Healing Combat Trauma

"Fighting Fair" vs. "Picking Your Battles" with a Combat Vet with PTSD

Everyone needs a friend like Kathie Costos. Kathie is my go-to person when I have questions about how to communicate with -- read, resolve conflicts with -- the combat vets with PTSD in my life. (She's also known as "Nam Guardian Angel" -- she's married to a Vietnam vet, Jack, with PTSD, and she's written a book about the experience, as well as created innumerable blog posts, videos which are widely disseminated on PTSD, and probably had enough conversations with spouses and family members to save a small army herself.)

Best of all, she's an absolute fount of wisdom, whose advice is spot-on, and comes from the trenches: 28 years of loving, and 26 years of being married to, a combat vet with PTSD herself. Very wise and compassionate lady, whose friendship and advice I treasure (and who I've been lucky enough to be able to meet in person). I thought I'd share her side of a recent email dialog we were having. As she puts it, she's giving advice to her younger self -- the advice she wishes she'd had, decades ago, but had to figure it out the hard way.

Her conversation is flecked with spirituality, but of a kind that even someone non-religious, or irreligious, can handle. It's golden-rule spirituality, and common sense heartfulness, that is so very rare indeed. Here she goes -- the context was "giving up" because "I can't win." She wisely responded:

"Winning depends on which battle you choose to fight.  Twenty years or so ago, I gave up on a lot of battles. My husband had changed from "best friend" to opposition and I was tired of giving up my life in all of this.

It was during a time when it didn't matter if I lost or gained 20 pounds, cut my hair shot or just let it grow, moved furniture around or let the apartment get dirty.  Nothing was noticed by him.  It was also the time I noticed that he was showing symptoms of OCD, focused on something's like a pit bull not letting go and basically worrying about not having anything to worry about.  It was one needless fight after another until I surrendered on certain things that had more to do with my ego than anything else.

I stopped letting my self worth be determined by his mood.  Not to say that I did any of this perfectly but what I couldn't "win" on was not a battle I was willing to fight anymore.  I got happier.

The more you learn about what PTSD is and what it does, the more you will be able to adapt and find your own "life" in all of this.  I spend most of the time happy when we share parts of our individual lives together but not regretting when we do our own thing.  He's welcome to spend time in my world but I won't give it up anymore when doesn't want to go there.  He's welcome to come where I go but I don't change plans or let it hurt me that he isn't there.  There was so much that I gave up to stay with him but the things I need, I fight for and the rest really didn't matter enough to go to war with him over.

Mood swings, ambivalence and neglect should only be allowed to go so far and then it comes into unacceptable behavior and you have to let him know that.  If he wants you in his life, he has to open the door to let that happen.  There are still times when my husband gets the best of me because no one is perfect in this but spiritual healing took a lot of the anger/blame/shame away.  Much of coping skills with PTSD comes close to AA and allowing a "higher power" take over some things in order to live again.

As he healed it was important to let go of the past negative feelings, hurt, disappointment and regrets. Hanging onto them would have filled me up with so much junk that I wouldn't have had room for what was good being returned to our lives.  It took good old-fashioned faith and what Christ taught me so that I could forgive him as well as myself.  For others, they can turn to their own spiritual healing by turning it all over to their own "higher power" to let it go so they make room for the good stuff to come back into them."

-- Kathie Costos, Senior IFOC Chaplain, DAV Auxiliary Chapter 16, independent PTSD Consultant

Her blog, linked here.

Her website, linked here.

Her downloadable PDF book, "For the Love of Jack," about life with her husband, a Vietnam combat vet with PTSD, linked here.

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

 

Quotable Quotes -- Larry Pence on Making a Difference

“There are people who go through their entire lives and never help another individual," says Larry Pence, adding "Don’t be one of them."

-- Pence is a retired Army command sergeant major who volunteers regularly with various veterans charities, including U.S. Army Caisson Platoon Equine Assisted Programs in Washington, D.C. (Read more about that, here.)

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- Mahatma Gandhi on True Inner Peace

"Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances." -- Mahatma Gandhi

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- Carlos Castaneda on the Path and Heart

"Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use." -- Carlos Castaneda (1925 - 1998).

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- The Dalai Lama on Compassion and Meaning

It's hard not to love the Dalai Lama. Here's another one of his recent quotes that just makes so much sense. It's also something we try to follow around here at Healing Combat Trauma. Helping others heal is compassion in action. And it truly does make our lives more meaningful. Please support our work with veterans. Thank you.

"Compassion is one of the principal things that make our lives meaningful. It is the source of all lasting happiness and joy." -- the 14th Dalai Lama.

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- Thomas Dooley, III, M.D., on Spending Part of Your Life Serving Others

"Dedicate some of your life to others.  Your dedication will not be a sacrifice.  It will be an exhilarating experience because it is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end." -- Thomas Dooley, III, M.D., U.S. Navy physician. (1927 - 1961.)

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- Norm Rice on Pulling Others into the Light

"Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light." -- Norm Rice, former mayor of Seattle.

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- E.M. Forster on a Life in Transition

In a quote that rings true to those who have suffered something as life-changing as PTSD, after combat -- or for that matter, what happens in the life of the caregiver or loved one of the combat vet with PTSD:

"We must be willing to let go of

The life we have planned

So as to have the life

That is waiting for us." -- E.M. Forster, British novelist (1879 - 1970). 

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- Heraclitus on the Real Warrior Brings Others Back

"Of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, 
eighty are nothing but targets, nine are real fighters... 
We are lucky to have them, they make the battle... 
AH but ONE, one of them is a Warrior... 
he will bring the others back." 

-- Attributed to Heraclitus, circa 500 B.C.

When it comes to real warriors with PTSD, who will bring the others back? Rhetorical for now, but it won't stay rhetorical forever... There are ways to improve the condition of a warrior with PTSD. Read more about that here.

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

When Is PTSD NOT PTSD? When Stubborn Pride Takes Control

Editor's note: We're not giving you medical or psychological advice here; consult with your own health care practitioner for that. What we are doing is sharing a longtime PTSD sufferer's opinion with you about his own situation, on the off-chance that it may instruct or enlighten. We have the feeling, now that he's outed himself, others may quite enjoy learning the distinctions he shares from his own life. And when we say "others," we mean spouses, significant others and family members...

From the subject of "Eyewitness to Combat," a Vietnam vet, Marine, with 40 years of "experience" on the subject:

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has many faces and it sometimes masquerades as a behavioral problem; conversely, there are times when behavioral abnormalities masquerade as PTSD.  In other words, sometimes PTSD is mistaken for just stubborn Pride; and sometimes stubborn Pride is excused as PTSD.  There is also a third face, the one in which we appear completely “Normal.” So the “trick” becomes knowing which one is in control – the PTSD one; the PRIDEFUL one; or the NORMAL one. 

One of the most frustrating and difficult problems in sorting this out with traumatized MST or PTSD combat vets is that by their very nature, MST and PTSD sufferers are very complicated individuals, to say the least. It’s almost as if we are different people at different times.  And in fact we are.  My wife used to say she “never knew which one” of me “was coming home.” In other words: “PTSD really screws us up: mentally, emotionally, socially, personally, professionally and physically”.  However on many of the occasions that get blamed on PTSD, it is in fact our own personality “quirks” that have intervened, kidnapped and magnified the suffering from PTSD. And in the healing process, this habitual behavior must be sorted out before any true healing can “stick.” It’s true that we can be healed from our PTSD “disorder” but also allow our pride, habitual bad habits and negative attitude to completely mask any real improvement.

I do know that true healing from the destructiveness of PTSD is possible and real. I know this because I lived with all three faces of it for forty years and I have been healed.  Not “cured” but healed to a point that I now have a mostly “normal” a life rather than a mostly PTSD, prideful, bad habit and negative attitude life.  From this very long journey to healing I am able to speak from wisdom and experience on behavioral abnormalities disguised as PTSD.  I have been there; done that; and, for the most part, “have gotten away clean with it.” Now looking back, I am embarrassed and ashamed of myself for falling into the “pity party” that “works for me” trap.  I allowed myself to become “victimized,” believing that I was “entitled” to feel sorry for myself and that everyone else should feel sorry for me as well.  My PTSD actually made me feel “special” as everyone was made to “tiptoe” around me like a king walking among his subjects, so as not to “set me off”.  Trust me when I say that “this gets very old very quick” to those who love you, care for and about you; and it should be of no surprise when they begin to get a little bitter and non-empathetic toward our behavior.  It just gets tiring!  Upon entering the 90 day VA in-house PTSD treatment program years ago, I came face-to-face with a sign over the door of our billet, made by one of the previous vet therapists, that said: “How long would YOU put up with YOU?!  Well, not very damn long, I can tell you that – and that sign made the point for all of us.  So why should we expect others to do so?!  And if that’s true, why do we resist healing? Suffering from PTSD for most of my life made me very familiar with all of its symptoms and destructive consequences, along with what it does to our own physical body.  I am well aware of how devastating it is upon the family, friends and employers of those suffering from this disorder.  Today though, when I’m substantially healed, (see “before and after” story, linked here) I find that I can still act like a full blown PTSD’er.  The only difference is that now it’s my choice when to move into that arena, or not.  As my youngest grown son would say, “I’m going with NOT!”.  So in going there now it’s a premeditated decision to do so, not one dictated by PTSD. It’s premeditated because I first think about it, usually when my feelings get hurt, and then I stop taking my meds, as in “I’ll show them”, followed by then I stop doing what I know to do to keep me grounded and clear of stress such as EFT or Qi Gong.  Then I isolate myself in my all-too-familiar bunker, and “Away I go!” But this time it’s stubborn, God-damned pride that is pushing my behavior and keeping it in play, NOT PTSD. It might look like PTSD, sound like PTSD, feel like PTSD – and I am enjoying the effects. My world is now totally miserable, and I am glad – because I am back in control! The poet John Dryden put the sequence this way, “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us”.  Relinquishing control to our Prideful self is a habit we simply cannot afford if we suffer from PTSD.  It will destroy us and everyone around us. Again, if it is so miserable and so devastating, why stay in it? They “why” is PRIDE: Stubborn God-dammed, destructive PRIDE, a shitty attitude and very bad habits.  How does this fit into having PTSD?  It doesn’t fit into HAVING PTSD at all, but it DOES fit into KEEPING it!  And why would we want to KEEP Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder going, when we have the tools to get rid of it? Because it’s comfortable; it’s normal to us; it gives us control whenever we want; it gives us an excuse for bad behavior; it gives us an identity; it’s amusing to “shock” others; it draws attention to us; we don’t have to follow the rules and get a pass for doing so; it gets us “stuff”; it makes us somebody special and we can even be “paid” to have it.   And if you are getting “paid” to have it, it makes you a professional PTSD’er.  Sooooo why not act like one and let the spouse go to work; you get paid not to! You can sit on the couch and own the friggin’ remote and when you want to watch something cool you can clear the room and get a beer delivered to you in the process.  All the while someone can give you the beer, the TV and the couch.  I also know this to be true because I have spent up to a month terrorizing everyone in my life with my fucking PRIDE disguised as PTSD.  And I enjoyed the whole experience! But eventually even my pride got to a point that I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I allowed myself to be ashamed of this childish behavior and to apologize and ask for forgiveness so that I could come out of the corner.  NOW I really am ashamed of myself because I hurt those I loved and they didn’t deserve it at all.  But now I know what it is and will not go there again. (Publishing this handy little guide to PTSD vs. PRIDE of course will help!) I’ll use the tools I have been given in healing and use them gladly.  I do not want my loved ones to suffer the fool that I could become.  Scripture puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I talked like a child; I thought like a child; I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me”.  In other words “it’s time we grow up!” Understand I am NOT talking about what “reaction” PTSD compels us to do that is destructive.  What I am talking about is what keeps us continuing the destructive behavior AFTER our PTSD moment has PASSED.  The fact that we suffer from a trauma-induced survival skill does not make us “crazy” or “insane” or incapable of being aware of our surrounding and how our actions affect others.  We still have the ability to know right from wrong and we know when we hurt others and we know when we hurt ourselves.  PTSD also doesn’t change our “moral code”.  If you were a nice person before; you are generally still a nice person and that becomes your “Normal” face.  If you were a courteous person before; you are generally still a courteous person and “Normal”.  If you were a grateful person before; you are generally still a “Normally” grateful person.  If we are truly remorseful for our actions which harm others, as we should be when we are “Normal”, then the abnormal behavior will stop until triggered again. And in our “Normal” state we are ashamed, embarrassed and truly sorry.  If we are not at least remorseful and/or our misbehavior is enjoyable, then we are either a narcissistic “asshole” or we are pretending to continually have PTSD behavior for control and that is our “Prideful” face.  If we are ashamed, embarrassed and sorry but continue in bad behavior, then we are stubborn “Prideful” fools using the ole, “That’s my story and I’m stickin to it” crap.  It will lead to your destruction and that of your family.  And PRIDE becomes the driving force, not PTSD, and the NORMAL face is destroyed.    That was PTSD.  But then I would get embarrassed and mad when “corrected” and take the Prideful mental position of: “Well I sure fucked that one up; so screw them all” and I would then “dig my heels in” and really make everyone miserable.  And I enjoyed it.  I was “showing them” for getting justifiably upset at me for my action.  That was PRIDE.  “They would learn to leave me alone whenever I would go into one of my “Marine Corps Moods”, as my kids would call it.  Yep, goddamn Marine Corps PRIDE!  (In truth, I have three kinds of pride: Texas pride! Irish pride! And Marine Corps pride! And that is a whole giant bucket of PRIDE…) Understand that I DID have severe PTSD and those triggering events happened a bunch but the moment I realized I had screwed up, PTSD ended and PRIDE took over to magnify the damage.  I was too proud to admit that I was wrong and then ask for forgiveness or even to say I was sorry.  For a Marine to apologize was a “sign of weakness”.  To take this action with those who love you only adds INSULT to INJURY.  However for a father, a husband, a son, a partner, to apologize is essential and your “Normal” self and is a great sign of love, appreciation, humility, strength, self-confidence and courage. When scripture states that “the meek shall inherit the earth,” it is not talking about the weak but the gracious, strong, self-confidently humble who attempt to right the wrongs they have done to others. Our families and loved ones know when that moment of awareness happens, and they appreciate it and respond to it, but conversely, with no remorse on our part they start to lose empathy for our plight, and rightfully so.  If our prideful attitude and bad behavior keeps up, they become aloof, distant, uncaring and bitter – and here’s the thing, we’ve helped to make them that way through our actions. PTSD is what causes the hyper-vigilance and other survival reactions triggered by events in our lives, but PRIDE is what causes us to stay in the now habitual act of PTSD.  True healing can only come when we understand that we will have the tendency to move into survival mode for the rest of our lives and that there are things we can do to effectuate a smooth, peaceful, happy life.  AND it is essential that we do those things consistently for the rest of our lives. (Examples would be taking our medication, and using the tools we can do at home for our own self-care, such as meditation, deep breathing, qi gong, EFT, music therapy, aromatherapy, etc. -- and knowing when it's PRIDE that's taken control!) We also must learn to be grateful to those around us who put up with our “moments” and have enough respect for them to swallow our pride and say we are sorry and mean it; then sincerely ask for forgiveness in love.  If you are unwilling to do this, then you are not ready to be healed because you are enjoying being miserable and making others miserable too much.  And I really feel sorry for you.  When we realize we have just had one of those “moments”; STOP, regain your composure, look around at what you have effectuated and apologize and mean it.  But if you do nothing else, just STOP and go to your corner.  When you have calmed down, then correct it before PRIDE takes control and kills everyone around you or before it forces you back into the “bunker”.  Your families know when you are faking PTSD and when it is real; so grow up and get your shit together."Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18. Even with PTSD!"

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Quotable Quotes -- Charles Dickens on Happiness Being a Gift

"In every life, no matter how full or empty one's purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other people's store of it." -- Charles Dickens, "Nicholas Nickelby" 

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

The Good Work of Talk: Healing the Wounded Heart Veterans Workshop

Practicing psychotherapist Allen L. Roland, Ph.D., tells the story of a group of veterans he's been working with in Northern California this past spring, along with Sal Ueda, M.S.W., counselor from the local Vets Center in Concord, CA. Roland writes (bolding is Roland's own emphasis):

"Five Vietnam veterans, all with PTSD, faced their fears and not only opened their hearts but found and began to heal themselves in the process.

The first meeting of the "Healing the Wounded Hearts Veterans Workshop" was on March 11, 2010 at 4 p.m.

They had never met me but they had been told about me, by their adjustment counselor Sal, and were prepared for an eight week commitment to face their fears and open their hearts in the process. They knew I was a Veteran and that made a big difference. 

