Winning medals and battling PTSD
Dec 1, 2010
By Elizabeth M. Collins (Defense Media Activity-Army)
"I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills."
TORMENTED by nightmares from a convoy attack during his first deployment to Iraq and driven to compensate with muscles for his shorter stature, Spc. Filipe Hill took this section of the Warrior Ethos a little too far. To help cope with his flashbacks and anger, he worked out up to three times a day, six days a week, during his second tour in Iraq. He always believed pain truly was weakness leaving the body, so he ignored his body's protests when he bench-pressed 315 pounds and squatted 450, until, that is, the day he could no longer hold a dumbbell with his left arm.
Doctors in Iraq medevaced him to Germany, where he was diagnosed with nerve damage and four herniated disks. After surgery in February 2009, and extensive physical and occupational therapy, Hill still doesn't have the full-strength back in his left hand-he can barely hold 35 pounds today-and still has muscle spasms. According to doctors, the 29-year-old Soldier has the neck of a 50-year-old man.
And when his new wife, who is also an Army specialist, insisted he get help for his nightmares, he was also diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but he didn't let any of that-nor a painful pulled hamstring-stop him from competing in the first Warrior Games, a unique sporting event designed for wounded servicemembers and cosponsored by the U.S. Paralympics, in Colorado Springs, Colo., last spring.
When his squad leader at the Fort Meade, Md., warrior transition unit announced the games, Hill, a former high school track-and-field runner, eagerly submitted his packet for events like the 50-meter dash, 100-meter dash and the relay race. He also agreed to try the 50-meter freestyle swim (later withdrawing due to injury) and wheelchair basketball. He thought it was regular basketball at first, but ended up loving it, although he was disappointed when the Army lost to the Marines in a fierce battle. The Army team walked, or rather, rolled away with the silver medal.
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Winning medals and battling PTSD
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Dead soldier's property bought from storage kept from family
UPDATE December 6, 2010
Happy Ending
Family gets back personal effects of Marine killed in Afghanistan
Published: Sunday, December 05, 2010, 12:00 PM
The brother of the first U.S. servicewoman to die in the war in Afghanistan said he is relieved to get back her personal effects from an Indiana businessman who bought them and initially refused to hand them over.
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Family gets back personal effects of Marine killed in Afghanistan
UPDATE
Man offers to return Marine's personal items
By Joel Hood and David Elsner, TRIBUNE REPORTERS
10:17 p.m. CST, November 30, 2010
Not since his days as a Marine in combat in Iraq has Matthew Winters Jr. felt a call of duty like the one he embarked on Tuesday, trying to recover the identification tags, medals and folded burial flag of his younger sister, who was the first U.S. servicewoman killed in the Afghanistan campaign.
The personal effects of Sgt. Jeannette Lee Winters, a Gary native, are being held by a northwest Indiana businessman who found himself at the center of a public firestorm when he told the Winters family that if they wanted the mementos back, they'd have to pay for them.
But late Tuesday, Mark Perko said he had a change of heart and agreed to hand over the items without payment.
"I'm just going to cut my losses on this stuff," said Perko, a used furniture salesman who purchased the contents of the Winters' family storage locker four years ago. "They can have it back if they want it."
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Man offers to return Marine's personal items
Happy Ending
Family gets back personal effects of Marine killed in Afghanistan
Published: Sunday, December 05, 2010, 12:00 PM
The brother of the first U.S. servicewoman to die in the war in Afghanistan said he is relieved to get back her personal effects from an Indiana businessman who bought them and initially refused to hand them over.
read more here
Family gets back personal effects of Marine killed in Afghanistan
UPDATE
Man offers to return Marine's personal items
By Joel Hood and David Elsner, TRIBUNE REPORTERS
10:17 p.m. CST, November 30, 2010
Not since his days as a Marine in combat in Iraq has Matthew Winters Jr. felt a call of duty like the one he embarked on Tuesday, trying to recover the identification tags, medals and folded burial flag of his younger sister, who was the first U.S. servicewoman killed in the Afghanistan campaign.
