“Uncommon valor was a common virtue.”
The U.S. Air Force takes a different approach.
You can almost taste the adventure as you read their recruiting brochure:
“Imagine a world without limits.
Take the next step toward changing your life.”
Those weighty words are emblazoned in gold and embossed in the typeface of the Roman Empire and surrounded by a laurel wreath inside the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting kit.
Those weighty words are emblazoned in gold and embossed in the typeface of the Roman Empire and surrounded by a laurel wreath inside the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting kit.
* * *
On a chilly autumn day in West Los Angeles, I wandered up to the Veterans’ Administration (VA) Hospital and found two wounded African-American vets sitting in the harsh afternoon sun. They had taken another valiant challenge – that promised by the U.S. Army. They shared war stories and their thoughts about the future of this country.
Both wear blue-green hospital pajamas and are supported by stainless-steel walking sticks. In addition to their physical injuries, both men suffer from the mostly invisible wounds of PTSD,
or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Garrett is a sturdily built man of 47 who shuffles to a concrete seating area with the aid of two four-pronged walking supports. He is somewhat hesitant to talk to a reporter, and asks that his last name not be used. He served in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and in Afghanistan in Oct. 2001, immediately following 9/11.
The other, Marcus, 35, served in the first Gulf War, and sports a black baseball cap, a sweet smile and only one walking support. The two are neighbors in the nearby VA board and care facility, which provides housing for wounded vets. Even though they did not serve in the army together, they say the fraternal bonds of the airborne paratroopers unite them for life. They have a playful camaraderie, and every now and then, Garrett calls Marcus, “my homey.”
“And now stand we, shoulder to shoulder, my brothers in arms.”
- U.S. Marine Corps recruiting brochure
* * *
Marcus and the reporter light up cigarettes, but Garrett declines. “He’s a health freak,” says Marcus. “He won’t even drink a coke.” “C’mon tell her about the crash, Top,” prods Marcus.
He calls Garrett ‘Top’ in respect for his rank of Top Sergeant. “Nah. I don’t even know her,” Garrett stalls. But when I ask him about how he got injured, he tells me right away. ”I hate Christmas. I hate my life,” says Garrett, whose knees were destroyed on Christmas Day 2001 when his Black Hawk was ambushed in Afghanistan. “They’re totally balking at giving me the (knee replacement) surgery. They say I’m too young at 47. I wasn’t too young when I got shot down.”
Garrett was in the Army’s Special Forces unit, which is made up of the toughest, most highly trained avant-garde operatives who are put on the frontlines of strategic military operations. Says Garrett, “You know, the Green Berets…covert assassinations, if one of us were to be captured, they’d deny we were part of it, yeah. I was in the 101st Airborne, they call us ‘The Screamin’ Eagles.’”
Marcus pipes in with, “Yeah right, they’re ‘The Screamin’ Chickens.’” The two softly chuckle, as Garrett continues his story. “I was shot down in a Black Hawk on Dec. 25, 2001 by the Taliban. My knees were crushed when it crashed.” According to Garrett, they had just dropped off some ammunition and picked up two wounded soldiers when a red light appeared on the helicopter’s controls. The pilot wanted to land, but Garrett told him to get away from the area. “I didn’t trust it. I could feel it wasn’t right to land, but I played by his rules. We landed to do a perimeter (a check of the surrounding area), and I said, ‘You get out and watch it.’ So he got out, and he fixed it.”
The Afghan insurgents had been lying in wait for such an opportunity in spider holes; shallow holes in the desert camouflaged by brush or burlap sacks. “We took off, and when we got about 100 feet off the ground, they fired on us. We did a nosedive – both the pilot and the co-pilot were killed, and the two injured were thrown from the craft. I was the only one still in it when it crashed.” Garrett saw the insurgents coming towards the crash site “to make sure everyone was dead,” and with no one to rely on but himself, he grabbed a machine gun to pry his shattered legs from the seats that had crushed them.
“It was five-thirty or six at night and it was getting dark. I put the A-4 Karbeen on a mount, and set up an M-14 on another. The whole night I fought by myself, dragging myself between the two guns to let them think there were more of us. I didn’t feel any pain – I guess it was the adrenaline.”
