stories
on a whim
private 1 st class. Jason.
after serving in afghanistan, it was hard to come home and adjust. you get this picture in your head,
y’know. everything will be better when i’m home. and it is … for a couple of days. then you can’t get the war outta your head. i had all these images floating around in my dreams, nighttime was the worst. i missed my buddies, i felt like i had abandoned them. i had been so excited to be out, i’d done my time, and it was over. i didn’t anticipate the extreme loneliness and loss of purpose i would feel. i couldn’t fall asleep without putting back a bottle of jack. i needed to numb out in order to not… think. i wasn’t sure where to turn; i felt i would scare my friends and family if they knew what i was going through. a lot of my friends from the service were going through the same thing … and we’d talk … sometimes. but it’s hard when we’re all so far away from each other. i signed up for 411God, sorta on a whim, never realizing the impact it would have--it brought me hope. i started to get strength from that little phone call each day to start looking for a job, to move home and to share a little of what was going on in my head. it’s not over. i still have horrible days, but now i have something else to think about besides my time overseas, i have something that gives me hope.
nobody’s prepared for this
army veteran, Michael.
i gave the army seven years. it was supposed to be my career. i did two tours in iraq, in 2003 and 2005. but during the last one, i started to get depressed. i lost faith in my chain of command. i became known as a rogue nco. that's how i got my other-than-honorable discharge.
one night they said to me, "sgt. goss, gather your best guys." i say, "where we going?" they say, "don't worry about it, just come on." so we get in the car and go. we drive three blocks away, and there's six dead soldiers on the ground. they say, "you're casualty collecting tonight." i'm not prepared for that. i wasn't taught how to do that. but you're there. so you pick them up, and you put them in a body bag, pieces by pieces, and you go back to your unit, and you stand inside your room. and they're like, "you're going on a patrol, come on." you're like, "hang on a minute. let me think about what i just did here." i just put six american guys in body bags. nobody's prepared for that. nobody's prepared for that thing to blow up on the side of the road. you're talking, and you're driving, and then something blows up, and the next thing you know, two of your guys are missing their faces. they just want you to get up the next day and go, go, let's do it again, you're a soldier. yeah, i got the soldier part, ok?
it gets to the point where they numb you. they numb you to death. they numb you to anything. you come back, and it starts coming back to you slowly. now you gotta figure out a way to deal with it. in iraq you had a way to deal with it, because they kept pushing you back out there. keep pushing you back out into the streets. go, go, go. hey, i just shot four people today. yeah, and in about four hours you're going to go back out, and you'll probably shoot six more. so let's go. just deal with it. we'll fix it when we get back. that's basically what they're telling you. we'll fix it all when we get back. we'll get your head right and everything when we get back to the states. i'm sorry, it's not like that. it's not supposed to be like that. all the soldiers have post-traumatic stress disorder, and they're like, "hey, you're good. you went to counseling four times, you can go back to iraq. it's ok." no. it doesn't work that way.
i have ptsd. i know when i got it -- the night i killed an 8-year-old girl. her family was trying to cross a checkpoint. we'd just shot three guys who'd tried to run a checkpoint. and during that mess, they were just trying to get through to get away from it all. and we ended up shooting all them, too. it was a family of six. the only one that survived was a 13-month-old and her mother. and the worst part about it all was that where i shot my bullets, when i went to see what i'd shot at, there was an 8-year-old girl there. i tried my best to bring her back to life, but there was no use. but that's what triggered my depression.
when i got out of the army, i had 10 days to get off base. there was no reintegration counseling. as soon as i got back, nobody gave a f --- about anything except that piece of paper that said i got everything out of my room. i got out of the army, and everything went to s--- from there.
my wife ended up finding another guy. i'm getting divorced, and i'm fighting for custody. she wants child support, the house, the car, the boys.
i get three nights off a week. and i drink and take pills to help me sleep at night. i do what i can to help myself. i talk to friends. soldiers who were there. once in a while one of my old soldiers will call me, drunk, crying about the stuff he saw in iraq. and all i can do is tell him, "you and me both are going to have to find a way to work this out." that's the only thing i can tell him.
i do martial arts, that's what i do. i go in a cage and i fight. it helps take my mind off of things. i get hurt, but i can't feel it. i don't feel it until after it's all over with.
so let's put this in perspective now. i got two iraq tours, multiple kills, i picked up plenty of dead bodies, american bodies, enemy bodies. i killed an 8-year-old girl, which still haunts me to this day. i come back home. my wife finds somebody else. i'm sleeping on my brother's couch while she has the apartment, the kids, the car, everything that we worked on together. i work as a bail bondsman making $432 a week, which all goes to my brother. i have to fight just to see my boys because she's at the point where she thinks i don't deserve to see my kids because i haven't had help for my ptsd. she's scared i might do something stupid. and the v.a. won't help me out because of my other-than-honorable discharge. what else do you want to know?