The personal effects of Sgt. Jeannette Lee Winters, a Gary native, are being held by a northwest Indiana businessman who found himself at the center of a public firestorm when he told the Winters family that if they wanted the mementos back, they'd have to pay for them.
But late Tuesday, Mark Perko said he had a change of heart and agreed to hand over the items without payment.
"I'm just going to cut my losses on this stuff," said Perko, a used furniture salesman who purchased the contents of the Winters' family storage locker four years ago. "They can have it back if they want it."
read more here
Man offers to return Marine's personal items
Brother of dead Marine says deal could be near to get her property back
November 30, 2010
By Jon Seidel, Post-Tribune
The brother of the first U.S. servicewoman killed in Afghanistan said he hopes a deal can be made Tuesday to retrieve her personal effects from a businessman who has been trying to sell them.
Matthew Winters Jr. said he talked to Mark Perko, of Hobart, Ind., and the two men could meet later Tuesday to discuss how Winters’ family can retrieve items belonging to the late Marine Sgt. Jeannette Winters.
Matthew Winters said Perko wouldn’t settle on how much he wants for Jeannette Winters’ property that Perko bought from an abandoned storage unit more than four years ago.
The collection includes Jeannette Winters’ funeral flag, her dog tag, military medals and even the Gold Star banner that families of deceased members of the military often display.
Perko, who owns a furniture outlet business in Lake Station, Ind., has already rejected an offer of $1,000 and four tickets to a Chicago Bears football game, according to Robert Farmer, executive director of Webb House Inc., which dedicated the Sgt. Jeannette Winters Centers for Homeless Female Veterans last week in Gary.
Farmer wants to display the items at the homeless shelter.
read more here
Brother of dead Marine
Navy medics get pep talk from Medal of Honor recipient
Navy medics get pep talk from Medal of Honor recipient
By Corinne Reilly
The Virginian-Pilot
© November 30, 2010
PORTSMOUTH
The ambush happened on a wet afternoon in May 1968 in Vietnam's Quang Tri province. Navy medic Don Ballard was 22, one of the oldest in his company of Marines.
They were taking fire when something knocked Ballard's helmet. He was hunched in a crater from an earlier explosion, trying to treat a casualty. He looked down and found a grenade.
He shouted a warning, then hurled it as far as he could and went back to work.
That's when he saw the second grenade. Unsure how long it had been there and how much time he had until it would explode, he threw himself over it. It was the only sure way to protect his patient.
By chance, the grenade malfunctioned, and he survived. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor.
"I didn't have a whole lot of time to think about it," he said Monday, speaking at a conference for Navy medics at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. "But I made a choice."
Navy medics - or hospital corpsmen, as they're formally called - are often the service's first responders. On deployed ships, they're usually the lone health care worker. On the battlefield with Marines, they can mean the difference between life and death.
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Navy medics get pep talk from Medal of Honor recipient
By Corinne Reilly
The Virginian-Pilot
© November 30, 2010
PORTSMOUTH
The ambush happened on a wet afternoon in May 1968 in Vietnam's Quang Tri province. Navy medic Don Ballard was 22, one of the oldest in his company of Marines.
They were taking fire when something knocked Ballard's helmet. He was hunched in a crater from an earlier explosion, trying to treat a casualty. He looked down and found a grenade.
He shouted a warning, then hurled it as far as he could and went back to work.
That's when he saw the second grenade. Unsure how long it had been there and how much time he had until it would explode, he threw himself over it. It was the only sure way to protect his patient.
By chance, the grenade malfunctioned, and he survived. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor.
"I didn't have a whole lot of time to think about it," he said Monday, speaking at a conference for Navy medics at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. "But I made a choice."
Navy medics - or hospital corpsmen, as they're formally called - are often the service's first responders. On deployed ships, they're usually the lone health care worker. On the battlefield with Marines, they can mean the difference between life and death.
read more here
Navy medics get pep talk from Medal of Honor recipient
When living is like dying
It can happen at any moment. This they know in combat. They know the next time they could be the next one put into a box to be sent back home. They know they could be next to get blown up or shot. This is a weight they all carry.
