to be done

So here it is….
further psychotherapy in my own controlled environment.
now, the soldiers voice.
Don’t make another generation suffer in silence

This is why I did what I did.
I had to give up trying to fix this stuff myself.
Now, y'all have everything you need to solve the problem.
Thus validation -Mike

Sir, thanks for saying what most won't...

Michael, thanks for sharing what we can't comprehend.

Sir,

It has been interesting reading your notes. I did not realize how much your time in the service has cost you. Reading about you spending time in jail for being drunk was somewhat a shock, but not entirely unbelievable.

Many of the people that came back showed signs of great stress in their lives, even if they were not in positions of great responisibility. Soldier 1 tried to kill himself several times (Soldier 2 and I had to pull him in from Atlanta traffic one night), Soldier 3 lost it on some woman trying to recall him for IRR, I nearly killed a kid in the barracks one night for simply talking bad about 5/73. Almost everyone bought guns when we came back. Shootings in the barracks quad happened many weekends with bullet holes being found in B Troop barracks. Some were so close to my window that I found myself dropped to the floor in reaction.

I know that both Soldier 2 and I found solice in talking to veterans from previous wars. I linked up with old paratroopers from Vietnam through various groups and they were very helpful in bringing me back into the right.

I did not know it at the time, but A Troop, and all of 5/73 were hard men. Some of the things we experienced, even after you left, seemed almost normal at the time, but when put against the background of other units as I have now been able to do, I see that there was nothing normal about it.

One of the examples I like to think of is the jundi we worked with in Zag and beyond. At first there was much distrust of Major Aziz's men amongst the lower enlisted, and the jundi mistrusted us too. Slowly, through months of shared guard duties a bond began to form. As the local threat began to target the jundi as much or more than us, that bond deepened. I remember one day after an ambush had seriously wounded a jundi, their SGM was questioning a detainee. The detainee was being flippant. Most of the patrol base had seen the wounded jundi, missing his lower jaw, medevaced out. The IA SGM hauled off and backhanded the detainee. At this, the entire patrol base erupted in cheers. Of course the SGM was quickly brought under control and many of the troopers signed at that as well. In that moment I realized how much we had all changed. No longer were we soldiers and jundi, Americans and Iraqis. For all our differences we had become one- as we talked, fought, and bled together. The Americans weren't cheering the simple act of a beating- they were showing support of the jundi that had become battle brethern.

At Zag, I always chose the East Gate guard position. The jundi there got to know me very well and eventually gave me a nickname, told me stories about their families, and adopted me. As a compliment, many would loudly proclaim me Iraqi and I made many friends there.

And yet, in Iraq I learned hate. Real hate, not the kind that gets so easily tossed around as in when someone talks about displeasing things.

The first time I ever shot at another human was in the fields of Turki village. In some ways I think killing is like sex- an intense, immensely personal affair, and the first time you go about it you aren't very good at it.

There in the fields of Turki I changed as a person. The rest of the Diyala campaign was nothing more than an infant learning the ways of the world as a new man grew in place of the old one.

I suppose this email is a ramble of disjointed thoughts. Lately I have been thinking very hard about Iraq, terrorism, and the future. This tour is drawing to a close, as is my time in the military. My struggle now is to find some application of the knowledge gained over the last two years to do something progressive. As well, the struggle to come back to the social norms of America are filling my thoughts. My reactions to things that offend me are still those of violence, held in check by mental thought and not reaction. Just tonight I put on the gloves and beat up a connex while working out issues from things earlier in the day. Sometimes coming home is not so easy a road, and the longer you spend away from home, the farther that road becomes.

Anyway, happy Easter and I look forward to reading more of your story.