How quickly, it would seem, one can go from badass to bad apple, when PTSD is involved. USMC Staff Sergeant Travis N. Twiggs, please, say it ain't so. I so want to believe this is a case of mistaken identity, or that somehow out there might be several Travis Twiggs, roaming America, with their country music star-sounding names. But at this particular moment, that just seems more than a tad unlikely.
Some background. On January 8th and then again last month, on April 23rd, we wrote about Travis Twiggs on this blog. (See entries here and here.) Twiggs is/was a USMC staff sergeant, from the 2nd battalion, 6th regiment, company G, who had served four(!) tours of duty, one in Afghanistan, and three in Iraq, including most recently in Fallujah. That's a photo of him on the left, from about a year ago, touring a plant in North Carolina, and thanking them for sending his guys specialized socks in Iraq (Thor-Lo). I've cropped the photo but he's talking with a seamstress at the plant, and he presented the company with a flag that was flown in Iraq to thank them for their support. All good so far.
His story initially came to my attention because Washington Post columnist and well-known military author Tom Ricks wrote about Twiggs briefly in January. Twiggs has been forthcoming about his battle with PTSD, and has told his story compellingly, most recently in the Marine Corps Gazette, in January of this year, in an article entitled, "PTSD: The War Within. A Marine writes about his PTSD experience." I wanted to secure Twiggs' permission to retell his story in full on this blog, in his words, but although he attached his email address to the article, and other email addresses have surfaced, no reply was forthcoming to my email requests. Nor did the Marine Corps Gazette respond. This, and some things he said in his article, both gave me pause, and made me wonder -- was his story really such a resounding success after all?
Fast forward to the tragedy part of this. (If you do a people search for Travis Twiggs, you really only find one, nationally, who's his age, 36, so it seems pretty clear this is one and the same person. From the photos, you can tell that there's also more than a slight resemblance.) Today my blog statistics were spiking high and it made me curious to see what search was being run. Cut to the chase: people were looking for news about Travis Twiggs. And why? Well, it turns out he's
suspected of carjacking a couple's vehicle in the Grand Canyon, there's a manhunt underway for him and his brother, who's suspected in the same crime, and they're both considered armed and dangerous. News coverage mentions that he's a ten year military veteran (they don't say he's a Marine), covered with tattoos, who suffers from PTSD and is known to behave erratically.
It is heartbreaking to read this news. What gave me pause about Twiggs' original story? Two main things. He attributed, somewhere I read, a signficant portion of his "cure" to spirituality. Spirituality, while significant to those who believe in its importance, is really an adjunct to treatment, not the treatment itself. Seriously. The other reason was, he credited another significant portion of his improved mental health/recovery essentially to working out. I left that out of the part I quoted, because it just rang so hollow. Working out is great. It's an effective, known way to disperse aggression, create feel-good hormones, and increase positive self-esteem. But in no way, shape or form is it meant to be a cure for PTSD. It is, again, a part of an effective personal coping strategy. These two issues created doubts in my mind; the third doubt was planted by Twiggs and the Marine Corps' completely dead silence in response to requests to reprint his article. On the off-chance he really was doing well, better than expected (and I very much wanted to believe that), his words could have helped many, many people. However, the lack of response created an impression that perhaps the recovery was oversold, or somehow premature. If you rave up a cure, but you're really not there yet, you definitely want to distance yourself from those words in print when you later on turn out to be struggling. Very understandable, if that's the case.
I'm so very sad to learn about this armed carjacking. I very much hope it's not the same person at all. And I hold out faint hope that even if it is, that it can still work out "well" -- but who knows what "well" would look like at this point. Prison doesn't sound like fun OR a cure; or even an effective place to get treated for combat trauma. Marines are in many ways, the best of the best. (Marketers sometimes joke that the Marines have one of the strongest "brands" in America. Truly they do.) They're amazing warriors, but they also can have a habitual reluctance, borne in part by what they do for a living, so to speak, to admit weakness, when and where it exists. Twiggs made a mighty attempt to admit the weakness he felt, by publishing that initial article, and by taking the rest of the steps he did, to try to get well. As we have the opportunity to study the effects of combat on veterans, especially in light of combat trauma and PTSD, it's going to be increasingly important, I believe, to take a look at two things, among others, both of which affect Twiggs' own situation. How many times you've served (which includes length of deployment and time off in between) -- in Twiggs' case that was four -- and what went on when you were there. Twiggs was in Fallujah, at least on his last deployment. What happened to him there, and did anything that happen there have bearing on what happened next?
Come to think of it, right at the beginning of Twiggs' own story, he talks about being sent back into combat after already experiencing too much. That has shades of the Eric Acevedo story as well. Heartbreaking. When will the time come when we care as much for the warriors, like Twiggs, as they have cared for us -- by serving? Sadly, that question is still rhetorical. Wherever you are, Travis Twiggs, I hope it goes well with you, as much as it can, under the circumstances. The responsibility for what you're going through is actually shared.