As the light of dawn appeared, he heard the whir of helicopter blades, an indication that help was on its way, and tossed out a marker (a smoke grenade) so they could locate him. “When it started getting light, I popped smoke and then lost consciousness. As we were leaving, I heard ‘em say they had found 11 bodies. “I knew how bad they needed to see Allah, so I helped them to see Allah.”
It took a long time in therapy for Garrett to walk again, and when his term in service ended, he had served 27 years in the military. Garrett has been in recovery at several VA hospitals for two years and nine months since retiring in April 2002. He's got two daughters and a wife who, he says, "don’t like it ‘cause I’m not at home. They don’t understand. I’m trying to make it happen – to adjust to civilian life.”
But he hasn’t adjusted – even after nearly three years stateside -- and it appears as though his physical wounds are the least of his troubles. He suffers from recurrent nightmares, temper flare-ups and an inability to stop thinking or talking about the war, according to Marcus, who adds, “But he’s a hero, man.”
* * *
Garrett’s heroic story is just one example of the intense situations that can result in a lifetime cursed by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. And there is great concern that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be producing more cases of PTSD than any conflict in decades due to the troops’ exposure to constant fighting over long periods of time.
A study published in the July 1, 2004 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine found that one in six Iraq War vets become inflicted with PTSD. Troop numbers in Iraq reached 170,000 in January 2005. But since roughly 300,000 men and women have served – or are currently serving -- in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the number likely to suffer from PTSD amounts to at least 50,000 people.
More than twenty years of research shows that those suffering from PTSD can act out with psychotic episodes, commit violent crimes, abuse alcohol and drugs, become homeless, and serve time in jail. They will have a high divorce rate, and may be impaired for a lifetime.
Symptoms of PTSD include intrusive memories, nightmares, flashbacks, social avoidance, and a physical component that psychiatrists called “chronic hyperarousal,” which involves chronic anxiety, panic attacks, irritability and disturbed sleep.
To make matters worse, the culture of the military is such that veterans – and those currently serving for that matter – are not conditioned to seek help. There is a military stigma attached to warriors showing signs of weakness, and this presents a huge challenge to vets’ ability to get the treatment they need.
And even when they do seek help, they may have wait up to a year to get it. “The system is inadequate and under funded. There is not a uniform system to monitor and advise veterans when they return from combat,” said Army Vet Tom Rieckhoff, who founded Operation Truth, a non-profit group he created to enable Iraq vets to explain their experience to folks back home. “The VA budget has not kept up with the increasing demand,” he said.
So, in addition to the recruiters’ promises of honor, adventure, and, possibly, education, what soldiers may get are psychological disorders, if not physical wounds or, of course, death.
“The Army will train and educate its soldiers…
and return them as accomplished adults to their community.”
- U.S. Army recruiting brochure
* * *
“What you need to look at is that since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003 there has been fairly sustained active conflict -- similar to say, Vietnam -- not like other short-lived conflicts,” said Anita Dancs, research director for the National Priorities Project, a non-profit research group. “This is exposing a high number of soldiers to intense fighting over an extended length of time. One would expect there to be a high number of soldiers suffering from emotional injuries.”
Marcus said that a PTSD medical specialist told him: “Any time you go into combat for over five months, something’s going to be wrong with you.”
They called it “shell shock” in World War II and “combat fatigue” in the Vietnam era, but it wasn’t until 1980 that the American Psychiatric Association classified PTSD in its roster of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In the late 1980s, VA surveys revealed that more than half of all American Vietnam theater veterans – 1.7 million people – had been diagnosed with PTSD or had experienced "clinically serious stress reaction symptoms." To that number must be added the combat survivors of World War II, the Korean War, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflicts.
“But finally, we wake to realize, there is one way to get through this.”
- U.S. Marine Corps recruiting brochure
* * *
It has been widely reported that nearly 1,300 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq as of mid-December, but the nearly 10,000 who have been wounded are rarely mentioned.