I told them that this was an action based workshop and if they did their homework they would reach a place of not only another choice but would open their closed hearts in the process. They would also begin to see through different eyes ~ eyes unclouded by fear, resentment and unworthiness. I also explained through my Cycle Of Life chart how psychic pain will override Joy to the extent that most people have no idea that beneath their deepest pain and aloneness is love, joy and connectedness ~ the Unified Field. 

Of course, that first session I shared my own hearts journey to find a lost and alone little boy within myself who not only wanted to fly, and became a Navy Fighter pilot, but also to love as deeply as I loved my beloved grandfather before he was torn away from me at six years old. We didn't talk about the war ~ we all briefly shared our heart's journey and by the end of two hours ~ we became a band of brothers. Their homework was a life chart of the paths of their individual hearts. 

The second session, a week later, we all shared a childhood picture of ourselves and shared our life chart with the group describing our individual journeys to find love and acceptance as well as ourselves. We barely talked about the war ~ we all realized our commonality in that our lives had all been a quest to find meaning and that all of our love relationships had significant meaning. We were a band of brothers on an inner journey of the heart. 

The third session, a week later, they did the Vic/Acct exercise and had the chance to feel the lightness of being accountable versus the heaviness of being a victim. Their homework was to take the people they had resentment towards off the hook and realize that many of them they had deeply loved and were really gifts in their lives. 

Al felt it was the most meaningful aspect of the workshop ~ " I let my ex-wife off the hook ! I hadn't spoken to her in over four years. I was harboring extreme resentment. After the exercise, I was able to call her and let that resentment go. That alone has made a huge difference in how I feel today with her and my life." 

We barely talked about the war ~ we were a band of brothers on a common journey to find ourselves. 

The fourth session, a week later, they met the child within by means of a powerful guided visualization. Every one of them saw that long lost innocent child who told them what they needed to do to fully embrace him in their lives now. Their faces literally changed and became younger as they made that inner connection ~ it was like long dormant flowers suddenly blooming. I was moved almost to tears to see these Veterans suddenly claim their joy and innocence after years of self doubt and despair. For Tom it was the most meaningful aspect of the workshop ~ "Just seeing the look on the other Vets faces as they met the inner child." 

Their homework was to give that child a voice and hang out with him. 

The Fifth session, one week later, was all about gratefulness and thanking the people who have been there for them their whole life ~ with the help of a guided visualization. Many of them had not thanked anyone and certainly not themselves. Thomas shared his homework from the previous session and had 12 pages of notes on his experience. Here are some excerpts ~ " Once again, I was so surprised when it happened at the group meeting that I could hardly wait for it to happen again and again. Just the thought made me feel like a weight was lifting my shoulders and mind ... I meditated and saw him again. I asked him again ~ What do I need to do to fully embrace you in my life ? He immediately answered ~ Since birth, I have always been with you constantly. You just weren't looking for me. You just didn't see me or believe in me but I see a change in you now ~ more than any time since Vietnam." 

Thomas ended his notes by writing ~ " I can't believe that I have had this problem for some 40 years and I feel like a new born child. I'm still amazed that I had blocked out so much and yet this was the right key to change things for the better ~ and it was so simple to initiate ~ I feel good !!! " 

By now the Band of Brothers were inspiring each other on their common journey through fear ~ they were beyond the point of no return. Their homework was to thank at least 25 people who had touched them before the next session. We still barely talked about the war for there was no need to. They were already healing themselves by taking responsibility for love and coming from gratitude. 

The sixth session, one week later, was the Death Exercise where the group, through a visualization, were guided in a profound death exercise which helped them to experience the degree to which the people closest to them really knew them. The exercise actually simulates your death and the resultant shock of knowing that you did not truly share yourself with the people closest to you or that very few people really knew you.Obviously, it is a strong inner stimulus to open your heart with the people closest to you ~ and that was their homework to accomplish with the five people closest to them before the next session. 

Most of them enjoyed the element of the unknown that they were continually coming face to face with in these sessions, especially Al ~ " I enjoyed the element of surprise. It was hard to know week to week just what the activity would be and how it would effect me. Every week was different and unique but it all came together " 

The seventh session, one week later, reinforced that we are continually being called from within to the path of the heart, but few listen and fewer still respond. It is in this session that they understand that they have been called to the inner journey of the soul ( through Love) versus the outer journey of the ego ( through Fear ). This session ended with a visualization exercise in which they realize that the most precious gift they have always wanted is themselves ~ free from fear. 

For Barry, this was the most meaningful aspect of the workshop " For me, getting in touch with my inner child and having it pointed out to me that the key was just being myself and to trust myself without any fear or fears of the consequences." 

The Homework as well as ongoing homework was to share the gift of themselves with others but in the spirit of celebration ~ not deprivation. 

It was in that same spirit of celebration that we had our Eighth and final session where everyone acknowledged each others common journey through fear to the joy, love and light beneath. As George said, "Now, I truly know I have another choice and I can be loved for just being myself and I don't have to enable people to win their love.... I see the growth in my fellow members but also how we learned to love each other ~ a true Band of Brothers." 

It was also an incredible experience for both myself and Sal, a Veterans Readjustment counseling therapist (from the local Vets Center) who both formed the group and then fully participated in the sessions. 

Sal's most meaningful aspect of the workshop was "To witness and see the burden of fear, guilt and pain of each group participate lifted. To see the youthfulness return to their eyes, faces and demeanors. It is a blessed experience to see the joy return to these war veterans after years of despair. It is simply humbling and a beautiful sight." 

I was also humbled by this experience and validation of my empowering work as well as the receptivity of these veterans who obviously longed to be seen from the heart and not through eyes of fear. 

They had been trained many years ago to kill and I, in essence, jump started their hearts by re-training them to love and they began to heal themselves in the process by realizing that they indeed had another choice. 

And we never concentrated on the war for the real war had been waged within themselves ~ and they were now victorious."

-- Written by Allen L. Roland, Ph.D.  Used with permission.

Editor's note: The accompanying photo is of five other Vietnam veterans from a different gathering, not the ones described in the article.

Quotable Quotes -- Audie Murphy on Getting Over Combat

Audie Murphy, left, in his day, was the most decorated American soldier from World War II, winning the Medal of Honor, among 27 others. He also famously told a reporter, "You know, you never get over combat. I don't think you ever do." (Quoted in Chaim F. Shatan, M.D.'s famous text, "The Grief of Soldiers," from 1973.) He died at 45 years old.

We would wish for every Audie Murphy, and every other combat veteran, more relief from his struggles, and more healing, than Murphy himself was able to know. Let it be so.

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

Souls Go Out to Combat, Many Come Home -- Angels of War

More from the longtime Navy vet, a leader in the mythopoetic men's movement of the 80s and 90s. He writes:

Combat Trauma -- Angels of War

 

Souls go out to combat. Some come back as angels, brought on the dark wings of the Black Hawk. Rough hands lifting and holding the black bag containing the Angel, strain not just the arms backs also the Soul.

“You’re in the arms of the angel

May you find some comfort there

 

So tired of the straight line

And everywhere you turn

There’s vultures and thieves at your back

And the storm keeps on twisting

You keep on building the lie

That you make up for all that you lack

It don’t make no difference

Escaping one last time

It’s easier to believe in this sweet madness oh

This glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

 

In the arms of an angel

Fly away from here “

 

Excerpts:

Sarah McLachlan  “Angel” lyrics

Valkyries in the heart of a giant Black Bird moving with the rough love of detachment -- fear of offending ones own soul, taking an Angel starting the journey  back from the crossing of the Styx of this world.

Combat trauma comes in many guises. Taking an Angel from its last battle in this life -- knowing the loss from this world has just begun, and will last in many hearts for years and lifetimes. The clatter of the mechanical Black Bird, lifts the Angel spirit, ferrying it away from the vast width of the Styx.

The soul of whom lifts the angel bears a burden the mind must ignore, shifting the grief to the soul. The strongest, yet most vulnerable in the struggle of love and life.

The Angel is leaving the field of horror, destruction, grief and despair. Taking the love and grief of those souls left behind. These Angels leave the field of dissolution with the ultimate honor. They did their duty!

Now their honor be born out of this dissolution by warriors, who must stuff the love, hate and tenderness in the soul, stuff it down, keep hidden away until it can be faced it in the light of awareness.

So many of us miss the vulgar life of destruction, the rage of absence of comrades who have gone before, crossed the river of absolution, the visceral reality that we must chose to exist -- to keep our souls here in this world, amidst the grief, angst, and longing for relief. We must honor those Angels who have been released from the torture of delivering the blessing of life or the deliverance of death.

For those who have been in the sacred place of combat, we must remember a sacred place must have the smell of shit and blood of sacrifice that makes it sacred.

We will all know the sound of beating wings, each time, for the rest of our lives, when vibration of a mechanical bird is felt by the soul long before the mind registers a sound. Our soul remembers Angels we know -- sometimes we say hello  -- mostly faces, sights. Floods up from the soul -- not down from the mind.

As a new friend said, “I am too old to fight “ but I might add, we will always remember when we were fighters, and honor those who have taken up the fight, living every breath, minute by minute, and those Angels who have finally come home."

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

 

The Way of the Snake -- Healing Combat Trauma

From the writer of the recent pieces on ritual and cultural healing for warriors, which we've all gotten to enjoy -- something I genuinely believe is the among the very best writing and thinking we've seen on this site this year. This is totally from the heart, and soul-level wisdom, soul to soul. He writes:

"Since writing these small pieces for your site, memories have come flooding back.I work hard at being detached and articulate, but when I get ready to send a piece, I get lost in a huge feeling of grief.

There are so many stories of love, even in the tragedy of combat, it brings me to tears. which I thought I would not have, trying to be objective in writing about combat and the soul. I am not sure I have ever had a muse, but if I do, she is kicking my ass today. I get so fucking lost in my feelings, working to objectify healing the soul.

I hope Mercury come out of retrograde soon. Just an attempt to ground myself.

Sitting here with tears, wondering WTF. You really are doing great work for warriors."

Then he quotes from a favorite poem, "The Way of the Snake" about combat trauma:

"I lost a year somewhere.

It must have been in Vietnam, I think.

The memories I have from there aren’t

real; they can’t be mine. I don’t know

whose they are, but I hope they

claim them soon—I’ve kept them

far too long.

-- Terry Hertzler, "The Way of the Snake and Other Poems: Writings from the War in Vietnam."

The writer continues:

I spent years looking for Terry, after finding his small book of poetry, and buying all six copies the San Diego store had, little knowing he lived in the same area. I used his writings with many men and women along my path. It as not until 2008, that I finally located Terry on the internet. I called him and we traded stories about his time In country, my use of his poetry, and his coming back stateside. I hope he will write about his “Achilles Tour” in coming back to America.

I write about Terry today, because he stays in my heart, as does his poems and recitations of the things he did after his return to the states. While I would love to recount stories Terry told, they are his stories, and he is the only one that has the right to tell them, however his poems show the effect of the trauma induced by combat.

I share some parts of poems, because he has given me personal permission to us his works. I am not so sure if I were as talented as he, I would be so generous.

I share these thoughts, because they reflect the view of a young warrior after war return, and know they reflect the feelings of many men and a few women I have talked with, in the reconciliation of my own deeds, and failure to understand what price my soul was paying, in all of my involvement in that war.

The fact, that I will carry some things until my death, and perhaps beyond has become less of a burden because I was seen, touched and loved by many people on my path of life. I have had, and still have, great teachers, and have been seen, as worth saving.

I have one picture of me when I was in Vietnam; it was a shock when I discovered it. It was when I began working toward understanding how I could help our returning warriors from these current wars. I could not accept how ragged, out of uniform I was. My mental picture was of a squared away sailor, not an uncovered. Shirt open to the belt, sleeves rolled up, and spiked uncut hair sticking out at angles a nineteen year old kid, standing on the bridge of our small converted LST.

That’s what happens to old veterans, the pictures are as they were, not as we like to recall. The exception is the agony of experience. A picture is perhaps in those days one sixtieth of a second. Memories are in the soul forever. As I was taught, the Huna belief is, the most powerful memories come unbidden in those unaware moments.

For one who has experienced the over pressurization of a M-2 fifty caliber machine gun, so well articulated by Colby Buzzell in his book “Killing Time In Iraq”, or the experience of thrown by the concussion of an explosion, the soul is never unaware.

It should come as no surprise that a returning warrior is hyper vigilant, startled by unexpected noise, people getting in their space, or nervous in crowds.

Returning warriors are evaluated by their chain of command with one purpose. Are they “good to go”. So basically, combat trauma is first observed and evaluated by the lowest ranking personnel in a supervisory position.  Of course highly scientific terms such as “Crazy as a fucking bed bug, but I need him” is the criteria for judgment of combat trauma. Does it qualify as a diagnosis, most assuredly yes! Is the troop mentally impaired? “Fuck No! He’s just like the rest of us!”   

Does obsessively disassembling, cleaning and reassembling a weapon represent a sign of combat trauma?  Who is to know? Perhaps the soul has given the body a function to eliminate physical or mental distress. “Has he got his shit together” “does she have her shit together”? Good to go!

Should we as a nation, or should congress, judge the effect of combat on a person eighteen years old, “Down Range”, when our learned specialists can not agree on what constitutes Combat Trauma. Perhaps we can rely on William Blake, when he wrote “You never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough”

I return to Terry’s writing, a few excerpts from his writing, “A Vietnam Alphabet":

'D is for dead

E is for E-1, E-2, E-3, etc. those are army ranks. The higher the number, the less chance you will fall under D.

N is for nothing

O is for officers, they often knew nothing.

P is for piece it goes well with

Q which is for quiet. Sometimes too much peace and quiet makes me nervous

R is for R&R, rest and recuperation, rest and relaxation, rest and return.

S is for my friend Sam. Also for shrapnel. Sam stopped a piece of shrapnel with his heart one night.”

-- Terry Hertzler.

Combat trauma starts the first time one hears “Congratulations, you are now a member of the armed forces of the United States of America,” and it never goes away, after experiencing personal danger. It is with us day in, day out, the rest of our lives. The severity of actual personal participation can only be judged by a person’s Soul. To be given a pill, a shot, a cup of foul tasting goop, is not healing the soul. It may deaden, kill, alleviate, delay pain in the body, but it will never heal the soul. Only a person’s soul will know, what it will take to heal their soul, and many warriors are going to need soulful help, in finding comfort for their soul.

A final poem, "Year's End":

“When I was twenty, I lost

Christmas. Like Alice’s rabbit, down

Some dark hole, it disappeared.

I remember New Year’s well

enough. At midnight, the perimeter

Despite all orders to the contrary,

lit up with red, green and white

flares, as tracer rounds

from M-60 machine guns 

wove bright delicate patterns

through the sky.

But Christmas is gone and it frightens me

Christmas is gone—not veiled

in a mist of memory, or crouched

in some dark and secret corner

in my mind, but vanished, completely,

   like some Cheshire cat—leaving

   not even a smile behind

   not even a smile."

-- Terry Hertzler

And finally,

“we never asked to be put into this position

we never had high demands,

we never claimed to be on some kind of mission

like we had some kind of master plan,

it’s not as if we know exactly what we came for

so we settle for what comes our way,

we’re always unprepared for the final encore

what the fuck are we supposed to say.”

-- Clawfinger, "The Price We Pay."

In the Stillhouse of Dread after Combat

(From the ongoing series on ritual as cultural healing for the trauma suffered in combat. Written by a longtime Navy vet who was a leader in the mythopoetic men's movement.) He writes:

Combat Trauma -- The Stillhouse of Dread 

“Oh tear my stillhouse down 

Let it go to rust 

Don’t leave no trace of the hiding place 

Where I made that evil stuff 

For all my time and money 

No profit did I see 

That old copper kettle 

Was the death of me” -- Gillian Welch 

Trauma from combat is an evil brew indeed. It besots the mind, controls the body and absent self intervention can lead to death. The mind remembers, the mind’s eye sees, the body remembers and the soul exists, filled with anger and grief. Sometimes the mind swells inside the brain- which some learned people will deny. 

Nevertheless the mind expands, transcends time and physical bounds, leaves the body. Goes back in time. The taste of fury rises,and a gorge of power races through the body. Sounds, smells, vibrations and the pulsating wave of rapid fire exists, right here, right now. The aura of the body pulls in tight, the body reacts, the limbic of ancient humanity struggling for survival rise from the soul’s depths. The timelessness of intensity is maintained until overload occurs and blocks the mind from the soul, to enable the soul to survive. 

The soul remains to pull the body back from extinction. Unfortunately for some warriors, the soul’s power is greatly diminished and the body continues over the precipice into the solace of suicide. There is no suicide prevention short of physical restraint, which only exacerbates the mind’s disconnection with the Soul. "Talking the talk" helps strengthen the resolute soul, but the inability to change the past, to accept the nature of the soul, through scenes projected by the minds eye leads to the absolute cessation of the strength of the soul. The soul’s power is so depleted, the body mind demands the overload be negated by complete shutdown of all systems. Since the limbic soul fights to live, only an external force can quiet the internal strife that is maddening to the soul. The EVIL BREW of combat trauma prevails: 

“And somewhere a wind ready to find lost (souls) And cover their tracks We walk on, leaves blow past” William Stafford (souls substituted for men because we now have women in combat -- author.) 

