mTBI, PTSD and Stress (Catch All)

[MikeF]

Sir,

You always do it your way. I expect nothing less from someone who mentored me to to things the right way, not the easy/safe way. Thanks for always being there for all of us. I hope Katy can make it to the wedding also. She looks like a wonderful lady. SEE YOU SOON!

Sincerely,


MIKE’S LETTER FROM HIS FALLEN FRIENDS


MIKE! What’s wrong with you? You need to let us go!
You have your own life to live without our baggage!

Mike, you have a wonderful life, a beautiful daughter, yet you throw it away with your inner anger.

Mike, think of us, sometimes, cry for us. But don’t grieve for us. We are all gone…dead in your world. We have been dead for a long, long time….

Mike, let us rest so that you can rest. Don’t suffer for us anymore. We never wanted it much less needed it.

You have lived for us long enough. Now, live your own life. Enjoy each dawn, cherish each of your remaining days with joy in your heart, live in each step and know that we will always be with you. Mike, keep living!

Please learn from your war.
Yes, you have lost influence over us. We have control!

Mike, love everyday! Recognize that you lost way too many days…Regain control and love yourself. Live and cherish your new beginning.

Think of us with a clean understanding that we also loved you.
We will now say good-bye.

ENJOY YOUR NEW LIFE!!!!

[MikeF]

as if three birds are enough for US in this time that you fear the sky is falling down and armagedon is upon us...So foolish...so turns the widening gyre...

In concern of what I might do or what I've done to reason with my head...so dave says...I'm just no longer afraid to voice how i once felt.....alone here i am again...my mind in knots....drink and smoke some of you do....i stopped and looked in the mirror. I enjoy what i see....i now pray for you as you may be closer to dave...rhyme and reason and song 41 for you....as long as we talk we are still here....

walking the line i erased long ago....i will listen to you now

we stand for nothing at times UNLESS we let go....

don't worry for me...just think for yourself

if you're still confused just remember this is how i once conquered turki village and zaganiyah...

RESOLVED

When the towers fell, I was there
During the Thunder Runs, I was there
When Iraq burned in genocide, I was there
I am every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine

When the roads exploded, I showed no fear
When my soldiers died, I shed no tear
When my daughter was born, I did not feel
When the war is done, I cannot heal

Drowning in sorrow, unbridled anger deep within
A poisonous cancer just below the skin
Ravenous voices penetrate my thought
Please, please tell me all wasn't for naught

Alone in my cage I perpetually rest
Missing, wanting, needing my best
Determined to reconcile, obstacles to overcome
Always mindful, every mindful, back to where I'm from

Reset, Refocused, Reborn, my attention turns again
To my beautiful daughter, playing in the sand
Innocent and thoughtful, I begin to understand
The audacity of hope must always transcend

In the darkness of night, no moon penetrates
Politicians and pundits fear in rabid debates
Alone stands the soldier, protecting the sheep
Alone is the widow, no longer to sleep

As the darkness darkens, no end in sight
What is on the horizon, but a new morning's light

[MikeF]

The Intersection of Congruence


By chance of quest, does my heart not prize my brain?
Of course not, each independent but the same.
This swelling inside, I know not fully through,
All I can do is gasp, I solely want you.

Aroused from introspection, aloof no more,
Intense passion swells, and I know.
Intensity of desire embraces chance,
Abandons reason, takes form in glance.

Passion dances in the breath of bliss,
Awaiting the moment to taste your kiss.
Restlessly I await, patience must persist,
Abandoning pursuit of pleasure for love forever.

My heart races, I no longer think.
Where have you been? Where did I go?
Minds meld; moreover,
we are one.

[MikeF]

“The Second Coming”
William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[MikeF]

Everything I have is now free, so we can all heal

To Yahweh, for carrying me when I could not
To Taylor, so that you may know your daddy
To my walking wounded, so that you may learn to live
To my fallen paratroopers, I love you, and I’ll see you one day on the big drop zone in the sky
To the children of Iraq, that you may one day know peace
To my fellow citizens, may you find the truth
To Major Aziz, my brother in arms
To Katy, for loving me irrationally
Inshallah

[MikeF]

PROLOGUE

You never really know what is going through another man’s mind or the path that he walks. For veterans, the path is more obscure. He could be your grandfather, uncle, brother, or husband. He could be the homeless guy on the street. He may be the smartly dressed businessman in your office or the art collector downtown. On the surface, he tries to act like you wearing a mask to hide the horror and rage deep within his soul. He strives to be normal in American society, but his heart is numb. Normal is juxtaposed with the pain and suffering he has lived. He does not want his family to know what he has done. He suffers in silence.