When this threat is fulfilled by "friendly" hands, there is no one left to trust.
When we talk about PTSD the normal suspects causing it are any life threatening events but this type causes more damage. All the witnesses will wonder if they can ever feel trust again. This spans across all deployed troops who will have it in the back of their own minds when they encounter another "friendly" they are not so sure about. This lack of trust will be brought back home with them. They will live as if they were going to die at any moment.
Each day will bring either an increased sense of safety as the shock wears off or fear will increase to the point where there is no turning back to "normal" as the only safe emotion to feel is anger. When you can trust no one, barely trust your own family, you begin to build a wall around your soul to protect you from more pain.
PTSD comes after one traumatic event in civilians yet we seem unable to understand why it happens to soldiers deployed into combat exposed to traumatic events on a repeated basis. With Vietnam veterans deployed for one year, and in most cases, only one year of service, we saw hundreds of thousands of them diagnosed with PTSD. With these veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, they have been deployed multiple times and it has begun a lifetime of suffering.
Each night they sleep with dreams of what has been and days of what may happen. They are followed by the ghosts they feared in combat. The IED in the road as they drive on their own city street. The suicide car bombers can show up in a traffic jam. They don't sit with their backs to a door because someone can walk in with a weapon. They don't go to movies because they have no defense in the dark with a bunch of strangers sitting behind them.
They can't trust their families because they knew them as they were before and they are afraid to tell them what changes have happened inside of them out of fear they will no longer be loved. This same fear causes them to push their families away. They don't want to hurt anymore so they kill off their emotions by drinking or doing drugs. They want to get numb.
In the process of killing off bad feelings they prevent good feelings from touching them. When this happens, it makes healing almost impossible.
PTSD spreads out to every part of the veteran's life like an infection. It needs to be treated as soon as possible to prevent more damage done to the survivors before it has a chance to take over everything.
It is the only way to stop living like they are dying.
When this threat is fulfilled by "friendly" hands, there is no one left to trust.
Afghan policeman kills six U.S. troopsSix US soldiers are dead because of a man they thought was on their side. For two years he worked as a member of the border police in a position of perceived protection of others. He decided to kill instead.
By Joshua Partlow and Javed Hamdard
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
KABUL - An Afghan border police officer opened fire on U.S. troops during a training mission in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, killing six of them in one of the worst such attacks in the past year, according to Afghan and NATO officials.
The shooting occurred along the border with Pakistan in the Pachir Wagam district of Nangahar province at a facility to train Afghan security forces, according to Ahmad Abdulzai, a spokesman for the provincial governor. A senior police official said the shooter had been recruited into the border police two years ago.
read more here
Afghan policeman kills six U.S. troops
When we talk about PTSD the normal suspects causing it are any life threatening events but this type causes more damage. All the witnesses will wonder if they can ever feel trust again. This spans across all deployed troops who will have it in the back of their own minds when they encounter another "friendly" they are not so sure about. This lack of trust will be brought back home with them. They will live as if they were going to die at any moment.
Each day will bring either an increased sense of safety as the shock wears off or fear will increase to the point where there is no turning back to "normal" as the only safe emotion to feel is anger. When you can trust no one, barely trust your own family, you begin to build a wall around your soul to protect you from more pain.
PTSD comes after one traumatic event in civilians yet we seem unable to understand why it happens to soldiers deployed into combat exposed to traumatic events on a repeated basis. With Vietnam veterans deployed for one year, and in most cases, only one year of service, we saw hundreds of thousands of them diagnosed with PTSD. With these veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, they have been deployed multiple times and it has begun a lifetime of suffering.
Each night they sleep with dreams of what has been and days of what may happen. They are followed by the ghosts they feared in combat. The IED in the road as they drive on their own city street. The suicide car bombers can show up in a traffic jam. They don't sit with their backs to a door because someone can walk in with a weapon. They don't go to movies because they have no defense in the dark with a bunch of strangers sitting behind them.