Going back to the opening song, we can deconstruct the verse with combat trauma. “Oh tear my stillhouse down let it go to rust” (Eliminate the problems of my soul or psyche.) “Don’t leave no trace of the hiding place” ( No residual disturbance.) “Where I made that evil stuff” (What I did was against the laws of humanity.) “For all my time and money no profit did I see” (My youth, my life was wasted.) “That old copper kettle was the death of me” (The cauldron of warfare has killed my sense of righteousness, I must go underground to rectify my Soul.) 

Mircea Eliade in his work “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy” discusses ideologies of the Indo—European ideas of life after death, the ecstasy of decent into Hades as an initiation and absorption into magical realm of fallen heroes. Without discussing religious beliefs in various churches and denominations, we can see through many complex civilizations there is a belief of life after death. Eliade also discusses the use of hemp and mushrooms in achievement of intoxication before or during séances. 

In the same discussion he notes the beginning of the use of alcohol and tobacco as the beginning of decadence in shamanic techniques. “Narcotic intoxication is called on to provide an imitation of a state that the shaman is no longer capable of attaining otherwise.” It is not a long step to the position of altering the state of mind through the use of mood or mind altering substances, to alleviate the pain in the mind and Soul. 

While intoxication or the use of mind or mood altering substances can influence conscious pain or confusion (suffering) in returning warriors with extreme mental or physical disturbance, the root of the disturbance lies in the soul. 

The Soul of a returning warrior must go through a metamorphosis to return to a different world, to ascend from Hades, as is indicated in myth and teachings of the ancient teachings of many civilizations. To understand the angst of combat trauma, one must learn the old myths and folklore, and learn to listen to the shadow of the returning warrior. 

If one is to look at military suicides, one must stop at simple interdictions with mood or mind altering substances and go to the interpersonal healing touch of hands and souls. The honest feeling of care and concern given freely. One cannot help but feel in awe of those souls that maintain the watch at suicide hotlines, Those are the last touchstone for many warriors and their families. Not only are they compassionate human beings, they are also warriors in combat with the daemons at war for souls. 

(This writing is meant in no way to impugn any religious belief or practice.)"

In the Dungeon -- Laying Down the Burden after War and Letting It Go

More from the longtime Navy vet and former leader in the mythopoetic men's movement:

“We tend to call it the real war. The rest of it’s just the show biz war. The real war involves getting down there and killing people. And being killed yourself or just barely escaping it. It gives you attitudes about life and death that are unobtainable anywhere else.” -- Paul Russel, "The War" on PBS.

---

"He had 80 weight of Spanish iron

Between his breast bone and his knee

But Billie broke locks

And Billie broke bolts

And Billie broke all that he came nigh

Until he came to the dungeon door

And that he broke most manful lie."

                                    -- Old Ballad.

How can one be free, with 80 weight of “Spanish Iron” trauma between the breast bone and the knee? Out of the combat zone, out of danger, but not out of the trauma, but still have 80 weight of trauma between our breastbone and the knee, that one must carry. Is there a place one can store that “Spanish Iron"?

 Is there a place one can lay down the burden, perhaps just for a while? Just long enough to get some rest, sleep without dreams of horror, not jump from noise, trust someone to touch the body with compassion. Some place where understanding does not get in the way of rest. A place the body can move freely, not tense with expatiation or anticipation... 

If that weight is on the soul, how does one remove it, leave it behind for a while, remember where it is, trust it will stay there forever? We may have to back and check on it, a lot at first, but learn to trust it is in safekeeping. So we can continue on our path toward a new life, unburdened with “80 weight of Spanish Iron”.

There are old ways of leaving heavy burdens borne by warriors, returning from bloody encounters of enemies. There are ways other warriors and community can show a sacred place to store the burdens of war, guarded by ancient spirits of warriors past.

Each warrior has a choice of the manner in which to leave their burden. Some have been washed in lamb's blood, others blessed by a holy man or holy woman, Some, though not many have left burdens to be watched by Fairies and Unicorns. Others have sent their burden into a drum, or flute, instruments taken down from walls, held as one would hold a small child, playing with abandon.

According to ancient warriors, only a ritual or mystical path, will lead one to the right place. The soul of the warrior will know the place none other. Each soul knows the best path to take, though sometimes the body will resist, out of respect to the memories contained in the warriors' Spanish Iron .

Some bodies follow an unknown path, and find solace in a poor storage container. Sometimes these paths promise to be easy. They lead to containers of spirit smoke, and drink, and false intensity which is so familiar to the body, the voice of the Soul is muted.

The correct path for the warrior may also be his or her most difficult one. Many have words that describe this path. One spirit of courage left this saying for those who choose their path:

 “to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

 “let it go-the

smashed word broken

open vow or

the oath cracked length

wise-let it go it

was sworn to

                     go

let them go-the

truthful liars and

the false fair friends

and the boths and

neithers-you must let them go they

were born

                to go

let all go-the

big small middling

tall bigger really

the biggest and all

things-let all go

dear

       so comes love”

 -- e.e. cummings, U.S. poet (1894 - 1962). 

Quotable Quotes -- Transformation and Metamorphosis for the Returning Warrior

"The soul of a returning warrior must go through a metamorphosis to return to a different world, to ascend from Hades, as is indicated in myth and teachings of the ancient teachings of many civilizations. To understand the angst of combat trauma, one must learn the old myths and folklore, and learn to listen to the shadow of the returning warrior." -- A concerned veteran.

Editor's note: "Metamorphosis" comes from Greek, by way of Latin -- to change one's form.

(For more on ritual and the returning warrior, please see our recent series, linked here.)

Warrior Suicides and the Need for Spiritual Rituals for Returning Veterans

(From our ongoing series on ritual for cultural healing after war; again written by the longtime Navy vet who was a leader in the men's movement.) He asks:

"How can we heal the wounds of warriors that are so deep and mystifying that the only solution is to end all consciousness, via suicide?

Vietnam veteran and therapist Arthur Egendorf in his book, Healing from the War: Trauma and Transformation after Vietnam," states that "Healing ins't complete when the pain subsides." He later quotes a Vietnam veteran, Bill Broyles, as saying, “Men love war.” One only has to read a little further to find he states this “is a deep dark secret” that men “don’t dare admit.”

War is combat -- and combat is the "arena of the Gods" -- where the ability to take life from another comes into play. It's the mystical world of life and death, decided in battle or struggle. Perhaps myths of the gods originally came from the miracle of birth, and the unknown of death. Where there was a blow to the head in anger, in play, or happenstance, and death came, unexplained. To cope with this unknown required the evolving human mind to accept the phenomenon of sudden death, such as happens in combat.

We know that combat preparation requires the transformation of a person from the everyday world of youth, which is mostly ignorant of mortality, its own or others', into a god-like position of “Life-Taker and Heart-Breaker”. In the military, this transformation is accomplished through ritual. 

The effect of this ritual can be illustrated in writings of many veterans in speaking of their first Drill Sergeant or Company Commander. This induction into the world of “Life-Taker and Heart-Breaker” leads one into the Realm of the Gods. The power to deliver death or grant life extension, and be the harbinger of wrath and destruction, by the simple movement of one digit of the hand, is sanctioned by the indoctrination ritual. 

This reinforces the ritual in the body, mind and psyche of the warrior. Each sunrise, combat ration, sunset, night patrol or watch increases the intensity of the initial ritual. An additional ritualistic enforcement is the individual performance of cleaning weapons, combat ammunition load, water, stimulants, checking twice or more that everything is in place, and ready to complete the ritual of “Life-Taker and Heart-Breaker”.

Returning warriors come back to land of difference. No longer do they have the power of the Gods. They are returned to a strange land, whose customs are unfamiliar and the people are foreign. There is no ritual of forgiveness of the sins of the soul. There is no magic balm to heal the sin-sick soul. Only loss of life intensity. The skills that were necessary to stay alive and protect comrades are no longer needed.

The ancient way of ritual would be to get the village together and tell a “dilemma story,” and create movement from one world to another. By embodying the dilemma, displacement would occur, allowing the warrior to take a rightful place in the village, or society.

While the ceremony of returned warriors brought back under their shield is the most moving of military ceremonies, the grieving of remaining family and friends must be done outside the government care. One only has to read the stories of destitute loved ones of the abandonment of the relatives after the burial ceremony is complete to hear the angst of unresolved grief. 

Unfortunately alternative healing professions, or Medicine Men and Medicine Women, embodiment through movement, and other non-medical therapeutic modalities are not recognized by the government, the military, or some circles of society.

We lament about suicide but are unwilling to accept spiritual rituals as healing, in the face of veterans utilizing their own resources to obtain better health, through alternative, non-traditional, non-medical or non-Judeo/Christian methods."

After Combat, Healing the Sin-Sick Warrior Soul with Ritual

Periodically we have the honor here of running someone else's writing/thinking with their permission. In this case, it's a longtime Navy vet who also served as a leader in the mythopoetic men's movement in the 80s and 90s, writing about warrior despair, suicide and the culturally healing power of ritual. This is the first of several pieces on the subject. Look for the others, which will appear shortly. Here goes:

"Perhaps only those who have been to the "Arena of the Gods" -- and have been capable, like the gods, of delivering death and destruction -- can understand the true costs of warfare on the soul.

Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D. writes: 

“Acts of war generate a profound gulf between the combatant and the community he left behind. The veteran carries the taint of a killer, of blood pollution...that many cultures respond to with purification rituals. Our culture today denies the need for purification and provides none, even though in the past it has done so.... In the medieval Christian church, everyone who shed blood in war had to do penance. If you committed atrocities, you had to do more penance, but even if you wore a white hat and were a perfect model of proper conduct, you had to do penance. Most warrior societies, as well as many not dominated by warfare, have historically had communal rites of purification of the returning fighter after battle...” 

An Israeli psychiatrist comments:

"It's important to understand the long-term consequences of war and to minimize them," says Dr. Zahava Solomon, a professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Social Work and head of the Adler Research Center for Child Welfare And Protection in Israel. 

“While people tend to perceive war as only taking place on the battlefield," she says, " for many the effects linger long after the battle is over.” "War does not end for a considerable portion of these individuals," she continues, "and relatively high rates of combatants continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) [an anxiety disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of a traumatic life-threatening event]. They continue to experience the war in nightmares and flashbacks. We pretty much liken it to cancer of the soul," she said.

And finally, from a Christian leader's perspective:

 “The reality of war is that everyone gets wounded. Some wounds heal rapidly, but some last for a lifetime. The reality is that the wounds of heart, soul and spirit have a spiritual component that is not being adequately addressed. Despite the valiant efforts of many organizations and the commitment of billions of dollars to address these issues, there remains a serious gap – the faith gap.” -- Major General Robert F. Dees, US Army (Retired), Executive Director, Military Ministry, from his introduction to "The Combat Trauma Healing Manual: Christ-Centered Solutions for Combat Trauma," by Chris Adsit.

A recent article by Barbara Barrett covered the work done by a Defense Department task force "devoted to preventing suicide in the military." According to the article, the task force presented 76 recommendations in four primary areas, and additionally made 13 "foundational" recommendations "considered vital to developing a comprehensive Defense suicide prevention model." But none of these recommendations made any mention of the spirit or the soul, or more importantly, how to heal the souls of our returning warriors. Though our currency may say "In God We Trust," the military makes no acknowledgment of the soul of its warriors, and no provisions for their spiritual healing. 

(Ironically, though, it does send warriors off with ceremony. Troops go into battle often accompanied by a chaplain, priest, or other "holy" person, who invokes a "spirit" to bless them in their mission - which in its own way is usurping their opponents' right to life and death.)  

We lament as a nation that so many of our warriors are committing suicide. But at the same time, we ignore the need for any healing rituals for our returning warriors. There is no balm in Gilead for the sin-sick souls. If we can't look to VA or DOD for methods that embrace ritual, perhaps we need to take a look at indigenous peoples in other cultures, or even a few years back in our own.

In the 80s and 90s in this country, men came together in “mythopoetic gatherings,” doing ritual to help veterans and others heal the soul wounds of the Vietnam war. A sacred space was established and the men used storytelling, poetry, music and movement to explore their path to healing. These gatherings were led by Robert Bly, James Hillman, Michael Meade and others, and I was privileged to be a part of them as an elder.

In some of the gatherings, Meade would tell what was known as a "dilemma story." The men would then choose sides and state their case for the correctness of their positions in an attempt to resolve the dilemma.  The ebb and flow of discussion often became heated. The ritual of the dilemma story became a container to hold the anger and angst of the discussion. Even though there was anger, sadness and confusion, the dilemma story remained in the Sacred Space, a container within a container, which guaranteed safety.

According to Meade, when a large group of men gather, there are two questions that reside in the limbic brain (commonly called the lizard brain). “Is someone going to be killed?” and “Is that someone me?” When the lizard brain is able to resolve these questions in the affirmative, the man could begin to participate in the gathering.

In 1992, Native American medicine men traveled from East coast tribes, Midwest tribes and Western tribes to San Francisco to hold a gathering of men. Those men, many of them veterans, participated in ritual alongside these medicine men, using rituals the medicine men brought from their tribal cultures. During this time as well, there were stories of an increasing number of veterans committing suicide. 

The returning warriors from the Vietnam war had fought in combat as a tribe, but then were returned "unceremoniously" stateside, rotated out individually, when their service was ended or when they were discharged -- to no fanfare whatsoever, and to a land that had become different since they left. Little if any attention was paid toward establishing a ceremony, much less a ritual, to help the souls of these warriors, women and men. And the results of this neglectful in-action are still evident in our society. The Vietnam war is a gaping wound in our collective consciousness, and the residual guilt has become one of the reasons why returning OIF/OEF warriors are being welcomed slightly more warmly than their Vietnam war fathers were.

One of the prominent medicine men who helped to establish sacred space and ritualize a healing process was Malidoma Somé. In his book, “Ritual: Power, Healing and Community,” he recounts a ritual done specifically for healing the internal wounds of Vietnam.

As a participant in that ritual, I recently revisited Malidoma’s writings, and the grief that was expressed. While as one of the Elders of the Gathering, I can say that is was one of the most powerful moments in my life. It is my feeling now, that those of us in a leadership role, did not realize the depth of grief men had about the war, and it transferred into the ritual. I believe every man in that gathering went away with a deep knowledge of how powerful ritual is."

Quotable Quotes -- Lindsay Wagner on Looking Within to Heal

"A lot of people say they want to get out of pain, and I'm sure that's true, but they aren't willing to make healing a high priority. They aren't willing to look inside to see the source of their pain in order to deal with it." -- Lindsay Wagner, American actress and activist.

Quotable Quotes -- Sarah Haley, M.S.W., on Combat's Effect on the Veteran

"Combat veterans may play down or embellish their 'war stories,' but initially their reports should be taken at face value. The only report that should not be accepted at face value, although one may choose not to challenge it initially, is the patient's report that combat in Vietnam had no effect on him." -- Sarah Haley, M.S.W., "When the Patient Reports Atrocities: Specific Treatment Considerations of the Vietnam Veteran," published in Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 30, Feb. 1974.

Guilty Giving, "The Whiny F'N Wounded," and the Lost Art of Saying "Thank You"

Generosity is great -- and for the most part, people don't give enough when it comes to veterans, and injured veterans in particular. But as with every good thing, there's always a shadow side, too. And giving to veterans is no exception.

On the one hand, there are service organizations and comfortably well-off do-gooders who shower injured veterans with goodies, like they'd won some sort of service-related jackpot. Flat-screen televisions, electronics, boating and fishing trips, new vans, bowling outings -- and I'm just thinking of what I know has happened locally. Scratch below the surface though and you sometimes find a bit of a guilty giver. One generous soul who's supported local veterans generously tells a tale of neglecting his own brother, a veteran, when his brother came back from Vietnam. Sure his brother was "screwed up," but the businessman in question never knew what to make of it, and so ignored him -- until decades later, PTSD was in the news and he realized what his brother's problem had been, all those years ago. Now, in a bid to offset the past and right that balance, the businessman makes sure to give generously to the young vets coming back. Generous? Yes. Mixed motivation? Definitely...

For a more interesting take on the after-injury "jackpot," though, we turn to one impressive injured former Marine, who I got to know years ago, after he was blown up in Iraq. He lost both his legs in an IED explosion, but came back strong, married his girlfriend, had two sons, and is remarkably now also back at work. Truly a success story, but pulling from a well of character that he's had all along. He's also been the beneficiary himself of some truly great "goodies" -- fly-fishing trips, shooting trips, and most recently, an adaptive home built for him and his family from the A+ organization, Homes for Our Troops. In this article, the former Marine talks frankly about vets who take do-gooding for granted, sink into entitlement, and fail to remember that a gift is just that. The F-bombs fly, but his talk is straight and to the point. Enjoy. (Used with permission.)