every month the v.a. sends me a letter saying i'm still under review. i'm like, i couldn't care less about the money. i don't care about disability percentage. i want you to tell me to go to this doctor here and go get help. that's what i want them to tell me. if they think i don't deserve money because i got kicked out with other-than-honorable discharge, fine. but don't tell me i'm cured all of a sudden, because i'm not. i still have my nightmares, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, i still see the glitter from the ied blowing up when i'm going down the street. i still see the barrette in her hair when i carried her out of the car to the ambulance when she was bleeding all over me. i still see all that. and there's nothing that i can do about that now.
marching orders from God
usaf lt. col. Pamela.
i’m an officer flying kc-135 air-to-air refuelers in support of operations in afghanistan. i’ve been here just over 4 months and head home tomorrow. but i wanted you to know how much your website meant to me here.
i would grab a cup of coffee and open your daily email when i arrived for work every day to start my duty day on the right foot! i appreciated your emphasis on seeking God early and getting my “marching orders” for the day from him. i believe i was able to stay cheerful during this deployment because i got god’s direction first and could approach each day’s challenges with the confidence of knowing i was right where i was supposed to be.
subtle changes: the story of Jamie Dalton
by spc. ben hutto
the suicide of spc. Jamie Dalton, an infantryman in b company, 1st battalion, 15th infantry regiment, in 2006 shocked everyone who knew him. many of the warning signs weren't evident in dalton's behavior or the things he said to friends.
"i couldn't believe that he had killed himself," said ronie dalton, his mother. "it was the last thing i would have ever thought about. i never worried about him ever taking his life."
soldiers he served with said dalton was a well-liked, competent soldier, who was cool under fire and could be depended on.
"if you were in the worst place on earth, he was the guy you wanted beside you," said staff sgt. robert butler, one of dalton's best friends. "as a soldier, he knew what he was doing. he knew tactics and weapons, he could drive anything, and he was an expert marksman. there was nothing he couldn't do."
in high school, he was an accomplished student, a national merit scholar and a good athlete, earning a starting position on his high school football team. after high school, dalton surprised his family by deciding to join the army.
"he was such an individual we were surprised when he joined the military," his mother said. "he was such a strong-willed person.
"we found that he loved the army, though. he loved the adventure."
however, ronie said she saw subtle changes in her son when he returned from his second deployment from iraq and confronted him about it.
she said her son talked about some intense and gruesome things he had seen during his combat tours in very matter-of-fact tones.
"looking back, i can't believe we thought that what he was saying was normal, but that is how soldiers cope with things," she said. "they see things that would horrify many of us, but they adjust to it in order to survive. i think it is tough for some people to reintegrate into what most people consider normal.
"i asked him about p.t.s.d. (post traumatic stress disorder) because it was a hot topic at the time, but he said he didn't have anything like that," she said. "he thought he might have a little combat stress, however. he said that when he drank he could become really angry or emotional and that he would have to pay attention to it."
before his second deployment, dalton was demoted from sergeant to specialist after failing a drug test and transferred from a company to b company.
"being away from hardrock (a company) was tough on him," butler said. "during the next deployment, i know it tore him apart when he learned that some of his brothers had been killed and he wasn't there to protect them."
aside from a few conversations and off-hand remarks about his wartime experiences, dalton seemed to be adjusting well when he returned from his second deployment. he went out with his friends and attempted to stay connected with his family. butler said that dalton was looking forward to getting his rank restored and returning to a company.
which makes the events that happened on april 14, 2006, all the more puzzling and disturbing.
ronie said dalton was out with friends that night, and by all accounts, drank too much. turning down several rides back to kelley hill, dalton took a cab back to his barracks.
after arriving at his room, dalton went into another soldier's room to get something to eat. soldiers who served with him said dalton frequently did this. he would grab a few things and leave some money on the counter and apologize the next day. most of them considered it funny and harmless.
"he always knew he could come into my room and take whatever he wanted," said butler. "what was mine was his. it wasn't a big deal."
that night dalton entered the room of a soldier, who had just arrived from basic training and wasn't aware of dalton's late night habits. he called the military police.
the mps detained dalton. dalton wanted to change clothes before they took him away. the mps allowed a runner to escort him up to his room.
he changed and grabbed a revolver and returned to the battalion day room with the runner. dalton showed the weapon and told people to leave. those who stayed in the room were told to sit on the couch. as they watched, dalton took his own life.
story courtesy of www.army.mil, the official homepage of the united states army
http://www4.army.mil/search/articles/index.php?search=Spc+Ben+Hutto
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