And since PTSD sufferers are not included in the list of injured, the numbers are actually much higher. “There are a lot of wounded that are not accurately represented,” Dancs said. “Those with PTSD are not counted in the numbers of the ‘wounded.’ The numbers may understate the reality.”
“There is one type of wounded soldier – with PTSD – who is treated differently from those who lost an arm,” Dancs said. “Is their care as good as someone with physical wounds? Since the Gulf War, government and society haven’t paid enough attention to those with emotional or mental injuries.”
In December 2004, Congress passed a $31.5 billion budget resolution for veterans’ benefits creating a “smaller funding gap” than existed previously. So isn’t that progress? Dancs says it is, but adds a caveat: “Yes, but it is still less than what various veterans groups say is needed. There is still a gap of $1.3 billion to keep services at the same level. Plus, it leaves veterans’ health funding in discretionary, not mandatory, spending, so that Congress can come along and appropriate that money elsewhere. It’s rationing by queue – they wait in line longer to get treatment.” Veterans often have to wait six months to a year for treatment, and that lapse can prove disastrous for a PTSD sufferer.
So what does the government promise veterans? According to the Veteran's Administration web site, “Veterans who serve on active duty in a theater of combat operations during a period of war after November 11, 1998 or in combat against a hostile force during a period of hostilities are eligible for hospital care, medical services, and nursing home care for a period of two years from their date of discharge.”
How can the government justify such a short period of care when the National Center for PTSD report concludes that, "PTSD is a highly prevalent lifetime disorder that often persists for years"?
The Disabled Veterans of America doesn’t think it is justified. In an open letter to President Bush on the DAV web site requesting that he support “Mandatory VA Health Care Funding”, it states: “…43,000 veterans are either waiting for their first appointment or waiting at least six months for care…many (VA) facilities have reached capacity with closed enrollments. DAV believes it is disingenuous for our government to promise health care to our veterans and then make it unattainable because of inadequate funding. Rationed health care is no way to honor America’s obligation to the brave men and women who have so honorably served our nation.”
Garrett gives an example from a first-hand point of view at the VA Hospital: “There are a lot of very disturbed people here, you’ll see ‘em staring at a coke machine for three hours.”
Garrett gives an example from a first-hand point of view at the VA Hospital: “There are a lot of very disturbed people here, you’ll see ‘em staring at a coke machine for three hours.”
“One must first be stripped clean. Freed of the False Notions of the Self.”
- U.S. Marine Corps recruiting brochure
* * *
Marcus, Garrett’s partner in recovery, has exhibited the classic symptoms of PTSD since getting out of the service 13 years ago, but didn't get help until early 2002 after a suicide attempt, an assault on a police officer, and a police standoff made it clear he had to. “I didn’t think I needed any help until three psycho trips later. I hit a cop and ended up doing nine months in jail."
Marcus is such a classic case, he could be the poster child for PTSD. Upon his return from the Gulf War, he was unable to hold down a job, abused alcohol and drugs, committed violent crimes, did time in jail, and his marriage fell apart. “I’ve had over 40 jobs, and I haven’t seen my kids in two years,” he says.
Knowing all that, it’s an odd paradox to find him to be the most amiable, intelligent, amusing guy one might meet. While he didn’t have the kind of dramatic wartime experience that Garrett did, he did have to witness unspeakable horrors, endure constant dread, and camp for months in the desert where temperatures soar above 100. “Imagine, you’ve taken a pill for Anthrax, so you’re tired; its 130 degrees; and you’re traveling all the time. That’s where the PTSD comes in: you’re in a constant state of fear.”
Sleep deprivation added to his plight, and that of his fellow infantrymen, since they had to don gas masks and suits every time chemical sirens would blare -- ten or twelve times during the night and day.
After completing his tour of duty, Marcus thought he would be able to adapt easily to civilian life. “I didn’t think I had a problem. It was like an ego trip. But when the (Iraq) war re-started, I started having nightmares. I had nightmares about the highway of death – they (Iraqis) got cooked; there were bodies everywhere -- there’s a certain smell to it. We hurt them. When you call in the Army, that’s really heavy. We were not there to negotiate.”
Before he started coming to the psych wards at the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles and Long Beach, actually, the court insisted upon it, even traffic or hot weather would set him off.