---

"This has been eating at me... THE WHINY F'N WOUNDED!!!

It was a problem when I was at Walter Reed and it still continues to be a problem today. No matter how much I have been exposed to it I cannot and will not ever get used to it. Fucking whiny entitled veterans. 

First off, as a Vet myself, I am obviously not talking about all veterans. Just the special few who feel they deserve so much that they feel the need to whine, bitch, and complain to anyone who will listen about what they aren't getting from the Government, VA, etc. Most of my friends who are wounded will recognize these types immediately and know what I am talking about. They are those vets who are so self-centered that they can only focus on themselves and their own well-being. Blatantly forgetting to say "thank you" or shake the hands of those who have helped them along the way to recovery post-injury.

And that is where it starts really, maybe the veteran said "thank you" in the beginning. But people suddenly start telling them, "No, don't thank me, thank you." And they hear it so much they begin to believe it. I firmly believe that when you stop saying "thank you" when someone does something for you, you lose part of your humanity, you start to believe that you are better than everyone else. They get the feeling that they are "above the law," and deserve to have things done for them without a thank you. 

Before you say, "Well, we don't have wounded warriors like that!" Bullshit we don't, ask someone who works with wounded vets on a regular basis, they will tell you horror stories about entitled vets, and vets trying to screw over nonprofit groups. The military is already NOT the home of the "best and brightest,"I would say the ratio is for every four good veterans you have one scumbag -- that's 20%. Some may disagree and say its more like 10%, but I like to remind them of all the DUI's, drug pops, UA's, etc that most units have on a weekly basis. Its far greater than regular society. (Except for maybe where I grew up.) 

Our military hospital system, specifically dealing with Walter Reed and BAMC, are breeding grounds for this problem. Wounded vets are showered with gifts, celebrity visits, trips, etc. And being given this special treatment so regularly it goes to their heads. They start expecting special treatment, they stop saying thank you, and bitch and complain when they don't get special treatment. It's a sad system really, people want to help the vets out so much they end up actually hindering them socially. At WR we called it the "Hollywood" effect, and not only does it affect the veterans it affects their families as well. 

Most of the time it's wives, but it does affect other family members occasionally. But I will focus on wives, because actually, they are the worst. They actually become more entitled than their veteran husbands. Why, you ask? Because all of the focus is on the veteran, ALL of the time. They are the ones who get the trips, gifts, privileges, even if the wives get to participate. So the wives are left out, and soak in any of the attention they receive. It's sad really, there should be more support for the wives, because it creates monsters. The ones who bombard their husbands' doctors and therapists with questions, to an overbearing degree. They chew out people who are trying to help them, and have the phone numbers for senator's or general's offices and actually use them to get their way. 

And when we get our little blue ID and become retired the same problems continue, but now it involves MONEY. The root of all evil, right? That check from the VA and Social Security Disability is great, but they want more (Don't feel bad for us, my annual disability is more than my parents made when I was a kid, its also non-taxable and for life.). They still want special treatment, above the normal benefits. They want more benefits not already in place. They want things to happen right now in a bureaucracy that is not a right now system. And because it won't happen, they turn to bitching. 

These veterans and their wives start bitching, and they don't stop, they dominate conversation with their bitching, even if it's unrelated to the current conversation. They bring up money and benefits constantly, and how they aren't getting as much as they want. They are downers and attention whores in the highest degree, especially annoying those of us who are just thankful to have what we have and that people give a shit about us at all. 

My frustrations boil down to this, what veterans are entitled to, and special treatment. Veterans are entitled to have their health care taken care of, they are entitled to education and job benefits, they are entitled just compensation for their (sometimes grievous) injuries, and for the more severely disabled, they are entitled benefits that allow for their mobility. Anything more than that is special treatment. And these veterans think they are entitled to special treatment, I will be the first to say, they absolutely are not. People choose to do nice things for us, out of the goodness of their hearts. And some just don't deserve that special treatment, just because they are an injured vet doesn't mean they are a good person. 

I will try and bring this to a close. I may get frustrated and complain about the VA, mostly because I put very little faith in their ability to do anything right the first time. Especially considering the mental health treatment vets are receiving (18 American Veterans commit suicide every day). But I also know that at least we have a country that does care. We have the best VA system in the world. And if you don't believe it, look up what wounded veterans from Canada and the UK go through, and what little benefits they receive if any at all. 

And I haven't forgotten to say thank you, I make every effort to do so when someone does something nice for me, from holding a door to my annual trip to Camp Perry. I can't not say thank you, its just not in me. And when someone says "Don't thank me", I kindly remind them that to not say thank you would be wrong on my behalf. Because after all, they didn't have to lend a hand, they chose to. 

I am so thankful for all of the support and assistance that myself and my family have received from all over. The VA, nonprofits, and individuals, have helped us so much over the years, and I can never thank people enough. I just wish that all veterans were as thankful as I am. It really embarrasses me having to deal with people like that.

...OK, I feel better now.... "

---

Editor's note: If you want to give you can always donate to us! We're using it to build a program to treat combat vets with PTSD with integrative medicine, and we promise to say "thank you" :-) Click here to donate, or contact us directly. Thank you.

The Sacred Brotherhood -- and Sisterhood -- of Those Who Understand

We read a few days ago Larry Heinemann's excellent quote about veterans after combat "carrying the darkness with us," linked here. And yesterday, in "War Creates Brothers," we learned about an historic gathering, a sacred ceremony of sorts, where Vietnam veterans like Heinemann met with Russian Afghansti veterans, at least a decade younger, and shared their stories with one another, bonding in the wet blood of brotherhood (and sisterhood, because it now applies to women veterans as well) from war. (That piece is linked here.) Now we synthesize the two together, with a quote from the article Heinemann wrote in 1989 in a national magazine, describing both the gathering mentioned above (lightly), and a much more extensive retelling of what the same Vietnam veterans' trip to Russia to meet with the Afghansti initially was like, a few months before.

Heinemann describes at great length the similarities and the bonds among the men that were formed, and tells the story of how the Russian veterans became involved in their own war in Afghanistan, leaving generally bruised and beaten "after nine years and 15,000 dead." Much of the article focuses on the stories of the Afghansti veterans they met in Russia, the grief of the devastated families of those who'd served, and the generalized indifference of the Russian government -- all of which he can compare, to one degree or another, to situations in our own country, after Vietnam. (As an aside, the bureaucracy of the VA seems to stand in for that of the Russian government in his analogy.)

As clearly as he paints the picture of the Russian veterans' suffering, and how it's mirrored in our own, one of the strongest descriptions he suggests is why the veterans on both sides of the conversation, separated by decades and culture, are nevertheless able to bond so strongly, through telling stories about their experiences, horrific and otherwise. This is the same principle we've been alluding to recently in the series about ritual, and the unburdening that can come from individual warriors when they meet up with one another, and have the safe "container" in which to share their suffering, confusion and grief. Here's Heinemann's remarkable quote:

"These stories and many others, came forward because the Afghansti finally had someone in their midst -- as we surely did not two decades ago [returning from Vietnam] -- who knew what they were talking about. We were fellow soldiers who could listen to the madness and know they were not mad; someone who could validate their worst blood-bath nightmares; someone who had an inkling of the brutality they had endured and inflicted; someone whom they could trust with stories about the deadest, darkest places in their hearts." -- Larry Heinemann.

Circling back around to Heinemann's earlier quote, mentioned a few days ago, we read in this article that it comes at the end of a longer declaration. As food for thought, I now include the full paragraph, in case it now adds fuller context, in light of the above.

"The Afghansti have caused a great many people a great deal of grief and have themselves suffered -- for a lie, let us not forget -- the same was we in the United States have caused much suffering in Southeast Asia, and have also suffered much in return, also for a lie. It was no small betrayal, no small lesson for a man to learn at the age of 19. Any soldier returning home must rediscover his humanity and establish a livable peace with the discovered, liberated, permanently dark places in his own heart --the darkness that is always with us."

"War Creates Brothers" -- U.S., Afghansti Vets Share Stories, Bond Together

A recent quote from the inimitable Dalai Lama: "To the extent that our experience of suffering reminds us of what everyone else also endures, it serves as a powerful inspiration to practice compassion and avoid causing others pain. And to the extent that suffering awakens our empathy and causes us to connect with others, it serves as the basis of compassion and love."

We've written on the site before about how combat vets "get" what other combat vets go through, and how they share that "wet bond of blood" brotherhood, here and here and many other places as well. (There's even something about it from the Civil War era, here; as well as Ernie Pyle, superstar war correspondent who "got" it, exemplifying it and communicating it from the boys on the front to the families back home, here.) We've started writing lately about "ritual" as a way that "primitive" societies, including sometimes our own, ceremonially bring back in the warrior from the war, embraced by his or her community. The work of Malidoma Somé is impressive as heck; but there are others shortly to speak on this as well, including other veterans who understand it and have lived it, and now want to share it with others.

But if we really want to envision the extent of what the Dalai Lama quote, above, embodies, let's take a look at a cross-cultural, multinational gathering of hard-core combat veterans from more than a decade ago. 

“War Creates Brothers”

U.S., Soviet vets share pasts on Peninsula

By Kevin Patterson

Peninsula Daily Times

Port Angeles – Larry Heinemann doesn’t know the word’s Russian spelling; Igor Zakharov doesn’t speak the English translation. But the word “brat,” which sounds like “brot,” instantly brings the two men together in a shoulder-shaking hug.

“My brat, my brother,” Heinemann explains.

There is much that should separate the two men. Heinemann is 45, an award-winning author, a Vietnam veteran.

Zakharov is 25. A machinist. An Afghansti – a Soviet military veteran who served in Afghanistan.

But they sat side-by-side on a rough cedar-plank bench, sharing American cigarettes and talking about coming home from war. Brothers. Soldiers. Grunts.

American “grunts,” G.I. slang for the everyday soldier, have been coming to this place west of the Elwa River for most of the 1980s. Counselor Bruce Webster has gained national prominence for his role in helping Vietnam veterans re-live their war experiences and confront memories that torment them.

Last weekend, Webster’s beachfront back yard ... became a bivouac for Vietnam vets and a handful of Russian veterans and counselors. It was more fruit from a budding relationship borne of war and government indifference to its warriors.

Heinemann and Zakharov met last December, when a group of Vietnam veterans toured the Soviet Union. Their mission was to make contact with Afghansti , while shunning official government representatives. [Heinemann wrote about his visit in a recent issue of a national magazine.]

“Our welcome by the Afghansti – perhaps 30 men in their early and middle 20s – was profuse, prolonged and astonishingly friendly: hand-shakes and warm smiles and immediate conversation,” Heinemann wrote.

Heinemann said the Vietnam vets saw a lot of ourselves in the young Russian veterans. It is a bond that transcends differences in language, culture and politics.

Afghanistan is often referred to as the Soviets’ Vietnam. It was a part-time war waged in a distant land for ill-defined reasons.

Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan came home to discover that most people did not understand what the army was doing there. The government-controlled news media reported that troops in Afghanistan were there as advisers or to build public works.

Until 1985, soldiers killed in action were sent home in zinc coffins to be buried in secret, Heinemann said. Families often did not know how or where their sons died.

“They call it the false face of welcome,” Heinemann explained. “One man we met said his son might as well have been killed in a bar fight, for all he knew.”

The Vietnam veteran has faced an uphill struggle to win recognition of the scars left by the war. Post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD – is the living monument to men who fought a senseless war against an enemy who played by different rules.

Heinemann knows about PTSD. His novel, “Paco's Story,” won the 1987 National Book Award. It was a fictional account of a Vietnam vet struggling with PTSD.

Help for veterans has been slow. Complaints about the U.S. government’s response to Vietnam vets are common. So are stories of Vietnam veterans wracked by the awful psychological after-effects of war. People’s understanding of what the war did to some of the soldiers is still evolving.

The Soviet veterans now grapple with some of the same problems, including a government indifference to their needs, Heinemann said. Their 10-year war ended in February, about 16 years after U.S. troops began pulling out of Vietnam.

Heinemann said Vietnam vets know some of what lies ahead for the Afghansti.

“I think that the Afghansti have a chance to save themselves a lot of grief, learning from our mistakes,” Heinemann said. “That’s why I wanted to bring them out here.”

Zakharov sat next to his American comrade, listening to a foreign language and struggling to answer a reporter’s questions.

He served two years in Afghanistan, the usual length of service for Soviet troops. He used a stick to draw 1982-1984, his time in Afghanistan, in the sand and sawdust of the outdoor conversation pit.

Heinemann said Zakharov was with an airborne unit. He was a minesweeper, whose job was to probe for landmines. His navy blue and white –striped undershirt, standard issue for airborne troops, mostly hid the scar he carries from a bullet wound to his left shoulder.

On his right wrist is a red band. The name of a U.S.  Army sergeant, killed in Vietnam, is inscribed there. It’s a memento of his visit to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

“These are great guys,” Heinemann said. “They’re young and they’re tough and they’ve been through the mill.”

Reprinted with permission of the Peninsula Daily News.

Quotable Quotes -- Neale Donald Walsch on Integrating the Dark and the Light

"I realized then that all of these aspects of my being were qualities for which I had been praised at one time or another. No wonder I was confused! It was only then, when I looked at my "shadow side," and I saw clearly why others sometimes called these my "negative" behaviors, that I also saw the gift in each of them. All I had to do was use those behaviors differently. Not repress them. Not disown them. Simply use them differently.

I have come to understand the extraordinary importance of leading an integral life. That is, of allowing myself to first notice, then to blend, all the aspects of who I am -- those that I and others have called "positive" and those that I and others have called "negative" -- into a grander Whole.

Through this process I have made friends with myself at last. But, oh, how long it took to get there! And how much shorter the process (could) have been..." -- Neale Donald Walsch, author of "Conversations with God," in his introduction to "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers," by Debbie Ford.

Quotable Quotes -- Carl Jung on Integration

"Would you rather be whole or good?" -- Carl Jung, Swiss psychotherapist and author.

Quotable Quotes -- Artie Egendorf on Bearing Witness to the Past

"When people say time heals, they usually mean the passage of time, the rush of many things that happen. If enough new events crowd into our lives and capture our attention, we have no time to think of old pains, which thereby subside into a background gnawing. This is how we use time to dull pain, but it's not the same thing as healing.

Healing occurs as we express ourselves genuinely. In expressing how it was and is, we make ourselves the witness -- one who sees rather than one who has merely been tossed about by passing events. In reaching out to grasp a troublesome past, we cease to be at its mercy, and the more we reach to make ourselves a witness to the past, the less we are its victim." 

-- Arthur Egendorf, Ph.D., "Healing from the War: Trauma and Transformation after Vietnam." (Egendorf is a Vietnam veteran, Army.)

Serving the Dragon: The Power of Ritual in Men's Healing after Grief and Trauma

Yesterday we introduced African tribal elder, Malidoma Somé, and a brief excerpt about using ritual for healing in the West. In today's excerpt, we have an excellent, longer interview done with Some, which goes into much greater detail about the richness and purpose of ritual. Big thanks to journalist,  poet and playwright Reid Baer who graciously gave us permission to use his interview in full. (A veteran and advocate well-acquainted with Some's work calls this the best interview he's seen, to date.)

It's fascinating to hear him discuss how simple and powerful ritual can be in helping selves and others to heal after grief and loss. Enjoy...

An interview with Malidoma Somé

In the Dagara tribe of West Africa, the name Malidoma means “He who makes friends with the stranger/enemy.” One wonders if the parents of Malidoma Patrice Some sensed that the name they gave their son would portend so much of his life.

Rising out of his spiritually rich, yet materially impoverished village in Dano, Burkina Faso, West Africa, Malidoma has become a world wide friend, teacher, public speaker, and author of three books: Of Water and The Spirit (his autobiography), The Healing Wisdom of Africa, and Ritual: Power Healing and Community. With the permission of the Dagara tribal elders, Malidoma is now sharing the indigenous wisdom of Africa with the West. This amazing man from humble origin has earned three masters degrees and two doctoral degrees – the first from the Sorbonne (in Paris) and the second from Brandeis University. In a remarkable way, Malidoma bridges cultures like no one else I know.

As Malidoma speaks, his voice carries the excitement, passion, and palpable spiritual quality that befit a gifted medicine man. Only the most accomplished Diviners, Gate Keepers, Shamans, and spiritual leaders are invited into a special “Elder” initiation in the Dagara tribe. Due to Malidoma's accomplishments and importance to his community, he became, at the age of 42, the youngest ever to become an Elder; not to mention the first with a full Western education. He possesses a unique understanding of how psychological disciplines and spiritual rituals can be utilized together in assisting individual personal growth.