They can't trust their families because they knew them as they were before and they are afraid to tell them what changes have happened inside of them out of fear they will no longer be loved. This same fear causes them to push their families away. They don't want to hurt anymore so they kill off their emotions by drinking or doing drugs. They want to get numb.
In the process of killing off bad feelings they prevent good feelings from touching them. When this happens, it makes healing almost impossible.
PTSD spreads out to every part of the veteran's life like an infection. It needs to be treated as soon as possible to prevent more damage done to the survivors before it has a chance to take over everything.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Family of veteran who froze to death receives some justice
Family, state settle suit in '07 case of veteran who froze to death
By WALTER F. ROCHE JR.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a negligence and wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of a retired Philadelphia police officer who froze to death after wandering from a state veterans home in Northeast Philadelphia.
Settlement papers released Friday show that most of the money will go to the estate of Harold C. Chapman Jr. and his two daughters.
Chapman, 75, who suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's disease, wandered away from the Delaware Valley Veterans Home, on Southampton Road, at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2007. Court records show that a surveillance camera recorded Chapman walking unnoticed past a security desk, wearing pajamas.
Ezra Wohlgelernter, the Chapman family lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did officials of Military and Veterans Affairs.
Read more:
Family, state settle suit in '07 case of veteran who froze to death
By WALTER F. ROCHE JR.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a negligence and wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of a retired Philadelphia police officer who froze to death after wandering from a state veterans home in Northeast Philadelphia.
Settlement papers released Friday show that most of the money will go to the estate of Harold C. Chapman Jr. and his two daughters.
Chapman, 75, who suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's disease, wandered away from the Delaware Valley Veterans Home, on Southampton Road, at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2007. Court records show that a surveillance camera recorded Chapman walking unnoticed past a security desk, wearing pajamas.
Ezra Wohlgelernter, the Chapman family lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did officials of Military and Veterans Affairs.
Read more:
Family, state settle suit in '07 case of veteran who froze to death
Afghan border police officer opened fire on NATO troops
Gunman Turns on Troops in Afghanistan
November 29, 2010
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan border police officer opened fire on NATO troops during a training mission in the east of the country Monday, killing six NATO servicemembers before he was shot dead, NATO and Afghan officials said.
The shooting -- the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a Sept. 21 helicopter crash -- was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have turned on their NATO partners.
The attack also highlights the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan's army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
The shooter was wearing an Afghan border police uniform, NATO said, but did not provide additional details on how the shooting happened or his identity. A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, confirmed that the gunman was a border police officer, rather than an insurgent who had donned the uniform to infiltrate government forces.
The incident happened in Pachir Wagam district of Nangarhar province -- right on the border with Pakistan, Bashary said.
read more here
Gunman Turns on Troops in Afghanistan
November 29, 2010
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan border police officer opened fire on NATO troops during a training mission in the east of the country Monday, killing six NATO servicemembers before he was shot dead, NATO and Afghan officials said.
The shooting -- the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a Sept. 21 helicopter crash -- was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have turned on their NATO partners.
The attack also highlights the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan's army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
The shooter was wearing an Afghan border police uniform, NATO said, but did not provide additional details on how the shooting happened or his identity. A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, confirmed that the gunman was a border police officer, rather than an insurgent who had donned the uniform to infiltrate government forces.
The incident happened in Pachir Wagam district of Nangarhar province -- right on the border with Pakistan, Bashary said.
read more here
Gunman Turns on Troops in Afghanistan
Guardsman, Army at odds over PTSD claim
Is it possible he is lying? Sure but it is more possible he's telling the truth. The Army points to his marriage and the fact he got a degree but if he has a supportive/aware wife, they can have a successful marriage. As for the degree, if he managed to figure out a way around short term memory loss, again, there is nothing odd about this at all. That's the problem with a lot of claims. If they see you as able to do the things you are not "supposed to be able to do" then they say you are lying about suffering. On the other hand, they also expect soldiers to be able to be redeployed into combat on medication to help them function. In other words, they think these medicated soldiers can do what they are not supposed to be able to do. Read any of the warning signs on some of the medications they are given by the DOD and you'll know what I mean.
