Walking wounded: Duluth veteran's life shattered by PTSD
Brandon Stahl
Duluth News Tribune
A bowl of corn flakes and room-temperature milk sits in front of Kevan Boman, 52, at a table in the Duluth Union Gospel Mission. His eyes flip down for a second, his lips purse and twist into a slight frown; just another reminder of what his life has become.
"This is breakfast," he says as his eyes shift up to the acrid cafeteria, not wanting any of the other sad, tired faces of destitute and homeless people to get too close to him. As he eats, he reminisces about what his life once was. He was a military man for 27 years, a veteran of two wars who retired as a decorated officer. He was a nurse, a proud husband and father of three daughters, once so wealthy that he donated thousands of dollars to the very soup kitchens where he now eats.
Now, he lives in a car. Before that it was other cars, before those were stolen or repossessed. In between were unlocked garages, tool sheds and apartment building basements, gas station bathrooms, drug houses or the couches of his daughters' homes. Before all that, before he had to sneak into hospital and gas station bathrooms to bathe and groom himself, before the drugs and the suicide attempts, it was a three-bedroom, two-bath, two-car-garage home in a tree-lined Duluth neighborhood with his family.
That was his life three years ago, before his mind was overwhelmed by the guilt and shame from post-traumatic stress disorder, and he walked out on it all.
Since then, he has lived on the streets, but it doesn't have to be that way. He could take his military disability checks for a tax-free $4,400 a month, get an apartment and start his life over. But he won't. He says he would rather give his money away, to his kids, to friends, to just about anyone who asks for it. He says he would rather punish himself.
"I haven't made peace with myself," he says, pausing for a moment as his eyes drop again, disappointment stretching across his face. "This is my penance. I don't let God forgive me. I don't know why I do this. I have to."
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I hear it too often when people want to dismiss the ravages of PTSD. They say, "well they were cowards" but never seem to notice most of them, do their duties and it is not until they are home safe, with no threat of going back hanging over them, they collapse. How does someone go from serving in two war, three wars or any war at all, getting decorated for bravery in the face of death, not retain the same courage after when they are safe? Doesn't make sense does it? But in the minds of the dismissals, they cannot look deeply enough. Is it because we do in fact look to them for our own security and safety that we have such a hard time seeing them as humans just like the rest of us beneath their bravery? Why can't we really see them as ourselves?
Each one of us will be brave and afraid at the same time in our own lives but we don't face death on a daily basis. Each one of us will weep for one event and take another as just a part of life. So why is it we expect them to be so much different than us?
How can Kevan Boman serve this nation for 27 years and in two wars, suddenly be nothing more than a burden to avoid? The drinking and drugs some of them do when they come home are not as addicts, addicted to the chemical, but wounded seeking relief from feelings they do not want to feel. They call it self-medicating. Yet society will not look to the core or attempt to understand what it is they seek.
Over the years, I've come into contact with many of these men and women. They end up feeling worth-less than they did when they were serving. Imagine that? A few, simple honest, kind words of valuing them will produce tears. They cannot see how rare they are and how worthy of our attention they always have been while we ignore them, blame them or dismiss them.
Over 300 million people live in this country yet we have only about 17 million combat veterans remaining with us. Think of how rare they are. Think of the fact they are normal humans, exposed to the most traumatic events man can create. These are not abnormal people, but normal ones who have survived the abnormal events of combat. We decide they need to get over it. We decide they need to get back to work and put it all behind them. We are also the first to stand in their way, dismiss their wounds because we cannot see them and then blame them when they become homeless, have their careers end, families fall apart and loose everything they were taught mattered in polite society.
Yet we also have men like Kevan Boman who have enough income to survive without living in his car or shelters, but he decided he isn't worth it. He decided he does not deserve it. Who told him that? Who put that kind of an idea into his head that his wounded mind made him so much of lesser value to this nation than when this nation was sending him into combat for us? We did.
That is the message we gave hundreds of thousands of Vietnam Veterans when they were suffering the same thing thirty years ago. We had an excuse back then because when the veterans of WWII and Korea came home, no one talked about the ravages of PTSD on their minds. What was our excuse in the late 70's, or the 80's, 90's or since these two new combat actions began? The only excuse we have now is ignorance. Ignorance makes us intolerant. Ignorance makes us ambivalent. Ignorance causes us to blame them for getting wounded with wounds so deeply etched within the walls of their souls, it takes a tender soul to heal them. It requires us to fight the ignorance of others when we come up against them. It requires truth and education to remove the stigma and tendency to blame them. It takes caring, informed eyes, to stop looking at them as anything other than rare people with battled scars. Combat is not normal. Why do we insist they come back from it the same way they went into it?
Kathie Costos