“Ritual is the most functional means by which archetypal energies are dealt dealt with,” Malidoma began. “Indigenous people have been aware of that for eons. In the modern era, we focus too much on psychological counseling, he noted. There is a tendency for people to ‘linger endlessly’ in therapy for without receiving significant help. The “shadow” parts of our lives “keep coming back.” Malidoma believes that dealing with “the things we cannot escape” is best accomplished within the sacred space of ritual.

“Ritual facilitates and provides us with a unique channel to access higher power,” he said. “Certain issues don’t want to be resolved mechanistically. We don’t have to know how the power works; we just have to show up and let the higher forces deal with the issues. The trap we feel inside ourselves is removed once we enter into sacred space. The energies know how to push obstacles out.”

Malidoma said we tend to “project a godly power” onto human beings with a resulting dependency on others. It is in the nature of humans to project, he added. The question is, where do we direct the projections?

“Humans can not become god,” he intoned. “So we have to step away from that for a moment and remember the only place where we are authorized to project is in sacred space. If it is divine, then we are healed; if we project onto humans, we are deeply pushed into turmoil.”

Malidoma suggested that men should learn to trust their own ability to create sacred space, where they can be “vulnerable in a sacred fashion and allow themselves to be dismantled so that the rebuilding can produce a lasting result. The sacred space to initiate men is not necessarily a physical place, but an energetic place.

“It’s very hard to do this as an individual thing,” he said. “This kind of healing requires community -- men with men. The healing begins with the destabilization of a man’s energy. When he starts to feel unstable, it is best put in that place where other men or humans are. And eventually he will let go.”

Men usually fool themselves into “serving the big dragon,” Malidoma stated. However, with the help of other men observing from the outside, an initiate will begin to see his own dragon. The collapse of the traditional internal structure can then begin, and the “great opportunity of rebuilding the self occurs.”

“That idea is a hard-sell in this culture because men like to stay in control,” he continued. “Men have no room for a place of risk. In the business of healing, more often than not, we paint over the problems. This danger place that we are obligated to move into is a sacred danger because it endangers the very problems we deal with; and when it endangers them, we feel it endangers us too.”

Modern men identify too closely with their problems, he added, “and we become the problems, not the solutions.”

Malidoma said he believes men use the need for “safety as a condition of healing” as an excuse not to deal with the problem.

“We must endanger the problem by confronting it,” Malidoma instructed. “It is to be dug out of its hiding and exposed to the air. It cannot breathe oxygen. The light of day is lethal to it. That’s why the dragon tells us that we should be safe, because the dragon wants to be safe. We end up actually serving the very thing we want to be rid of.

The creative process is essential in coping with dragons, the Elder noted. “In talking about expression, we have to visualize it as more than speaking English,” he said. “Creativity includes non-verbal expression and the ability to use the entire body as a means of discourse.”

Malidoma said the dragon wants us to be introverted.

“Expression rips open the hidden cages and blind boxes, thereby releasing all the information hiding in there unbeknownst us to us and others,” he said. “To speak constantly into sacred space is to give oneself the opportunity of transcending … taking our lethal pain and diluting it into the ether.”

Malidoma experienced pain early in life when he was abducted from his tribe by Catholic priests and forced into a foreign Western culture. After a number of years, he escaped and returned home, where he was initiated into his indigenous community.

“Ritual or initiation provides a safe place for the soul and body to affirm life over death,” he declared, “to affirm continuity over discontinuity.”

The author said he has found “hope and dignity” through the daily practice of his tribe’s ancient rituals. He prays at the shrine of his ancestors, offering them water or libation, and asking the spirit of nature to walk with him throughout the day.

“After 30 some odd years, everywhere I am, I don’t feel alone,” he said. “I feel like a patrol of powerful spirits surround me. They give me a certain sense of reassurance and pride, so I can walk in the middle of adversity really knowing that in order for the adversity to get to me it will have to get through all these forces. It’s quite reassuring.”

Men don’t need a “sophisticated construction” to participate in ritual. Malidoma recommends we “look up at a tree” or “go to a creek and see the flow of water.”

“There may be some powerful genie dwelling in the water,” he said. “Talk to him like we talk to each other.”

The response may not be the loudest one we hear, but if we’re willing to listen carefully, we can hear the “big noise or echo” of nature tell us that “we’re right and to go on and walk proudly.”

In Malidoma’s village, the men are the spiritual leaders.

“Why? Because this is the kind of power, this is the responsibility every male is born with, and when assumed properly, it becomes authentic,” he said. “Women and children find themselves reassured by the men’s true power. It is when we pretend to assume the power that in fact we are derogatory and chaos is created. True male power is very healing for everybody. And so, if a man is not a self-centered control freak, he is one that will be serving, protecting, and holding the sacred space …. holding the space for everything and everybody to live.”

So, what keeps Western modern man from being the spiritual leaders in their own homes? “Men get caught up in the socio-economic nightmare of giving away most of their time in order to survive,” he answered. “We didn’t come into this world to give all our energy to stay alive, we came here to live. The biggest dragon is the one that tells us we have to work eight hours a day … and we end up being so tired that the very thing our soul is yearning for we don’t have time for. We have to tell each other to take time, and we need to hold hands with each other. Men have to be willing to come together to express what they feel to each other as the first step toward moving into that sacred space so they can heal enough to assume true responsibility in their own household. If we find a little moment to get together to pound on this problem, then we can go back to our respective homes and our partners and children … and they can see us shining in our true glory.”

“Community” is a strong recurring theme in much of Malidoma’s work. He defines it as a “bunch of people willing to come together in a circle in which they are conscious enough to invoke the sacred, the divine … to be with each other so they can express their authentic self to one another.”

“If men are willing to come together and be with each other, knowing they need supervision of the divine in order that their being together is not limited to talking about current events and drinking beer, then they have become a community.”

The community is strengthened by “invoking the sacred,” he added, but not by making themselves exclusive.

“Once we start attacking and excluding other communities then we have become a club,” Malidoma explained, “and then we have taken the ideas of society into our club, and the dragon prospers in us as a community.”

People sitting around and talking about the faults of other people are not a true community.

Malidoma expresses his own sense of community and his personal spiritual creative process this way: “I draw from bone energy and the memories that come from the bone. I allow myself to surrender to the higher forces with the clear intention that I want to be as clear and precise as possible. What comes out is something almost independent of me. There’s something quite militant in it, because when I express myself, and not after heavy duty preparation, I know that spirit is speaking through me. When I feel that intensity coming out, when I feel it, I know someone else will feel it. Every time I have attached my own emotion or capacity, I have to stand back and get out of my way so higher forces can speak. That has been transforming. I like to call that spirit. Spirit expresses itself in a way we cannot map, cannot tell ahead of time, and has its own plan – a plan not known to us. To know it, we have to surrender to it. It’s a risky thing. And risk-taking in the business of feeling, is worth doing. Check out www.malidoma.com.

© 2005 Reid Baer. Used with permission.

Self-Image in Veterans with PTSD after Combat: Same as Before, or Different?

We wrote an article on this site more than a year ago that was read very heavily, entitled "A Combat Veteran Asks Himself, Who Am I, on the Inside?" linked here. His response at the time to the question, "What's your greatest problem right now?" was very direct, raw and hard to hear: "I'm an exploding ball of hate," he said.

As tough as that "conversation" was to absorb, it might be time for a rematch, but on a slightly different topic. How does -- or does it actually -- a combat veteran with PTSD's self-image change, after combat, from what it was before combat? (Or before and after PTSD. Really, either question would produce interesting results.) 

It does seem that even in the literature, very little attention is paid to how servicemembers and veterans view themselves after combat. What was their self-image before -- and then did it change, or HOW did it change, after combat?

(By way of definition, "self-image" is different from "self-esteem." Self-image is basically how you look at yourself, pros and cons -- your sense of yourself and who you "are." It can be as simple as, I'm so tall and weigh such and such; I'm a good student or I'm good at sports; I'm social or I'm a loner, etc. Self-esteem has more to do with how highly you regard yourself (e.g., belief in yourself and/or self-confidence). It's also not the same as "self-worth," which is the value with which we regard ourselves. It's more purely "just"" how we see ourselves: bad, good or indifferent.)

Our self-image is who we see ourselves are -- how we would describe ourselves to others. "I'm fundamentally a good person." "I'm fun to be around." "I'm responsible." Ways we describe ourselves to differentiate ourselves from others. 

The illustration at left may help. It's a drawing a combat veteran with PTSD made based on an instruction to "draw himself as he saw himself, right now." Meaning, at this point in his life, not necessarily right after combat. He drew what amounts to a split personality, a "bad" and a "good" self, about equally weighted. He saw himself as both, at the same time. 

(Example from non-combat-related psychology, to further define what self-image is, by taking a look at what distorted self-image is: When an anorexic woman looks at herself in the mirror and "sees" herself as overweight, though she is underweight, we say that she has a "distorted" self-image. In other words, her correct self-image would be accurately that she is too thin. Instead, she projects onto the accurate image the distorted image she carries of herself, and she is able to see herself, wrongly, as not thin enough.)

I'm torn about including several quotes about war and the warrior, to get the discussion going...but I don't want to tip the scales one way or the other here. It's probably best to just think of the actual question: How did I view myself before combat/PTSD, and how do I view myself now, after combat/PTSD -- and have those two views of myself changed?

Quotable Quotes -- Suffering from What We Keep Silent within Us

"What is the source of our first suffering?" wrote philosopher Gaston Bachelard. "It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us."

(With thanks to Rob Breszny for highlighting a really cool quote.)

Quotable Quotes -- Half Full or Half Empty or Just...Right?

A wonderful quote from a longtime combat veteran from the other side of the pond, which expresses so well the "integration" we'd love to see for all veterans with PTSD. He writes:

"Sometimes my glass is half full... Sometimes my glass is half empty. I don't mind either view because when I sit back , have a think about stuff, I realize that my glass is really big. :-)"

Quotable Quotes: The Transition from Real Person to Soldier to Ghost

Every once in a while you run across a quote that just puts everything into perspective. Here's a combat vet, woman, with PTSD and MST, raped multiple times(!) in her deployment -- a form of hazing? A highly intelligent woman, coming to terms with what she's gone through, but it isn't easy, and it did involve unspeakable things. Here's how she describes it: 

"I remember so many things I want to forget. I remember once upon a time I was a real person. Then I was a soldier. Now I am a ghost."

Editor's note: For more on military sexual trauma, also known as MST, which affects equal numbers of men and women, despite their disproportionate numbers serving, click here. For more on PTSD, read the rest of this site :-)

Veterans Remember, Survivors Relive: Ken Jones on Vietnam, PTSD and Beyond

Ken Jones, @AKVet on Twitter, is a Vietnam veteran, Ph.D. psychologist, and trail runner, with much to say to our current generation of veterans, starting with "been there, done that" -- and come to terms with it. He's a joy to "follow" on Twitter, but recently he took the time to really spell out what a few of his combat experiences, and coming to terms with their resulting PTSD, had been like. (He's also the author of two free, downloadable e-books on combat and PTSD, which are mentioned in the piece, with hyperlinks that take you to them.)

Another Twitter fan, @BillNigh, took the time to collate some of Ken's recent stream-of-consciousness utterances about being a Vietnam veteran and his own experiences with PTSD into something we can all learn from. Thanks, Bill, and thanks, Ken. Here is Bill's condensing of what Ken wrote on the Web in early August:

"Ken Jones has several chapters in his life that relate to his military tour of service. He suffered battle wounds and PTSD. Now, from a healthy place, and a giving heart, he wants to help fellow, contemporary, vets return Stateside. He offers two free ebooks to anyone interested in the combat experience and in PTSD, "Life After Combat" and "When Our Troops Come Home". Listed below is a stream of consciousness set of posts that he did recently on Twitter on Friday August 6, 2010."

Herewith Ken's reflections:

"We have a "Support Our Troops" effort going on today to get the word out on the two free e-books I wrote about combat induced PTSD. I thought I'd give you a bit of background about how these books came to be.

I was a grunt with the 11 Cavalry in VN in 67-68. We operated in the Iron Triangle, Central I Corps, the Cambodian border, helped retake Bien Hoa in 68 Tet then the Triangle again. We worked with the 173rd, 25th Inf, 101st, 3rd Marines, Korean Marines, 196th Lt Inf, then with the 101st again during Tet. 

In "When Our Troops Come Home" there's a description of the first time I got blown up. This photo was taken after I had been dusted off to the Second Surgical Hospital. The people I talked with later said it looked like a booby-trapped 500 lb. bomb we detonated. What saved us was that most of the force of the blast exited out the side of the embankment we had just come over. 

During Tet 68 our mission was to retake Bien Hoa. We went in with the 101st and retook it. The last time I got blown up was 8 days before I was due to leave country. We got into a fight on our way out of the Triangle. I was a track commander on 32. We took a direct hit by an RPG through the front of the track. The blast blinded my driver and loaded me up with shrapnel. My driver was incredible. He was seriously wounded but did exactly what I told him on the intercom. Like we were in the motor pool.

I got my wounded off, picked up another driver and gunner and we went back in. Turned out to be a long day and night. "The Army sent my body back to Oakland in 1968. It took me years to understand that I died in Viet Nam." I turned 20 in Jan 68. on the Cambodian border. I came back to the world in March. I was 100 years old. 

I learned very quickly never to talk with a civilian about what I had seen, and heard, and smelled, and done in Viet Nam. There was no such thing as PTSD in 1968. There were just a bunch of crazy, whacked, dope-smokin' vets coming back. All the papers said so.

So I sucked it up. Got married. Eventually started a company at 23. Made it work. Looked "successful" to the community. I had an edge. I didn't sleep more than 3-4 hours. I filled my business life with frenetic activity so I didn't have time to "think." I remember driving alone from Salem to Portland on I-5 and screaming as loud as I could over and over to keep the memories away. 

I took up distance running thinking that if I ran far enough and fast enough that I wouldn't be able to think and maybe I could sleep. I was married to a wonderful woman who did everything in her power to try to understand what was happening. I wouldn't tell her anything. I'd wake up screaming in a cold sweat. All I ever said was it was a bad dream. Then I would get dressed for the office and leave for the day. It was usually about 0430. I'd drink coffee and have breakfast at an all-night restaurant. I read a lot: Ed Abbey, Alan Watts, DT Suzuki, others. Many others. 

By 1977 or so I felt like my chest was going to explode all the time. I couldn't run far enough or long enough to keep that "gripping fist" feeling out of my chest. I went to my doc. He looked for symptoms. I never said anything about being Viet Nam. My doc was a civilian. 

By 1980 it was very clear to me that something had to change. The choices I had were insanity or suicide. For some reason I began to write. At first it was poetry of a kind. Short, abrupt blasts of thought put to paper. Then a paragraph and a page. I found that I could get some relief from the grip on my chest if I sat and wrote something so, I kept writing - for three years. 

During that time I began to do business with clients in Anchorage, Alaska. And I wrote. But there was no let up in the constant chest grip. On a trip to Anchorage I heard a radio blurb about something called a Viet Nam Veterans Outreach Center that had opened. I took a chance. I kept a copy of my writing with me all the time. I took it with me to the Vet Center. 

It was a truly eerie sensation walking through the Vet Center door. I was pin-striped, button-down for business all the time. My civy camo. The vet at the desk took a look at me, then my eyes. He said, "Welcome" and got up and walked to an office in the back. 

The guy who came back with him looked like a cowboy, really. He asked me to come on back. His name was Farrell Udell. He was the team leader at the Vet Center. And he really had ben a cowboy in New Mexico before Viet Nam. Farrell was a Marine. He had been a door gunner on a Marine gunship in I Corp. He was the first combat vet I had met since 1968. I told him what it felt like in my chest and asked him to take a look at what I had written to see if it looked like I really was going crazy. 

He looked at the manuscript for awhile and said that, no I wasn't going crazy, and I had come to the right place. I believed him. Being able to look into another person's eyes who knew not only my words, but all the impacted feelings gave me hope again. 

That was in late 1980. At the time the only approach to treatment of PTSD was rap groups. Vets would meet once a week at the Vet Center and talk and listen and try to help each other with our pain. For some that brought relief. For me and others it just opened a massively infected wound, and we couldn't get the feelings to stop. 

In mid-1981, after several months of rap groups I went back to the team leader and told him we had to do something different. We talked for awhile and decided that we would co-facilitate a combat debriefing group. The purpose of the group was not going to be just to talk about what happened, but to find a way to bring some closure to our experience. We had no idea how we were going to do it, but we did know that it had to be done. 

Fareel went through his client list and identified the most serious PTSD cases he was working with. There were 20 of us. We put out the word that we were going to have a combat debriefing group, and what the intention was. There were 17 of us that formed that group. These were some hard-core folks. 
If I recall correctly in that group of 17 there were 28 Purple Hearts, 23 Bronze Stars, 4 Silver Stars, and a Congressional Medal of Honor. 