Guardsman, Army at odds over PTSD claim
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 29, 2010 12:37:44 EST
Staff Sgt. Francisco Carrillo was a squad leader on patrol in Iraq searching for weapons and insurgents, riding in the lead vehicle of a convoy when an improvised explosive device ripped through one of the Humvees, injuring his platoon sergeant, another squad leader in his company and the gunner.
That was five years ago. Today, Carrillo is locked in a battle with the Army. He says he has suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder since he returned from the deployment in 2005.
The Army says he’s lying.
Carrillo, who has 18 years of service, is seeking medical retirement.
But a panel of doctors at Madigan Army Medical Center said the California National Guardsman with the 649th Engineer Company lied in his Fit for Duty Evaluation and faked PTSD symptoms to collect the benefits that come with medical retirement.
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Guardsman, Army at odds over PTSD claim
Life-changing responsibility comes with Medal of Honor
Life-changing responsibility comes with MoH
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 29, 2010 5:26:16 EST
Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta’s life has changed forever, said retired Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady. He should know. Like Giunta, Brady also earned the Medal of Honor.
Retired Col. Roger Donlon agrees. He, too, earned the country’s highest military honor. It literally changed his life: Donlon even attributes the medal to helping him find his wife of 42 years.
“When she saw me in that picture in the paper, she told herself that she has to meet this gentleman. That’s what started it, unbeknownst to me,” said Donlon, who met his wife, Norma, after the two happened to sit next to each other on a plane.
Life as a regular soldier in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team ended for Giunta on Nov. 16, when President Obama draped the Medal of Honor around Giunta’s neck. He earned it for his heroics in a brutal firefight in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley on Oct. 25, 2007.
Entry into the Congressional Medal of Honor Society isn’t always what it might seem, said three living recipients of the medal.
“We always say it’s tougher to wear the medal than to earn it,” said Brady, who earned his in the Vietnam War after piloting a UH-1 Huey and rescuing 51 wounded soldiers surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers on Jan. 6, 1968.
Peter Lemon, also a living recipient, avoided the attention altogether for 13 years by putting his medal away. “I went about my life as normal, worked, went to college, went into business because I put the award in a shoebox in the closet,” Lemon said.
Lemon earned his medal as he fought off a 400-man assault alongside his 18-man platoon at a fire base in Vietnam’s Tay Ninh province on April 1, 1970. He shunned the award, saying he was only one of 18 and they deserved it, especially three soldiers who died, just as much as he did.
Forty years later he said wearing the Medal of Honor is a responsibility — not a choice — and the responsibility is weighty. “The Medal of Honor as a symbol can sometimes be larger than you are as an individual,” he said.
read more here
Life-changing responsibility comes with MOH
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 29, 2010 5:26:16 EST
Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta’s life has changed forever, said retired Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady. He should know. Like Giunta, Brady also earned the Medal of Honor.
Retired Col. Roger Donlon agrees. He, too, earned the country’s highest military honor. It literally changed his life: Donlon even attributes the medal to helping him find his wife of 42 years.
“When she saw me in that picture in the paper, she told herself that she has to meet this gentleman. That’s what started it, unbeknownst to me,” said Donlon, who met his wife, Norma, after the two happened to sit next to each other on a plane.
Life as a regular soldier in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team ended for Giunta on Nov. 16, when President Obama draped the Medal of Honor around Giunta’s neck. He earned it for his heroics in a brutal firefight in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley on Oct. 25, 2007.
Entry into the Congressional Medal of Honor Society isn’t always what it might seem, said three living recipients of the medal.
“We always say it’s tougher to wear the medal than to earn it,” said Brady, who earned his in the Vietnam War after piloting a UH-1 Huey and rescuing 51 wounded soldiers surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers on Jan. 6, 1968.
