PTSD, Military Suicide and Violence toward others
By Gerald Scott Flint
The recent event in Iraq where five US Servicemen were killed by one of our own has prompted me to review of some of my own feelings regarding stress in the military and the combat zone. I'm sickened and deeply crushed by the news of this and there is no way I can sleep until this is written! What led(accused ) Sgt. John Russell to take up arms and gun down five of his own countrymen is very far from my own understanding and imagination, but I wanted to try to give the readers of this story an idea of what some of the stressors are for veterans and those currently serving.
What stresses me (and others in many cases)? the constant mix of civilian and military life, the on and off, safe and unsafe locations and all while trying to keep my fingers on the pulse of America and what the public and politicians are saying about the war efforts on two major fronts. Then let's toss in my three children, my three different injuries requiring multiple surgeries and military administrative blunders that left me without a paycheck, along with promotions in limbo for years. All the while my love for my country, and the people in it, burns heavy and hot in my chest. This is my generation's war and I will continue to serve proudly in it no matter what comes! I would not let my children, my squadron or my country down during the time when they most needed me. I am trained well for this and I can hack anything that comes my way! Or, so I pray!
I grew up during the Vietnam War and always looked at the guys fighting it as Heroes! I was too young to go, but boy I sure wanted to once I was tall enough. Being third generation military I saw it as my duty. My father and his father before him were Marines, and so I would be asked to carry the flame and pull a tour myself for the family's honor. Not taking anything away from my rrother, Joby, who became a US. Navy Seal, but me, I was set to head for the Corps and that I did!
Just the things that one is taught in the USMC could stress out the average person. The military breaks a person down and rebuilds them to function as a member of a team to perform almost any task they are charged with.
After making my rounds in the various branches and getting loads of good training I wound up staying with the US AIR FORCE Medical Service. I volunteered and have been deployed for Operation Noble Eagle I and II, and Operations Enduring /Iraqi Freedom.
While the USMC trained me well for combat and how to keep myself and my fellow marines alive, it could never prepare me for what I saw at the Pentagon the horrible week in September 2001 where I spent my 43rd birthday and what I would later live through at the New York crash site. Oh, by the way the WTC site smelled and looked the same as our Pentagon just a little larger scale of suffering!
Just getting through the days, weeks and months following 11 September 2001 took a huge toll on me. Oh, sure I could do autopilot and cruise right through most things, but sooner or later one has to deal with what one has seen, felt, smelled and heard. These matters don't go away and they don't act as wine getting better with time.
I am ever thankful to God that I still have all my original body parts. I saw plane loads of men and women coming back from down range who will have a
much harder time of it as they are no longer whole people. Seeing a young female troop one day in the MWR tent and thinking how her outer beauty can be shattered in less than 48 hours as you carry her broken, charred and forever changed body on a liter and strap her into your medivac aircraft for a ride to Germany where medical teams will try to put her together again. It was months before I could think of a pretty girl without having her cross my mind first. Stuff like this changes you even if you think you are the hardest and strongest medic on the planet. You have to deal with these demons one day or another. The visual is written into you mental C-drive and you have it there acknowledging it or not, ignoring it or not, it's there and it will continue to be there!
Staying close to where I 'm needed most, talking it out with friends and those who have been there has been my course of action and I must say that I have managed to do rather well given all that these eyes have seen. I'm no Hero, and but for God, I would not even be writing this here and now! It is to our Lord that I give the credit for keeping me going through the valleys, storms and earthquakes of military life, deployments, destroyed young lives, broken
bodies, and family members, friends, and co-workers who just will never seem to understand! I don't know if I want them to understand because then they too will have the burden that we have on our shoulders and backs to carry with us for the rest of our days in one manner or another.