These were folks who had danced with the Banshee. 

The first night together everyone gave some background on their trigger time and how their life had been since. Basically it sucked to be us. We all got to look into each others' eyes. At the end of the evening we agreed that we were going to do this this thing, whatever it was. Farrell and I covered one wall of the conference room with butcher paper. Each week when the combat debriefing group met. I would read a short section from (what is now) "When Our Troops Come Home". Then we would go around and talk about how each of our experience was similar or different from what I had read. 

The stories began to be told. The anguish began to flow. Vets held vets while they wept their rage, and loss, and guilt for surviving. We kept a plastic trash can in the center of the circle. Sometimes a vet would need to puke to get through the rest of his story. At each session, before we closed, we went through a lessons learned, like an after action report. We made notes on the butcher paper we had taped to the wall. At first they were just notes about dates and times and events. 

Over the 15 months our combat debriefing group was together we realized that there were patterns in our experiences. There was a timeline from when we arrived in country to the point when we passed through the Acute Trauma Threshold and became survivors. 

We began to create a sort of map of our common experiences. Finally we had a physical diagram of the process of being traumatized in combat. It was an extraordinary accomplishment for this group of warriors. I was the scribe. I copied down what we learned together.

From that diagram we were able to flesh out and describe the process of going from an 18 yr old American kid to the initiation into the military that is basic training. "Then to Viet Nam and the "Immersion in Absurdity" of combat that nothing could actually prepare us for.

Then there was the one specific event that changed us forever. The day when feelings became more lethal than a Claymore mine. That was the day that we turned off all the breakers on all the feeling circuits. From then on "It don't mean nothin'" We became Survivors. The model that was developed by the group of Viet Nam Veterans in that combat debriefing group is what is described in the free e-book "Life After Combat".

So that's how it started, not just in our combat group in Anchorage, but all over the country. Vets helping Vets. It's why Viet Nam veterans, and those that lived through those years, are absolutely committed to today's warriors and their loved ones. 

We remember when there was no help. We remember the years of bitter, self-imposed isolation.  We remember the nightmares and the desperate need for the adrenalin fix to confirm that we were still alive. We remember the utter boredom of being away from combat and the fear of going back in. This is the difference between veterans and survivors: 

   Veterans remember.

   Survivors relive. 

There is all the same concern now as there was among my generation about being man enough to take the pain. How manly do you have to be to take the pain of an impacted tooth before you have a root canal done? A day. A week. 10 years. That's the thing about PTSD. It's impacted anguish. It rubs a blister on your soul. 

I refused to ask for help for 13 years. Many of my bros have waited longer than that. Some still wait. 

Maybe you need to wait because of your career, or your security clearance, or nobody will understand, or until you get sober, or straight. We understand that. You can run, but you can't hide from an impacted tooth. Same Same with PTSD. Do what you have to do. But when the time comes know this: 

• There are thousands of us who understand what you and your loved ones are living through. We will help. 
• There are now trained counselors both in and out of the military. They will help.
• There are resources online, in your local community. Unlike 40 years ago. Help is right here, right now.
• By the same code that you live by: "No warrior left behind. Ever. Ever", we are all here. Waiting for you. It's your choice; it's your turn. 
• There are new warriors taking the field, filling the ranks every day. They will carry on the fight and the code. 
• At some point a warrior must choose to turn from the past and prepare to come back Home.
• Of course your guilt comes with you. That's part of the PTSD. 
• I can tell you from my experience that survivor guilt is also an easy excuse to avoid doing the really difficult work necessary to recover 

Consider this: There is a generation of warriors that we will not allow another generation of warrior to endure what we endured. Warriors are recovering and returning to their loved ones every day. Like everything else we do, undertaking the journey requires a decision 

Our mission is simple: Our mission is to Bring Our People Home. You are our mission. Semper Fidelis. 

Sometimes You Have to Choose to Love -- A Love Story after PTSD

Into the dearth of "good news" about combat veterans with PTSD and their partners comes the remarkable love story of Josh and Helen, who met and fell in love AFTER his service, his suicide attempts, and his PTSD diagnosis. While PTSD can seem like the "third partner" in a relationship -- the ever-present elephant in the room -- in Josh and Helen's story, it's what brought them together, and love, wisdom and maturity is what keeps their union intact.

I had the pleasure of getting to spend a few days recently with Josh and Helen, and was impressed by both of them, and the sheer fun of their relationship, which can be too rare among partners where one has PTSD. I was struck by Helen's clear-eyed, open-hearted approach -- the education she sought about PTSD, as she was falling in love with Josh -- and the way in which she's really becoming a wise "spokesperson" for how love is possible after PTSD. For all the broken relationships out there, and all the partners barely enduring and tolerating one another, I felt like Josh and Helen's story needed to be told, so I asked Helen to tell it. Just as a point of reference, Josh served in the U.S. Army from 2002 to 2008. He was honorably discharged in 2008, and served in Iraq from 2005 to 2006.

Here is Helen's story:

"I met my husband Josh on December 27th, 2008. That's about two years after he returned from Iraq and about two months after he tried to commit suicide for the second time. He was at my house attending an after-Christmas-before-New-Years party that my then roommate Chris was throwing, and he was there against the medical advice and wishes of the team of specialists overseeing his psychiatric care at a well-known men's inpatient program for PTSD.

He was home for the weekend to visit his family and in order to do so he was required to fill out a schedule of where he'd be, what he'd be doing, and with whom. If they'd known he'd be at that party, they more than likely wouldn't have let him go home. And if they knew he'd meet me, they'd probably have chained him to the wall. Of course I don't know that for certain because it's not the way things happened. He did come to the party, I was there even though I had other tentative plans that night, and we did meet each other.

Josh told me later that he wasn't looking for anything other than to feel normal for a few hours. He hadn't really expected to feel comfortable at all and certainly had no intention of telling me that he had PTSD. Again, not the way things happened. He started by telling me that he was a soldier which really intrigued me. In my head I can't help but equate military service with nobility, honor, and authority, probably because the only other people I knew that had been in the military were my grandfather -- who had served in the Navy in World War II -- and a family friend who took unfair advantage of my googly eyes at the tender age of 15, later dubbed "evil Army guy" though I never really associated the service with the man.

I had heard of PTSD and sort of knew what the letters in the acronym stood for. It was a pretty basic concept; formerly known as "shell shock" which Great Uncle Paul, Grandpa's brother had. I remember thinking when it became apparent that Josh and I were going to have a relationship that I should probably be concerned, but I wasn't. I don't know why. I had also heard that men with PTSD could be violent and do harm to the people they most loved. But then again, so can most of the people I know. I knew I'd have to educate myself on what exactly PTSD is, a fact that was compounded when I came up against some opposition from a friend of mine who thought Josh would kill me and then take his own life. She thought this because a friend of her grandmother's had been murdered by her husband, a veteran of either Korea or WWII. I started with the basics (the basics being the extraordinarily reliable source of Wikipedia....you can't tell, but that was written in a sarcastic voice) which actually gave me a pretty decent base.

From there I moved on to other sources including the VA, National Institutes of Mental Health, and last but not least, Josh's therapist. Josh took me to see him because, he said, "I want you to know what you're getting into". Among other things, what I learned was that, aside from the fact that Josh's PTSD was focused inwardly and therefore he wouldn't hurt me, he was being monitored by so many mental health professionals as well as regulating himself that he was the least likely person in the world to do so.

We got lucky. One of the most interesting things I learned was that PTSD is, for lack of a better word, normal. When a person is placed in an extremely traumatic and/or stressful environment, their mind enacts hyper-vigilance, paranoia, insomnia, etc. to enable survival. In a war zone, PTSD is useful. It's when the soldier comes home in time of peace that there are problems. Actually, many people with PTSD have it because of domestic violence. Some people get it from car accidents. The list goes on.What Josh told me really helped him was that I didn't push. When he told me about Iraq, I didn't launch questions at him that he probably wouldn't want to answer. I waited. I focused on him as best I could, I listened carefully.

Eventually he opened up to me, but the fact that I fostered an environment where he felt safe to talk about it, without judgment, without questions, without a sense of urgency helped him immensely. Communication is not our weak point because both of us took a chance at being safe with one another. At first it was scary, but it was completely worth it. One of the most important lessons I've ever learned thus far is that sometimes you have to choose to love. I took on the attitude (I was newly in love so it wasn't too hard for me...plus he's awesome) that he was (and is!) the most incredible, sexy, wonderful, manly man on Earth. I tell him frequently that he is an excellent provider, that he takes good care of his family, that he satisfies my basest urges (*giggle*), that I choose him and marry him every day and will have only him for the rest of my life, and most importantly that I love him so much and love him for who he is. I mean every syllable of it, it's completely true, and I stand by my bold statements and declarations. My heart melts every time because I see him sheepishly look down or puff his chest out, or I notice that he's walking just a little bit taller. He loves it, and his life is made easier and he is made happier knowing that I adore him and that I'm there for him (and he responds in kind).

This is not to say that it's always a cake walk. It isn't. Marriage is hard enough work without mental illness in the mix. His anxiety will act up, he'll get scared, he'll feel depressed and useless and insecure and jeez, we haven't even gone in to MY issues. But he knows that I'm always there for him. We made the conscious decision to put in the effort to speak, to care, to look out for one another, and to work through our arguments and disagreements. Sometimes that is damned hard. But in the end, loving him is easy because of it.

I know that our relationship is different than many other spouse-vet relationships for a variety of reasons. First, I met Josh after he came home from Iraq, after his suicide attempts, after he started treatment for PTSD. I never had to wait for him, never had to live away from him during deployment, never had to worry that the phone would ring or I'd get a knock on the door. I didn't have children to be both mother and father to while he was away, never had to experience my husband being a different man now than he was when he left me. I don't pretend to know what that must have been like.

But if there's anything that I can offer, anything that WE can offer, it's that there is hope. Josh was convinced once that the only good thing he could do was destroy himself; get rid of the burden. Find peace in death, in drinking, in drugs, ANYTHING. He had a plan in place to move to Seattle with just some basic gear with which to live on the streets, and he chose Seattle because their Department of Public Health has a clean needle exchange program. Almost two years later, he's married with a loving wife, a service dog who needs him, two cats who love to annoy him, a sound support system, and more and more he is learning that he's not alone. I am, and by choice always will be, his biggest fan, his cheering section, his advocate, his confidante, and his partner. As his wife, my job, my goal, my honor, my privilege and my pleasure is make sure he never feels otherwise."

Editor's note: The photo of Josh and Helen is used with their permission.

Quotable Quotes -- A Spouse's View on How War Changes the Veteran

We wrote about Vietnam veteran, Marine and National Book Award-winning author and poet Larry Heinemann yesterday, and his quote about "War and the Veteran's Heart," linked here. And we've certainly written quite a bit -- as in very often -- about the spouse or partner's point of view, of living with the combat veteran with PTSD. Those articles are linked here. Today we bring those both together, with an excerpt from Larry Heinemann's wife, Edie, about how war and combat changed him. We're sure that many spouses and family members can relate. From a long article about his writing:

"They met at a college dance almost 26 years ago, six months before Heinemann left Fort Knox, Kentucky, for Vietnam. Edie Smith, from Long Island, New York, was doing her undergraduate work at Nazareth College in nearby Bardstown. "He was a clown, very funny and very easygoing," Edie says. "He told some good stories, about his family, about his grandfather." Edie Heinemann says everything about her husband Larry, including his complicated relationships with women, his moods, his present sense of humor, and why he became a writer, was forged by Vietnam.

 "I don't think I've ever told this to anybody on the record, but I married a completely different man than the one I met. Larry had a warmth, a genuineness, a humor about him, even a naivete that was completely stripped away when he was in Vietnam. When he came home all I saw was the bitterness and the edge and the distance. For so long he held so much of this inside, and I don't think I ever fully realized how much pivoted on his experiences in Vietnam. Only recently, with the work he's done, the writing and the other things, has he begun to shed what happened to him, revealing more humor and everything else that was taken away in Vietnam."

Source: "Heinemann's New Style," by Patrick Z. McGavin in the Chicago Reader, (date unknown, but possibly July 23, 1992), linked here.

Quotable Quotes -- Larry Heinemann on War and the Veteran's Heart

"Any soldier returning home must rediscover his humanity and establish a livable peace with the discovered, liberated, permanently dark places in his own heart -- the darkness that is always with us." -- Larry Heinemann, Vietnam combat veteran (Marine) and author, winner of the National Book Award for Paco's Story.

The PTSD Veteran Parent or Spouse: Occasionally Disconnected at the Source

Gayook Wong, who writes about PTSD occasionally in her own blog, focused on Qi Gong -- which we've written about, here -- talks about the disconnect she regularly experiences with her own children, because of her own longtime PTSD. The scenario she describes should be very familiar to spouses, significant others and family members of those with PTSD.

She writes:

"I have suffered from PTSD since I was a child, even though I never knew what it was. I couldn’t understand why I had so many nightmares, why awful moments of terror would suddenly come upon me accompanied by dry sweats and rancid fear in the pit of my stomach. 

Many of my clients have expressed similar outrage at what they are going through. Some have even told me they felt were being punished, but didn’t know why.  When a survivor is enveloped in PTSD symptoms, he/she cannot even begin to consider anyone else. 

 When these symptoms come upon me, I am not my chronological age. I’ve stepped back into the past, where I feel terrorized all over again. I am no longer here. Unfortunately, my children feel most the brunt of my trauma. I am not the mother they know and trust.  I become a stranger to them. They have told me that they feel abandoned, that I don’t carry through what I’ve told them I would do. They have accused me of lying to them, that they can’t trust me, so they feel they have to take over the role as adults and figure things out in a crisis. 

 My children have told me many times over the years that when I have bouts of anger or periods of regressing back to a terrorized child, they feel absolutely helpless. They don’t know what to do to help me. Over time, this helplessness has turned into resentment. They don’t understand why I can’t just get over it -– it’s been so long. 

There are times, I’m sure, that they feel I’m using this to control them – which only adds to the resentment.It is only after some recovery that I am able to hear them, to see how my trauma has affected them. And, how the effects of the trauma gets yet passed onto the next generation. My children learned that, when I “space out”, as they label it, they have to be the adults. In many ways, this has happened since their childhood. As for me, I just want them to understand that the symptoms appear sometimes out of nowhere, and I feel like I’m defenseless, that no one and nothing can help me. But, of course, they don’t. And, logically, I can’t expect them to. 

I want them to understand that it’s not something that I want to have happen, that I feel like I’m going to die in there.  I really make an effort to return to the present moment. Some times are easier than others. It depends on what gets triggered. Even as I am learning more about PTSD and how these symptoms have defined my and the lives of so many others, the labeling of my periodic states  brings up another scare for my children, my daughter especially. She reacts angrily when I label myself. She is afraid that the label gives me more reasons not to heal, that I am using the symptoms to control.   

However, for me, understanding  what has been happening to me all these years and why,  has helped me to name the symptoms faster. Once I name them, I am able to come out of it much quicker.  And, the quicker I can come out, the less adverse affect it will have on my family and friends."

She also recommends counseling:

"Close family members, especially if they are caregivers, need to also have a support system,. Find others who are undergoing similar circumstances. It helps to know that you’re not alone. I strongly urge counseling to families, either together and/or individually. When tragedy befalls one family member, there is no way that others will not also be affected. My family and I have all gone through counseling through the years, together and individually. Now, they know what’s happening to me, we have a code that helps me to come back into the present moment. This helps me to recognize what’s happening to me. And, even better, my children don’t feel as powerless because they are part of the solution."

Gayook Wong makes so many good points in this post. Most of all, she is doing a good job of describing the disconnect that PTSD can connect, the unreachability of the sufferer when he or she is in the throes of their symptoms. Afterwards, of course, things can improve, but sometimes too the damage has been done. The "not being able to consider anyone else" truly takes its toll on friends and loved ones. Others may come to regard the sufferer warily, and the sufferer himself or herself wonders if they can be trusted again, when there are no guarantees.

While few programs offer resources for family members of veterans suffering from PTSD, some do. Check out the Vet Centers in your geographical area, and also The Soldiers Project, which offers free, confidential counseling to family members as well as veterans.

Transpersonal Psychology, PTSD and Spirituality: A Therapeutic Approach

From a brochure about a now-past seminar given by Dr. Marius Koga, a look at the transpersonal therapeutic approach to PTSD and spirituality. I shared his comments with a friend, an Iraq veteran with PTSD, and she affirmed how completely his remarks fit with her impression of her situation. In her words: "He explained the exact reasons why I thought God hated me and was punishing me and why I turned to drugs. I always thought I was the only one who thought that way, and so it was nice to hear that from him."