Peter Lemon, also a living recipient, avoided the attention altogether for 13 years by putting his medal away. “I went about my life as normal, worked, went to college, went into business because I put the award in a shoebox in the closet,” Lemon said.
Lemon earned his medal as he fought off a 400-man assault alongside his 18-man platoon at a fire base in Vietnam’s Tay Ninh province on April 1, 1970. He shunned the award, saying he was only one of 18 and they deserved it, especially three soldiers who died, just as much as he did.
Forty years later he said wearing the Medal of Honor is a responsibility — not a choice — and the responsibility is weighty. “The Medal of Honor as a symbol can sometimes be larger than you are as an individual,” he said.
read more here
Life-changing responsibility comes with MOH
Patriot Guard Riders stand up to Westboro hate group
Counter-Protest Members Support Fallen Soldier, Stand Up To Controversial Group
By Valerie Caviglia
November 26, 2010
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCenter) – A handful of protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. picketed at the funeral of Staff Sgt. Kevin Matthew Pape on Friday. But they were far outnumbered by the dozens of people who showed up to support Pape and speak out against the controversial group.
read more here
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/Protestors-Face-Patriot-Guard-At-Fallen-Soldiers-Funeral-110867399.html
By Valerie Caviglia
November 26, 2010
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCenter) – A handful of protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. picketed at the funeral of Staff Sgt. Kevin Matthew Pape on Friday. But they were far outnumbered by the dozens of people who showed up to support Pape and speak out against the controversial group.
read more here
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/Protestors-Face-Patriot-Guard-At-Fallen-Soldiers-Funeral-110867399.html
Treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder lacking
Ask any expert on the Vietnam War and they will tell you that the troops never lost a single battle. While that was true during war itself, there is one more battle that is still not over. It is the battle against PTSD. This one is not just about them but about all veterans sent into combat, by draft or willingly, then abandoned by the same country they risked their lives for.
Some people think this battle began in the last 9 years when the troops were sent into Afghanistan but the truth is it only increased the numbers of veterans with PTSD. It has become a fight to save the lives of generations of veterans and it is a battle they will not lose.
Historical Importance of the Vietnam War
: The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism. Engaged in a war that many viewed as having no way to win, U.S. leaders lost the American public's support for the war. Since the end of the war, the Vietnam War has become a benchmark for what not to do in all future U.S. foreign conflicts.
Dates of the Vietnam War: 1959 -- April 30, 1975
Some people think this battle began in the last 9 years when the troops were sent into Afghanistan but the truth is it only increased the numbers of veterans with PTSD. It has become a fight to save the lives of generations of veterans and it is a battle they will not lose.
Treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder lacking
By Lisa Singleton-Rickman
Staff Writer
Published: Monday, November 29, 2010
MUSCLE SHOALS - Sitting alone on the edge of his bed, Herchial Allen held the barrel of his .357-caliber pistol in his mouth and prepared to pull the trigger.
Suddenly he heard the voice of his young goddaughter calling his name.
The gun fell to the floor and he sat in silence for a long time, realizing he had only imagined her voice. Hearing the voice, at least for the moment, saved his life. But Allen remained broken and feeling hopeless.
The year was 1998, a year after he retired from Reynolds Metals Co.
Within days, the Vietnam War veteran from Muscle Shoals was in treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Thirty years later, flashbacks from the war had started coming regularly. The flashbacks from his time in Vietnam in 1966-67, combined with a constant state of nervousness and anxiety, seemed to take over his life once he retired and was no longer busy.
Allen's eyes fill with tears and his voice quivers while recalling the experiences that brought about the flashbacks — the likes of entire villages blowing up in flames with elderly people and children trapped inside grass huts. They are the kind of images one never forgets, he said.
“It's like nothing you can imagine, having that kind of stuff constantly haunting you,” Allen said. “You really feel like you're never going to get away from that haunting. It's like there's no way out.”
read more here
Treatment for post traumatic stress disorder lacking
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