When my daughter was young, she asked me what a hero was. I told her a hero is someone that puts themselves after others. She thought I meant that they were last in line. I told her, in a way, they were. They are all too often the last people in the world that consider themselves a hero. Thinking of others comes naturally to them. Feeling as if they should care about others before themselves, seems the right thing to do and many, far to many, never think twice about it.
More and more stories come out about the men and women wounded by PTSD and more and more, they have the common calling to rise above "self" and think of the greater good, of others, of what others need of them instead of what they need from others. Twenty-six years of reading their stories along with my own husband has removed the notion of "anecdotal" evidence of this. All anyone has to do is talk to them to know what I'm saying is true.
This same ability that allows them to be so unselfish, is also the reason they feel the pain so deeply they need help to heal but often find it hard to ask for help. Aside from the stigma of it that remains to this day, they are reluctant to think of themselves. Some feel they don't deserve to be helped instead of thinking they don't deserve to live with so much pain in them. They feel it all more deeply than others and they also have a sense of courage that goes far beyond normal human bravery. It is that desire to rush to help others they often overlook.
When they crash because of PTSD, they say that they are damaged, no longer brave, no longer helping anyone. They fail to see that when they were needed, they were there to answer the call and when they were out of danger, when others were out of danger, then and only then, their minds took over and the wound began to hurt.
Well here is one more story of a hero that did not need to die. A hero who put others before himself and one that carried the pain of others with them along with his own. How many of these heroes are we willing to lose before the people in charge are held accountable for failing them?
Military Family Loses Son , a Combat Vet and a HERO
By: Jan A. Igoe February 08, 2009
The Patriot Guard Riders who stood outside Goldfinch Funeral Home Beach Chapel in the rain on that gray Saturday afternoon had never met Larry "Curtis" Applegate. But they embraced him as one of their own.
A group of Coastal Carolina Blue Star Mothers, who have children serving in the military, came to console and support the family. They didn't know Applegate either, but they understood his family's grief and prayed it would never be theirs.
Applegate's heartbroken mother sobbed hysterically, clutching a photo of Curtis, her only son. Seated two pews away from the flag-draped coffin, she rocked back and forth as her husband tried in vain to ease her sorrow.
"I want my baby back," she cried. "I just want my baby."
The 27-year-old Army specialist, a decorated combat veteran stationed at Fort Carson, Colo., had come home to be buried next to his grandmother at Ocean Woods Cemetery in Myrtle Beach. Applegate was being treated for post-traumatic stress and doing well in the program, his superiors said. No one could explain why he took his own life.
Applegate's good friend and best man at his July 2007 wedding, Eric Shuping of Murrells Inlet, had just spoken to him days before. They were making plans to visit each other's families and everything sounded good - except for the killer headaches Applegate had been suffering since his deployment. click link for more