In Dr. Koga's words:

"It is common for PTSD clients to seek religion and spirituality as part of their healing process. However, most psychotherapies are focused on the ego and personality constructs, while religious or spiritual considerations have been traditionally ignored. It is only in recent years that a therapeutic modality known as “transpersonal psychology “ has emerged which reintegrates psychology and the personality with the soul. The client is encouraged to actively maintain his/her individual self-concept in order to participate actively in his/her recovery. Concurrently, the client is guided to incorporate his/her individuality into the larger plane of the collective identity (including family, community, and religious and spiritual helping resources) to undergo personal transformation and growth. Our military especially, coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq, are seeking answers to painful questions about the gruesome realities of warfare, the value of personal faith, and the worth of human life itself. Many find that their faith in a God that is always available to respond to one’s personal tragedy can be utterly shattered. Soldiers and others who are unable to resolve such challenges find themselves lost in a spiritual flatland, which can take many nightmarish forms. They may feel abandoned by God, they reject or curse God, and they feel that God was powerless to help or even non-existent. They may even rationalize that their body mutilation, PTSD, or Traumatic Brain Injury was deserved punishment from God, or, in extreme, believe that their eternal damnation is God’s ultimate punishment. All too often, they feel they have no recourse but to numb their pain with drugs and alcohol. Their families suffer with them. By providing the opportunity for introspection about the meaning of trauma for the client’s life, transpersonal psychology helps soldiers, their families and friends, and others who have experienced PTSD and other traumatic events, to renegotiate the passive and silent state of the sick role and regain a sense of journeying, integrating, and healing." Marius Koga, MD, MPH, is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and an Associate Clinical Professor of Public Health at UC Davis School of Medicine. He is also a Professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto where he is directing a pilot center for trauma studies. Dr. Koga has developed courses in mental health and spirituality for Chapman University and has been the Course Director for Transcultural Mental Health and Spirituality at Tulane Medical School. A former political prisoner, torture survivor, and refugee from communist Romania, Dr. Koga’s interest is on PTSD in refugee populations and US military who are Afghan and Iraq war veterans. He has given numerous presentations, and workshops on spiritual dimensions of trauma in US and Europe.

An American Veteran -- After Combat, Unlucky in Love

"Ann," Eddie Livingston, the subject of our "An American Veteran" series writes to Ann Landers in the summer of '65, "you cannot possibly know how the help and comfort your column brings to people like myself. Many times I have found things in your column that seemed to apply to me, specifically." In characteristic Eddie fashion he adds, "I hope you are never alone, or lonely, Ann."

(Click on the photo to read the letter in its entirety.)

A comment like that stands out because being alone and loneliness are clearly important to Eddie as well.

His niece, who's brought his writings to light, comments that Eddie believed "because of all of his problems stemming from the war and his POW experience [both creating his PTSD] that no one could ever love him."

Fortunately he found someone later who did, but in this letter you can clearly read the pain and frustration of the 41-year-old Eddie at striking out too many times in the same way, where other men with less baggage from the war are clearly succeeding. Eddie was 41 at the time but a recent combat veteran I ran into the other day, in his 30s, was able to use the experience of having several women break up with him in a row as his "wake-up call" -- that it was no longer all of their problems but it was his PTSD as the common denominator, and he started to go get help so that he could change his future. I commend his efforts but also Eddie's plaintive authenticity on this front. I'm no "Robert Taylor," he bemoans, citing a celebrity of the day, but knows that he's still worth loving. Veterans with PTSD may have rocky relationships (see the divorce rates) and plenty of alone time (see the series on living in the bunker), and these problems with others may stem from the difficulty they find in loving or accepting themselves. It's certainly true that I've recently seen spouses not have the easiest time with the experience, either. Difficult or hard to love? Yes, probably. Worth the effort? We believe so. Stay tuned for a very positive story on just this topic...

Editor's note: For a set of articles about the fuller topic of sexuality and intimacy in the combat veteran with PTSD's life, click here.

Resources on Military Sexual Trauma: VetWow's Short Podcasts for Survivors, Friends and Family

Military Sexual Trauma, like PTSD another "invisible wound," is unfortunately more prevalent in the military than we would want to believe, though little discussed officially. It's different though when combatants get together who have experienced it. Among female servicemembers in particular, it is all too often a common experience; and whether among male or female servicemembers, the after-effects can be devastating. 

At its root, it is a betrayal of trust -- the military is designed to be a "family unit," so assault within this context can feel to survivors like incest -- and many survivors describe the hazing by their command as more difficult in its own way than the actual assault (ugh). Civilians in particular have a hard time wrapping their brains around how prevalent the problem is, how light or nonexistent the penalties (despite official "policies" to the contrary), and how devastating the aftermath is for those who suffer -- who then have to navigate an often-byzantine system of claims and benefits for their care. (Fortunately, MST survivors are able to access VA in a very direct manner...it's worth watching Susan's discussion, linked here, to understand how.) Family and friends -- who may find themselves supporting the survivor -- also need education about how best to offer support, in ways that are constructive and not counter-productive or further traumatizing.

We've written about military sexual assault on the site before, here. "Military sexual trauma (MST) is the term that the Department of Veterans Affairs uses to refer to sexual assault or repeated, unsolicited, threatening acts of sexual harassment –- that occurred while the veteran was in the military."

Susan Avila-Smith, a former Army linguist who suffered her own sexual assault in the military, is now a formidable MST/PTSD advocate and the founder of VetWow, where she advocates for others who have experienced MST and PTSD, and focuses on resolving their claims. A settled claim can provide the MST survivor with financial independence, which is important also in healing. Avila-Smith does not charge for her services, though she does encourage the male and female survivors to pay this service forward in their own lives, once they have stabilized enough to do so, by contributing to others in various ways. 

Recently I got a chance to work with Avila-Smith on creating a "channel" on YouTube for short, one to three minute podcasts about various aspects of MST for survivors, their families and friends, their advocates and the media. The videos/podcasts are organized into the following categories. Please watch them, and share them with your friends and colleagues. Particularly let those in the military (active duty) and veterans know about this resource. As Avila-Smith herself says, it's important to get the word out about military sexual trauma, because "you can't tell by looking at someone" if they've ever been sexually assaulted. For those who have been, these resources can be tremendously reassuring, constructive and helpful.

For MST survivors:

• Symptoms of MST in Veterans;
  
• What PTSD Feels Like to the MST Survivor;
  
• Difference between "Traumatic Stress Syndrome" and "Post-Traumatic Stress" Syndrome; 
  
• For the MST Survivor: Thoughts of Death and Self-Harm;
  
• Interested in Becoming an MST Advocate?;
  
• For Female MST Survivors, Hoarding Can Be Typical;
  
• For MST Survivors: "Hitting the Wall";
  
• For the MST Survivor: Working with Your Therapist Effectively;
  
• For the MST Survivor: Working with the Veterans Service Officer ("VSO") Effectively;
  
• For the MST Survivor: Achieving Satisfaction with Your Advocate;
  
• MST Survivor May Fit VA's Expanded Definition of "Homeless";
  
• For the MST Survivor: Learn to “Pay it Forward";
  

For male survivors of MST:

• For Male Survivors of MST;
  

Self-care and healing resources:

• For the MST Survivor: Good Self-Care Habits;
  
• Alternative Therapies for PTSD.;
  

For friends and family:

• Welcome Friends and Family!; 
  
• What PTSD Feels Like to the MST Survivor;
  
• For Friends and Family: When an MST Survivor Wants to Share Their Story with You;
  
• For Friends and Family: How to Help and How Not to Help an MST Survivor;
  
• When the MST Soldier Comes Home: Best Practices for a Good Outcome;
  

For active duty:

• Why Active Duty Advocacy is So Important;
  
• Active Duty / Filing a Restricted Report;
  
• Active Duty / Filing an Unrestricted Report;
  
• Filing an Unrestricted Report: What GENERALLY happens;
  
• Filing an Unrestricted Report: What SHOULD happen;
  
• Unrestricted Reports: the Danger of "The McDowell Checklist";
  
• For Active Duty: More on the Administrative Discharge;
  

Dealing with the VA:

• Accessing VA Services as an MST Survivor;
  
• Guide to Navigating the VA;
  
• When You Get a Letter from the VA;

Filing and winning a claim:

• Why Filing the Claim Quickly is in the Veteran's Best Interest;
  
• How to File a Claim for Military Sexual Trauma: The Key Items Needed in Your VA Claim File;
• Winning an MST Claim, Part I;
• Winning an MST Claim, Part II: How Long It Takes, Strategies for Self-Care While You Wait, etc.;

For advocates:

• Interested in Becoming an MST Advocate?;
  

For prospective donors:

• For Prospective Donors;
  

For the media:

• For the Media: When You Want to Interview an MST Survivor;
  
• For Media Who Want to Interview MST Survivors and Veterans;
  

General interest:                                                   

• Why MST is a Problem and Why the Solutions Don't Work;
  
• Explaining a Few of the Myths Surrounding Military Sexual Trauma;
  
• Which is Worse for the MST Survivor: The Rape or the Command?;
  
• Why the Current System Needs an Overhaul;
  
• Strange Facts about MST and the VA: Offenders and Victims;
  
• What I Envision in a Perfect Future: Blue Sky Thinking on MST;
  

Editor's note: For more resources about military sexual trauma, particularly filing and winning a VA claim, head for Susan Avila-Smith's website, VetWow; to support (i.e., donate to) those who advocate for victims of military sexual trauma, go to PackParachute; or to follow the legislative progress on this issue, go to Service Women's Action Network for information on the legislative angle. Remember, this is a problem that affects both men and women in the military. And most of all, watch the videos linked above -- and share those with family, friends and veterans' advocates. Thank you.

Trust Betrayed: Sexual Assault in the Military Gives Rise to Increased Levels of PTSD

"Military sexual trauma ("MST") is the term that the Department of Veterans Affairs uses to refer to sexual assault or repeated, unsolicited, threating acts of sexual harassment -- that occurred while the veteran was in the military."

Some comments to orient you, the reader, to what MST survivors go through/think like:

• "While in (the Middle East) I was gang-raped by fellow soldiers. They told me if I talked they would kill me, and they would always know where to find me. I went to the MP anyway. They asked me what I expected being a female in combat..."
• "I never told anyone about the rape until I started therapy..."
• "I was very aggressive in trying to prove my 'manhood.' I tried in all ways to prove I was not weak and I that I was not homosexual. I did not feel like I was a real man. I carried the shame and guilt with me always. I felt I was at fault. I was weak."
• "I have attempted suicide six times because of the rape."
• "I spent two years attempting to track my perpetrator so I could kill him."

Some facts and figures about Military Sexual Assault, which affects roughly equal numbers of male and female servicemembers (despite the differing percentages of those who serve.)

From a just-released Army report (August, 2010): "One of the more disturbing trends from FY 2001 – FY 2009 is a clear and steady rise in the number of sexual offenses, which have essentially tripled since FY 2003."

From the 2006 Department of Defense Survey of Active Military: Annual incidence rates of sexual harassment: 34% of women; 6% of men; for unwanted sexual contact: 6.8% of women; 1.8% of men. (Of course, anecdotally, the figures are MUCH higher.)

Other statistics from VA: "Approximately 1 in 5 female patients and 1 in 100 male patients report MST." (Source: MST Screening Report, FY 2005.)

Total number of veterans who have reported MST in VA (2002-2008): 61,126 men and 59,690 women. (Source: HEC Eligibility Center National MST Report.)

Consequences, according to VA: "More readjustment problems after discharge; more physical health problems; more anxiety, depression and PTSD; more substance abuse; can exacerbate stress reactions to war-zone exposure." 

MST "is associated with increased risk for mental health conditions including, PTSD, depression, substance abuse disorders." The prevalence of MST among OEF/OIF veterans is 15.1% among females;l 0.7% among males. (These statistics are typically under-reported because of shame and fear of reprisal.)

MST Consequences and PTSD:

Male Gulf War veterans: MST = 6x risk for PTSD; combat = 4x risk for PTSD;

Female Gulf War veterans: MST = 5x risk for PTSD; combat = 4x risk for PTSD;

(Source: Kang, Dalager, Mahan & Ishii, 2005.)

Among VA patients who report MST: 28.1% of women and 18.4% of men report PTSD; 45.6% of women and 28.2% men report depression; 5.9% of women and 9.5% of men report alcohol disorders; 5.2% of women and 7.3% of men report drug disorders." (Source: Kimerling, R., Gima, K., Smith, M.W. et al., 2007.)

VA Rules:

A veteran does NOT need to be "service-connected" nor have previously reported a sexually traumatic event to be eligible for MST services through the VA. Even veterans who do not meet general eligibility requirements for VA health care are treated for health and mental health consequences of MST (coded 'ineligible' or 'humanitarian'). The veteran with a dishonorable discharge may want to consult with the local MST Coordinator.

The VA uses two questions to screen for military sexual assault:

• While you were in the military, did you receive unwanted sexual attention, such as touching, cornering, pressuring for sexual favors or verbal remarks? 
• While you were in the military, did someone ever use force or threats of force or punishment to have sexual contact with you when you did not want to? 

If you have been assaulted while serving, please educate yourself about the problem and go to the VA and get help. Maybe bring a trusted friend with you because the process can be difficult to navigate (VA bureaucracy not specifically MST care) "even for healthy people," according to one veterans' advocate.

Quotable Quotes -- Jon Kabat-Zinn on Meditation -- and -- Healing

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., is familiar to viewers of the Bill Moyers' PBS series, "Healing and the Mind," from the early 1990s. He brought "mindfulness" or "mindfulness meditation" to the attention of the U.S. public through that series, focusing on his work at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. He's also the author of a number of books, including "Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness," from which the following two quotes are taken.

And here's what he has to say about healing:

"Healing is a coming to terms with things as they are, rather than struggling to force them to be as they once were, or as we would like them to be, to feel secure or to have what we sometimes think of as our own way." -- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

And here's what he has to say about the power of meditation, which is part of how we are able to reach that equanimity:

"More than anything else I have come to see meditation as a radical act of love, an inward gesture of benevolence and kindness toward ourselves and toward others, a gesture of the heart that recognizes our perfection even in our obvious imperfection, with all our shortcomings, our wounds, our attachments, our vexations, and our persistent habits of unawareness." -- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

Editor's note: Kabat-Zinn founded the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, an outgrowth of the famed Stress Reduction Clinic, "the oldest and largest academic medical center-based stress reduction program in the world." About that clinic: "Since 1979 more than 18,000 people have completed our eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program, an intensive training that asks participants to draw on their inner resources and natural capacity to actively engage in caring for themselves and finding greater balance, ease, and peace of mind."

The Center also has an outstanding bibliography of material about mindfulness-based approaches to various medical conditions, linked here. If you'd like to search their directory for a mindfulness-based stress reduction practitioner in your geographical area, click here.

Out of the Bunker and Walking Back to Life...

Had a wonderful talk the other night with the subject of "Eyewitness to Combat" -- Vietnam combat vet, Marine, 40 years of chronic, severe PTSD who overcame -- and we were talking about the lessons of the bunker that we've been sharing with you recently.

He said that the biggest lesson of all for PTSD vets is that "it's safe to come out of the bunker," because it's fear that keeps people in it. And if they decide to venture out, it's important to remember that the bunker is always there, and they can go back to it at will. It will always be there for them, but they don't necessarily have to "live" there all the time to get the benefits of that. It's the back-up plan, the safety net. 

"You can take one step at a time" out of the bunker, he said, "putting one foot in front of the other."

It takes two things to leave the bunker, he maintains. Those two things are "HOPE and a POINT MAN, to lead you out." Here's hoping you find -- and sustain -- both of those in your life.

Editor's note: If you want to learn about his success in climbing out of the bunker, read about it here, or watch a short, three-minute film about it, called "A Veteran's Healing Journey," linked here.

---

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.

Quotable Quotes -- Friedrich Nietzsche on "The Abyss"

Although I'm more a fan of the concept of "the hand across the abyss" -- reaching over to grab the hand of the one who wants to climb out -- and we've written about that quintessentially therapeutic relationship, here, before -- still, this is a great quote from Nietzsche, that could very easily apply to combat and its aftermath:

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Quotable Quotes -- "Battle Is a Joyous Thing"

We've written over the years about the close camaraderie of servicemembers with one another, something that veterans (both those with PTSD and those without) very much miss upon their return to civilian life. One of the articles was this one, a poetic reference to the "wet bond of blood" in combat relationships, linked here. The following, though, is a quote I ran across today from the Middle Ages, referencing almost the same thing:

"Battle is a joyous thing. We love each other so much in battle. If we see that our cause is just and our kinsmen fight boldly, tears come into our eyes. A sweet joy rises in our hearts, in the feeling of honest loyalty to each other, and seeing our friend so bravely exposing his body to danger in order to fulfill the commandment of our creator, we resolve to go forward and die or live with him on account of this love. This brings such delight that anyone who has not felt it cannot say how wonderful it is.  Do you think that someone who feels this is afraid of death? Not in the least! He is so strengthened, so delighted, that he doesn't know where is. Truly, he fears nothing in the world." -- Jean de Breuil, 1465.