I never thought I could heal. After all the killing and violence, I felt that I had a penance to serve. I felt condemned to a life with hope forlorn, faith no more; a life without purpose and without love. I was a shell of my former self drowning in an alcoholic sorrow along the river of the Sierra Nevada Pale ale. Sometimes, I wished that I had died in Iraq. At least then I would have had a hero’s burial.

Instead, I waded through an insufferable purgatory walking through your world but living in Iraq. I would stare at you on the street wondering if you could ever understand. I saw you everywhere, but you never saw me. You were distracted by your IPod and cell phone: measures of self-medication that provide distance from thinking about your soul, purpose, and nature. That is the American condition I suppose. We are so blessed, yet we are so cursed at times. I was angry, and I deflected my anger onto you.

Yes, I am gifted with exceptional intelligence, but so what? My anger thwarted any attempt to be productive. I was emotionally bankrupt. My process was skewed- all goal focused. I did not, could not live. I tried to fit into your society; I tried to conform. I tried to wear a mask of the good soldier, the good student, the good husband, and the good father. It did not work. I thought of running away to homelessness or hiding in an office being nobody. It did not work. I forced myself on a path to resolution. I would either heal, or I would die trying.

After my fourth combat tour and six years of perpetual war, I spiraled out of control. I searched for hope and love, and I found nothing. I tried to eat, love, and pray. I tried yoga. I tried the church. I thought that maybe all I had to do was get smarter. I tried to expand my creativity. I tried painting, poetry, rock-climbing, mountain biking, surfing, and hiking. I found nothing.

I found temporary relief with alcohol. Drinking 30 beers a night, I could forget for a bit. For a few precious moments, I was not haunted by the genocide, the burning villages, my soldier’s faces destroyed, or my soldier’s brains deteriorating. I found relief. I spent several nights in jail for public intoxication, and I kept falling.

The Army was very patient with me. They tried to give me space to sort through my grief, but it did not work. Finally, in a last ditch effort, they sent me to Kansas. What the hell is in Kansas?

In Kansas, a transformation occurred. Magic and miracle are the only words to describe what happened. I watched old, crusty Vietnam Veterans break weeping like young children. I let go. I am not angry anymore. I am alive!!!

Nancy understood. Once, she had walked in my shoes. She knew that I saw the world differently from most. She reminded me I have one of three choices to make: conform, walk away, or voice truth to power. I chose voice. I understand the implications of my decision with regards to the Army. With my voice, I am walking away. I will now be considered too rebellious, too different. I am okay with my decision. Furthermore, I made a decision to pursue my new life with the same audacity that I once pursued al Qaeda. This is my story.

After years of endless trauma, Ralph Waldo Emerson emerged anew. He produced definite works in American literature that defined the American spirit of self-reliance for a century. He challenged us to,

“Be not a slave of your own past. Plunge into the deep waters, dive deep and swim far, so that you may emerge anew. Return with renewed experience and deeper understanding.”

Let us tackle his challenge. Let us strive to be the next greatest generation. Let our children live. Follow me. I will share my story. It is raw, real, and true. It is interesting and important. It is a tragedy, but it is mostly a story of hope, acceptance, forgiveness, validation, and love. As the president proclaims, “The audacity of hope must transcend.”

Thank you for reading this. I am not sure if you are ready to hear it, but it is time. God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America. Tomorrow is a new day. Let us not forget our past lest we are forced to repeat it.

[MikeF]

CHAPTER ONE: ALL ROADS LEAD TO ZAGANIYAH


“Osama, baah! Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.”

-Pakistani General (Ret) Bashir
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time


"Mike, they're miscreants. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less....You call them jihadists, and you don't understand what jihad means. You've just infuriated 2 billion Muslims and given credence to their cause. They’re simply miscreants." -Pakistani Infantry Officer