But hearing that six people in his unit had been killed is what finally did it. Aware that he was losing control, Marcus went to see a VA psychiatrist and told him he was irritated. “I told him I felt like I’m going to hurt someone. I was thinking of mortar attacks. They called the police. When they asked to see my ID, I cussed ‘em out, and pulled out some needle-nose pliers.”
But hearing that six people in his unit had been killed is what finally did it. Aware that he was losing control, Marcus went to see a VA psychiatrist and told him he was irritated. “I told him I felt like I’m going to hurt someone. I was thinking of mortar attacks. They called the police. When they asked to see my ID, I cussed ‘em out, and pulled out some needle-nose pliers.”
They put him in jail for nine months. “I call it (PTSD) my dark clouds,” Marcus said, comparing it to the movie, ‘Falling Down,’ when something just makes you crack. While talking a bus trip to court, the prisoners’ bus got into an accident and Marcus injured his back, which is why he has to walk with a limp and a walking stick.
But he had had two warning incidents before that, clearly indicating that he needed help. The first was a suicide attempt. “I was too crazy to go to college. I was like a rebel, you know. I had been a certified Microsoft technician, but I had gone through 40 jobs,” he said. “I just quit.” They put him the psych ward for two weeks, after which he went back to drugs and drinking beer -- “self medicating,” as he calls it.
He got the same treatment (two weeks in the psych ward, followed by drugs and beer) a few months later after he threatened to kill his whole family. “I just woke up one day, and told my wife, my kids and my brother that I was going to kill them. I had lost all my friends -- it was off the scale. So, I was sitting in a city park with a 45 (caliber gun) in my hand and I had a police standoff for two-and-half hours. I was surprised they didn’t kill me.” He was saved by a phone call from a friend who he respected. “He convinced me to give (myself) one more chance. A lot of guys dream of going out with a blaze of glory.”
But now he is learning problem-solving skills. He’s also on medication. “They try to get you into the mainstream of life, sleep therapy, communication and grief classes,” Marcus said. “They try to keep you docile by giving you meds.” So far, it appears to be working.
“Take the path few have the courage to take.”
- U.S. Marine Corps recruiting brochure
* * *
- U.S. Marine Corps recruiting brochure
* * *
But however the military recruiters might like to position it, going into combat is a life-changing experience, whether you’ve joined to get a college education or because you believe you can make a difference. “When you go to war, it changes you,” says Marcus. That statement prompted Garrett to add: “The horror, death, insanity, dead bodies, burnt bodies – you learn to suck it up and move on. While they (government and civilians) lay at home and eat cake, and make love to their wives, we’re over there getting killed.”
“You will be a soldier. It will be the experience of a lifetime.”
- U.S. Army recruiting brochure
* * *
College student Ryan Duncan, a 20-year-old Navy vet, who I met on the campus of Santa Monica College, joined the military to avoid the dead-end trap presented by his small town in Arizona, and to see the world. Although he had a positive experience in the military, he seizes the opportunity warn would-be soldiers: “I would hope recruits recognize the possibilities of what could happen to you. It’s not a normal job – you could die. For me, it worked out nicely. It was my way to get out and do something. They could be one of the 1,200 who died. And that’s just as bad as living with that trauma and physical demands (of injury).”
So what happens after you’ve served your country? Duncan says, “The military will pat you on the back, give you a medal and send you on your way. You almost have to believe in the cause if you lost an arm, or your life did a 180 because you weren’t awarded the same opportunities that others were.”
Back at the VA Hospital smoking patio, Garrett eyes me suspiciously before inquiring, “Are you sure you’re not CIA?” He shuffles off leaving Marcus and I in the glow of the setting sun. I ask him if he has any advice for young people considering joining the service. “People watch ‘Rambo’ and ‘Black Hawk Down,’ and they think they can go out and do that. When you’re a combat vet, it’s hard to get help -- you get wounded and you’re on your own,” he said knowingly. “Be careful what you sign up for.”
“A World of Possibilities Awaits You.”
- U.S. Air Force recruiting brochure for high school seniors
4/08/05