Instructions for Making Your Own Fatigues Clothesline Shirt

If you're intrigued -- as many veterans who've suffered Military Sexual Trauma (MST) are -- with Regina Vasquez' great project, "Fatigues Clothesline," which we wrote about, here -- and you're considering making your own shirt to send to the collection, here are Vasquez' instructions on how to do it: 

 My uniform...

I will use my uniform blouse as an example of what to use for the Fatigues Clothesline. You can use any uniform blouse as long as it is military-related.

Vasquez says, "This is the most important part of the project. Our veterans need to do this because a simple T-shirt won't do." Using a uniform shirt makes a much bigger impact -- "a huge statement that this (military sexual trauma) is not right, and creates a whole new level of awareness. No longer a battle of the branches but more of a sense of, "let's help each other heal."

Step 1

Start with a uniform blouse. If you want to use a dress blouse do so; you can use whatever uniform blouse you want. Make sure your name is not on the blouse you decided to use. I will take mine off when I am finished. Remember, we do not want to use any names on our uniform blouse. Our goal is to voice in a discreet manner what had happened to us while serving at the same time educate others. This is a strong tool if we use this wisely. This cause does not merit discrimination against sex, gender, or the branch of service you served. It affects everyone.

Step 2 

Turn your uniform blouse inside out. The reasons why I ask you to turn your uniform blouse inside out: We as Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines at one point took pride or are still taking pride in serving our Country. We do so by wearing our uniform, by turning it inside out we are allowing others into our world by reading what affects us today. I cannot stress what a great opportunity it is to voice it in a discreet way by allowing others to read your story.

Step 3 

Write, draw, do whatever you want in order to tell people what happened to you.  

Reminder...

(Vasquez' advice):

It is taking me some time to finish, but I am doing it. Writing my story on a uniform blouse is so much different than on a regular white T-shirt. Just the texture and color alone gives me memories of what happened. Remember when you start, prepare yourself to stop when you start to feel like you can't take it anymore. Take some time out, listen to your favorite music, go for a walk, or simply talk to a friend. When you are finished calming down and you feel ready, start again. The rewards of finally being heard feels amazing. I am here with you 110% spiritually. If you are not able to finish, it is OK. I don't blame you. I blame the person who did this to you. You are not the one at fault. You are a remarkable individual and sometimes it takes more time to talk. It took me 12 years to reach this place I am at. You are not alone.

Editor's note: Send your completed shirt to Vasquez at the following address. The project is open to both male and female veterans.

Fatigues Clothesline

c/o Regina Vasquez

P.O. Box 194

San Marcos, TX 78667-0194

The Fatigues Clothesline Project: One Former Marine Making a Difference on Military Sexual Trauma

In true Margaret Mead spirit -- "“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has" -- meet Regina Vasquez.

Vasquez is a remarkable wife, mother of five(!), college student, and former Marine, with a great project underway that deserves widespread support. (The project is for both men and women veterans.) She writes:

"I am a Marine disabled vet who experienced Military Sexual Trauma along with gender discrimination.

One day while getting ready for college I had an epiphany and now I know what I need to do. For the longest time, for about 12 years I lived with the vision in my head of the two men raping me. About a year ago I got tired of it and decided to get help. I went through group counseling along with individual counseling only to find out that yes I needed to talk to someone and now I'm ready to make it public so I am able to help those who suffered like me move past it all.

I participated in a Clothesline Project for sexual trauma survivors. For this clothesline project we got to write or make art on our T-shirts by telling our story. When we were done we all got to hang it in front our town's courthouse on a clothesline, hence The Clothesline Project's name. 

I didn't mean to take a lot of attention away from the other gals because I felt they need the validation as well but my T-shirt gained so much attention. While standing behind them acting like an observer I heard complete strangers say "I can't believe this kind of things happen in our military" and such. 

This is where my epiphany came from: Why not bring the public in by making a "Fatigues" Clothesline Project for all the women and men who did serve and are still serving our great Nation? It will be discreet, meaning no names, but still be able to have some validation and justice for our souls. I named it "Fatigues" because one fellow veteran pointed out, it is what we were wearing while going through it all and after suffering for so long we feel fatigued. 

What I'm asking from you is to take time and I know how painful it is but well worth it in the end   because for some of us, we were denied our justice due to circumstances. For some of us we may not want to tell people what happened to us. This is a good tool in helping with the process. You will be able to tell your story and no one will know who it came from and still gain the satisfaction of knowing your story is being told and heard. I want you to do this for me, please take a uniform shirt and turn it inside out. Reason for turning it inside out, it's because even though we were raped, harassed, any kind of abuse whether it be verbal abuse or physical we still take pride in serving our nation but what we go through is what we cover up with that pride for our Nation by wearing the uniform. Freedom isn’t free, this is another way of telling the public what we endured for their freedom.

So I’m asking again, no names, your story on a uniform shirt turned inside out about what you experienced while serving our country’s freedom and in return earn validation, justice for your soul and a chance to be heard. 

My goal is to hang all the uniform shirts up in a year or a year and a half in front of our Nation’s White House so that everyone will see what we go through by serving for their freedom. I want to hang them up on a national holiday, Veteran’s Day, by next year or if not, the following year. 

This is a safe way of being heard for all of us. No command getting involved, no anyone but our freedom of speech through our uniform shirts. By doing this it will allow civilians a chance to better understand us and to educate them on the matter. 

Please send your completed shirts to:

Fatigues Clothesline
c/o Regina Vasquez
P.O. Box 194
San Marcos, TX 78667-0194

Says Vasquez, about the shirts: "I will take them, protect them, will not share who they came from and guard them with my heart till it’s time to hang them."

Editor's note: Please share this post (article) with anyone you know who may have experienced military sexual trauma. Not everyone will want to participate in the project, but many will. The outpouring of support from other veterans for this project has been impressive indeed. Said another MST survivor, "(MST) is painful, powerful and more common than people realize. Thank you for being our voice."

Instructions on making the shirts will follow in another blog post, but for more information, see this graphic, which clearly shows the applicability to men and women veterans.  

From the Canadian Side of the Street: A Military Author's Take on Veterans Suffering from War and PTSD

One of the many blessings of the new media -- social media like Facebook -- are the interesting, talented people one meets within that. One such person is Bonnie Toews, a Canadian former journalist and novelist with a longtime background in writing about the military. I forwarded her an article from the Montreal Gazette last week about social workers quitting because of burnout in Canada, meaning that fewer will be available to serve returning veterans with PTSD, and this is what she wrote on her website in response:

Outrageous failure of government assistance to returning Afghanistan vets

"It is wonderful that we celebrate the lives and courage of fallen soldiers when they are repatriated to CFB Trenton and paraded down the Highway of Heroes, but the question that is never answered: who looks out for the returning vets? Especially those whose minds, bodies and spirits have been shattered on a continual rotation of tours through the past eight years.

It is disgusting and absolutely unacceptable to hear that Canada's Veterans Affairs is cutting back on social workers because WWI and WWII vets are dying off. 

Excuse me, but Canada has a whole new generation of vets who have served in Afghanistan for eight years. By next year it will be nine years. The war in Afghanistan has lasted longer than either world war in the 20th Century and soldiers have been repeatedly rotated through three and four tours because our forces aren't large enough to handle a deployment this long and this demanding. These vets and their families need help to mend their lives back together. 

Kevin Dougherty in Montreal's newspaper, The Gazette, writes that soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can wait up to four months before seeing a social worker, a necessary step to integrate them back into society and return them to the labor market. 

Why? Because federal social workers each have a caseload of 40 clients to their provincial counterparts, who carry a caseload of 20 clients each. There are not enough social workers to contend with the need, and under such strained resources, these caregivers burn out, depleting veterans' social services even further. 

People forget that soldiers returning home are not the only victims of the wars they've fought. So are their loved ones, families and friends. They need as much social assistance as the soldiers themselves. Those coming home are forever changed. They have experienced things the rest of us can't imagine. They carry this psychological burden for the rest of their lives. 

In 1994, in Rwanda, I was briefly introduced to that world of theirs. I was one of the few North American journalists covering the massive humanitarian effort following the genocide against the Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda. One peacekeeper after another told me what they saw, incomprehensible mass slaughter with no human respect whatsoever and they were forced to observe because the UN didn't give them the mandate or size of force to quell the madness. Soldiers trained to fight and defend forced to stand down. Can you imagine the helpless rage they experienced? Yet, when I came home, I faced the same apathy from friends, co-workers and the public as they did. My husband proudly explained that I had been in Rwanda and time and time again I was asked, "Did you go there on holiday?" 

People didn't even know what was going on, and were indifferent when I chose to explain. I, like so many soldiers, learned not to talk about it because no one really cared to listen. 

This time the public must get behind their vets and demand the social services they deserve and need. This is the most important tribute we can give our returning vets for the sacrifices they've made on behalf of our country."

 -- Bonnie Toews. A longtime journalist reporting for logistics and private security magazines and now a novelist, speaks out for the victims of genocide and war, from the peacekeepers and coalition forces trying to save suppressed peoples to the children and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of opposing powers, ideologies and cultures. Current writing "Trilogy in Treason." Member of Military Writers Society of America, American Authors Association and ACFW. Her website is linked here.

Editor's note: Find us on Facebook, here; follow us on Twitter @HealingPTSD.

Busting Out of the Bunker at Last...Made to Be Social Beings, We Die in Isolation

Following up on the "Bunker" post of the other day, about the protective isolation of the bunker for the combat vet with PTSD, it seemed high time to write "the rest of the story," about what the subject of "Eyewitness to Combat" sees now about the bunker mentality, and how and whether it's possible ever to overcome it. (So here's a picture of his bunker in Vietnam, to illustrate it.)

What follows are direct remarks from the vet, from a few weeks ago, about this exact topic. I'll add a few words where I have to, to keep the flow going, but the thoughts and the wording are his:

On the problem of the bunker:

"We are made to be social beings. We die in isolation. And that’s why when we withdraw into a hole, we are withdrawing into a grave -– just one that isn’t covered up yet.

With me I wanted to get out and I wanted to be with people. I wanted to enjoy my surroundings. I wanted to go to parties. I really did. I wanted to do that. But I had this deep ingrained fear that if I was around too many people, too long I would talk too much, say too much, and they would figure out who I really was, and not like me. And every place I went, it seemed that I was always pissing somebody off. Making somebody angry at me, and that rejection was more than I could handle. So it was easier for me to decide that I just hate everybody, and don’t want anybody around me but animals. And crawl back in my bunker, and hide. But then I would die there. Because what I really wanted to do was go back and be with people who cared about me, somebody who would love and accept me and who I could have fun with. Every time that something would draw me out of the bunker, I would do something stupid, have my PTSD moment, and have everyone around me direct me back to my hole.

We are supposed to be social; we are supposed to belong. For those of us who are Marines, we belong to one another, we belong to the Corps, we belong to the men who came before us, and the men who will come after us. We belong to something bigger than ourselves, and that’s what makes us Marines for life. This is not unique to the Marine Corps however; for we all have an innate, ingrained need to belong to something bigger than ourselves; to something that accepts our faults, that builds upon our good deeds, good qualities, that involves people. Be it religion, be it Indian culture, be it motorcycle clubs, be it national associations. We all have a need to belong. The problem arises in our isolation creating a void that is filled with the wrong associations/influences. For we WILL belong to something, good or bad; harmful or helpful. Churches prey on that need to belong. (We've both had bad experiences with churches, so we give the secret fist-bump to each other at this point.)  

Now, all veterans belong to one another. Their bond is in their service, that transcends the specific branches and time.

People go back in the bunker to heal, to hide from being hurt; or to hide from hurting others. They stay there and depression sets in; and they cannot get out by themselves. Someone has to physically go in and bring them out, just like (my guy friend, a Navy seal) did with me; just like you did with me.

He encouraged me; he listened to me; he understood me; he had been where I was. He said, "I don’t know how to help you; I love you; I care for you. But I know if you don’t want to do something, you wouldn’t do it. So what I want to do is share a dream with you that I’ve had since I got out of the Navy. Reasonable or not. But I need your help to do this. And when you feel like you can come out, call me. And he left a stack of papers about a foot high. I spent a week staring at them, and it interrupted my depression! And he'd put one of the most interesting articles on the very top. He had made me a part of what he was doing. I just wanted to be and do something that people wouldn’t hate me for; wouldn’t criticize me for. Because the aftereffect of ‘Nam was so bad, because we gave so much; and received so little. And we had done MORE than we could do over there. I just wanted to do something where people didn’t hate me."

(That Navy Seal friend is someone he'd previously helped himself; stood up for him so he wouldn't go to prison for his third arrest.) "I’m the one who walked in there and walked him out of his depression. Blood brothers, combat vets. He was a friend."

I mention the name of another friend of his, who he served with in Vietnam, who was injured on his same kill day/alive day, and who used to call him up to see if they could go be mercenaries in South America together. It all sounded like an elaborate, not so cleverly-disguised death wish. Very Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. When I first knew him, there was a real pull to that. Now, further down the healing path, not so much. I ask him about that guy. A lot more reasonable now, he reflects, though he knows the allure, "That’s not the way to go; it’s not the way to make you happy. It’s just another way to get yourself killed. Problem is, sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t."

How much time has he spent in his bunker over the years?

"Years. Probably spent 20% of my life in a bunker, hiding, wanting to die, not having the nerve to shoot myself; hoping that the diseases and the meds would finally do me in.

I just didn’t know how to be happy. There was no joy in my life. There’s no reason to live. My family used to ask me, 'How can you look at what you’ve done, and tell me that you have no purpose in life? You don’t understand.' Problem was, I didn’t understand. I did not know why I didn’t have the capacity to have joy, to love anyone or to have fun. I just know I’d tried religion, I’d tried everything the VA could throw at me, in-house therapy, group therapy, self-help, medication, I tried working myself to death, I tried getting rich, I tried doing stupid things to harm myself (go back into combat situations), where maybe if I revisited it; I tried going to The Wall; and something would just not allow to want to live, or be happy, or enjoy being in my life. I couldn’t look around and see the flowers, let alone smell them. All the roses in my life were wilted; not because they were, but because of my vision of them was wilted."

My self-esteem, my sense of self-worth, my self-pity, and sense of total uselessness overwhelmed everything else. No matter how hard I tried, everything I touched was going to turn to shit. I heard it from my dad, and then I began to believe it was a generational curse. A curse is only a curse if you decide it’s going to be a curse. I understand the Universe. I understand me and the necessity of believing in yourself and believing in others. Politically the world may seem like a shitty place; but it’s always seemed like a shitty place. World’s always been a bad place, and it’s always been full of good people, and bad ones. And we have the right to choose the ones that we’re with. And we have the right to choose whether we’re going to be happy or sad, or doing something that’s worthwhile or not. Money is essential but money’s not the end. Money is only the means to an end, and yet we lose that perspective.

I’m no longer willing to let other people and their misery dictate whether I’m happy or sad. It’s up to them to walk through that door. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, that they’d rather die than continue on. Then they’ll walk through that door and want help and accept it. As long as they have one ability to resist, they will."

We talk about two guys we know, combat vets from different eras -- Gulf War and Vietnam. Neither one seems to really "get" where they need to go with this recovery stuff. When they're doing well, they're broadcasting their healing to the world; when they're down, they're completely off the grid, hospitalized for suicidal ideation and attempts. My mind reels from this. I wish when they were doing better they'd put more time into actually finding a way out; not just broadcasting it, so their lows wouldn't have to be so low, since their highs seem...unnaturally, or at least unsustainably high. It reminds me of a friend who says, about people who complain but do not attempt to solve, "It must not be bad enough for them yet." 

He weighs in: "They haven’t lost ALL their resistance. One of two things happen when people reach that level: they either commit suicide, or they get help. What makes the difference? A friend. A friend who can walk in under that and take them by the hand and walk them out. Just like in combat, if you get wounded, you can’t walk yourself out. Someone to grab you by the nape of your neck and drag your ass out of there. You can’t do it by yourself."

He continues: "If vets who have been healed don’t go and get vets who haven’t, then no one else will. In this situation the Marine Corps phrase of “we take care of our own” is literal; if we don’t, no one else will: not the vet’s family, not his relatives; no one. Only a vet can walk out a vet."

But yet, I helped you...and I'm not a vet. But you came looking for the help, too. He replies, "But you were a friend, a sincere, concerned friend. A friend like that, another vet; not the government...."

Editor's note: The photo above is of the "Eyewitness to Combat" Marine with two of his buddies, very Three Musketeer-y, circa 1966 or 1967.

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© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.