Head trauma

Shrapnel from an IED went rattling around his skull ..and for the next 12 hours Paul thought the enemy had captured him. He couldn’t recognize faces or uniforms ..orders sounded foreign ..and foreign sounded menacing. He had to be restrained to keep from picking up a rifle and shooting members of his own platoon. Stateside, his comprehension has returned but he gets lost mid-sentence while talking. He struggles to remember where he left off. When prompting doesn’t work, I tell him to take his time ..just keep talking ..even if it’s something different ..whatever comes up. He manages to tell me what’s happening: “The words coming out of my mouth aren’t matching the ones in my head.” Then he starts crying. Something that never happened back there. Now he says even AT&T commercials make him cry ..he doesn’t know why. “The civilian world is pretty fucking surreal” he says. I imagine two different narratives ..one playing inside his head and another playing on the outside. He was a high school honor student ..but the VA says he was bi-polar when he enlisted and wasn’t traumatized by combat. It’s a catch 22 ..except they’re saying is you have to be crazy to want get in as opposed to being sane if you want to get out. I documented his symptoms ..got statements from his family physician (who says he was never bi-polar) .. attached copies of his high school records and got him a disability designation that entitles him to see a VA psychiatrist.