I was heading for an Iraqi Freedom deployment on Memorial Day 2004, when my father suddenly passed away. I had also lost my mother the same way just weeks before 11 September 2001. With the help of God, good friends, my children and duty to focus on, I remained able to keep it all together. In the days and weeks to come we will hear much about the past life of Sgt. John Russell and many shall speculate as to what drove him to do what he what he did in Iraq, but I feel confident that only God, and perhaps John himself, will be the ones to know for certain. I want to be angry and kick him for what he has done, please make no mistake about that. At the same time, I'm just rather certain that killing his comrades was not what he spent three tours in Iraq trying to accomplish, nor why he risked his own life every moment he was there. There just has to be more to his story than that! Some way to make sense of it all.
As I write this I pray for the families and friends of those lost in this horrible event in Iraq and I urge any of my fellow military brothers and sisters to take check of themselves, slow down and think before you act. Get help, don't try to solve your problems with drinking and drugs. GET HELP, and remember the person that you were before you went to war and focus on being that person again as much as you can be! Your friends, wife, husband, children and fellow countrymen are pulling for you. Now, you just need to hang on to the rope!!
If you are a friend, military co-worker, wife, husband or just a member of the general public then try to remember that the person returning from Iraq or Afghanistan has been through an unspeakably difficult time. Most will not want to talk about it for a long time if ever, and you need to know that trying to pry it out of them only makes them clam up even more! You also need to know that not all of us really wanted to come home to a nation of luxury and wealth knowing those we left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan can never leave! We learned to survive without Big Macs, WALMART, fast cars and cable TV whilst we were down range and we are not so sure that we are ready to jump back into this society just yet.
You may see us with what has come to be known as the, “the thousand yard stare.” You will know it when you see it in us, so consider yourself warned. "We are looking at nothing, but seeing everything that our minds have recorded"
Try to give us time, respect, and patience. Remember that the world that we have just left is very far from what most Americans enjoy in the USA. Remember that most of the violence, killing and hatred will stay thousands of mile away as long as people like us stay on the job. So, enjoy this nation that has been paid for with the blood, hearts, minds and innocence of young men and women who stand between you and all the nasty than lives on the other side of the ball from you. We want you to enjoy it, but respect and appreciate it as well!
Some stressors are:
1. Concern for loved ones back home in USA
2. Is he/she being faithful to me whilst I'm deployed
3. Does anybody back home care about what we are doing over here?
4. Will I or some of my battle buddies die today?
5. Will I have to kill someone today, tomorrow, next week?
6. Financial worries!!
7. Problems with leadership, CO or First Sgt.
8. Health problems, wounds or injuries.
9. Battle buddies blown away or injured.
10. Too long down range and can't see the end of this deployment coming!!
11. Hatred of the enemy that makes one lose control of focus.
12. Sexual needs
13. Battle Buddies gone home but he/she is still there.
14. Feeling that NOBODY cares if I live or die!
15. Seeing children fight over or kill for scraps of food.
16. See children and locals die for lack of clean water, medicine or food.
17. My son or my daughter will be born whilst I'm in this horrible place and I may never see them.
18. Every road block is a possible tool of death.
19. Language barriers and cultural differences.
20. Flying in an aircraft as aircrew and I cannot even see who is shooting at me as I have no window to look out. I can hear the countermeasures popping and deploying but I can’t see sh.....!
21. Horrible temperatures of extreme hot and cold that can come in the same
place in the same 24 hour period.
22. Is this big gray airplane going to crash today and land me in the middle of a bunch of people who hate me?
23. Feeling that the "NEWS MEDIA" often gets it wrong and the real truth never gets out about progress we have made here.
24. My chain of command sitting back in the rear has no idea what it's like out here, but they control my life, my pay, my record and my promotion chances.
25. I'm just a number and a little glass box on the wall that they break in case of emergency. They pull me out, use me, abuse me and then try to stuff me back in the box as if nothing ever happened. I don't fit there anymore.
In reality the list is much longer!
If you are feeling stressed out and can't get right email me! I will do my best to listen and direct you on how to get the help and the resources you need! Just remember that the actions that you take today may have forever type effects on scores of people…so, breath through your nose and out your mouth and don't try to do it all alone!
I am willing to talk with anyone who needs a chat via my email There are many resources the military and civilian world has set up to help.
Gerald Scott Flint, USAFR
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