Sgt Bales vs War

Recent information blows my PTSD theory. Sgt Bales wasn’t suffering the effects of multiple deployments. He re-up’d and saw the military as his calling. It sounds like a deliberate attack. I have a new theory. The only sane response to an irrational and life-threatening situation is to act in an equally irrational manner. U.S. soldiers are trained to fight with ‘discrimination’ and regard for civilian life. However, they’re constantly put into battle with an enemy that fights without such civility. The Taliban are known to place little value on the lives of civilians. The Afghan people live in fear of the Taliban, but the Taliban are there all the time and they know they’ll continue being there after we’re gone. They side with them out of necessity. As a result, U.S. soldiers are operating in a region “..riddled with mistrust and hostility.” In an effort to deprive Taliban fighters of cover, U.S. soldiers routinely bulldoze houses, orchards, and farms. This fuels more hostility. As a result, residents regularly assist the Taliban. They help plant IED’s and U.S. soldiers often find bomb-making material in their homes. The war in Afghanistan has put our troops in an un-winnable situation. I deplore the killing of innocent women and children (any killing for that matter) ..but the civilian population is harbouring and assisting the enemy and the Taliban have no problem getting their compliance out of the barrel of a gun. This is no doubt the case in the Panjwayi district where Sgt Bales and his squad were operating. Perhaps the only way Sgt Bales felt he could deliver a message of strength was to act with equal ruthlessness. It’s been seen before. During the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, orders were given to shoot civilians  “They're all V.C., now go and get them” [ link ]. Instead of prosecuting Sgt Bales, perhaps it’s the U.S. war in Afghanistan that should stand trial.

Nomad

Frank is a nomadic dumpster diver. He’s frequently blitzed on meth and it shows. His eyes bulge and quiver. and his hands shake.  “Why do you do it ..?” I ask. One voice tells him it’s his reward for two tours of duty ..says it’s OK ..it’s just a phase (he was never around the stuff before). A second voice tells him he needs something to obliterate the first one when it starts sounding like bullshit. He tried taking courses at the city college but discussions in his political science class left him feeling conflicted between the patriotism he felt going in and the alienation he feels now. “Nobody gives a shit around here.” He’d leave campus pissed ..go back to his tent in a field near the airport and watch planes fly away ..imagining himself flying away someday too. Reminded me of a song that used to go through my head when I was on the road:

“This old airport’s got me down / it’s no earthly good to me / I’m stuck here on the ground, as cold and drunk as I can be / You can't jump a jet plane like you can a freight train / So I best be on my way in the early mornin’ rain.”

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.

PTSD

The military is known for instilling leadership and teamwork ability ..skills that battle conditions can quickly take away. According to a Rand study, nearly one third of all returning troops suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury. Some of them show up at student services where I see them. James was part of a tank crew. On a hot day in Iraq ..they left the hatch open. That’s when a grenade blast slammed his head against an iron plate. At home, he enrolled in college using his GI benefits. However, crowded classrooms make him feel trapped and panicky. When he tries to contain these feelings, he finds he can’t make sense out of what the instructors are saying. Answering a question is like trying to find the answer to a riddle. He mumbles and strains to put together a coherent sentence ..and hopes he’s somewhere in the ballpark. I referred him to the VA for therapy. A short time later he quit school and went looking for a job. He hoped the skills they taught him in the service would help. Unfortunately, many employers told him they couldn’t accommodate time off for therapy. When I talked to him about it, he said he didn’t think that was the real reason. “They hire the disabled all the time.” He says “Guys that need just as much time off as I do.” “No, it’s more like they’re afraid I’ll go postal or something. Head-cases make them nervous.”

Dear John

Eric received a Dear John letter just before shipping stateside. It has made civilian life hell. Much more painful than anything he experienced in Afghanistan. He tells me she was everything he was living for over there. Now he’s reminded of her everywhere he goes, like ..the clubs ..city streets ..friend’s houses. He describes it as “..receiving an jolt of electricity around every turn.” Classes are torture, he can’t concentrate and I get the impression that student services are wasted on him. I’m out of my league. I see signs of depression. He has difficulty sleeping and concentrating .. the pain is like, everywhere he goes .. and he’s beginning to withdraw. I’m going to have to refer him to VA and hope that they don’t drug him into oblivion. I’m not unfamiliar with the pain of being dumped, however, so I try to convince him that it doesn’t last ..the shocks will begin to fizzle-out and his memory will begin to clear-out. But he’s not paying attention ..it’s not what he wants to hear. I try to imagine what it’s like. I picture him getting hit in the head (or punched in the stomach) with a baseball bat every time he goes through a door. Now he doesn’t open many. He doesn’t leave his room much either.

false memory

I ask Randy how things went at the V.A. He describes his visit in full detail. When I follow up, they tell me he never arrived. I tell them there must be a mistake. They check again and tell me there’s no mistake. I’m like, wtf is going on here. I ask to see his counselor. The counselor tells me about a condition they frequently see called ‘false memory syndrome’ He goes “It’s where you remember things that you planned to do as though you actually did them.” But I go, this was way too elaborate .. I mean, he told me what he had for lunch .. the ride over .. what they talked about in the car, etc.. His counselor goes, “Yeah ..he’s afraid of missing something so he conjures them up. It’s a coping strategy and should go away pretty soon” I’m dumbfounded. He goes on to explain “You’ve heard of the belief where, if you think about something, it can be the same as doing it ..? The book of Matthew says anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery. Well, consider this an extension of that ..where thinking about something can lead to the mistaken belief that it must have happened.” I try to put it in words I can understand “Sounds something like virtual reality ..(?)” “You could say that” Now I’m driving home, going ..OK, did that just happen, or do I only think it happened ..? Now I’m wondering how many things I’ve accomplished that never got beyond the planning stage.

Aftermath

“What happened ..?”
“You were hit by an IED, dude.”
“No, that was somebody else ..”
“You’re good man, you still got your feet.”
“Where are you ..?”
“Checking your pupils.”
“Where am I ..?”
“On a berm.”
“How did I get here ..?”
“You were blown here ..you’re lucky.”
“Where is here ..I don’t remember ..I can’t see.”
“Don’t worry, it’s temporary ..you’ll see fine in just a moment.”

Back in the States, Johnny has lapses in consciousness where he tells me he leaves his body .. travels back to Iraq and becomes someone else ..just before they get hit by an IED. Each time, he says ..the same conversation takes place. I ask the VA about this and they tell me it’s a documented condition called ‘disassociative fugue’. I tell them it sounds frighteningly supernatural to me. They say it will go away soon.

Ramón

After his 2nd tour of duty, Ramón’s world was a fuzzier place. Milkier too ..until he got the cataracts removed. The ground feels spongy when he walks because of the loss of sensation in his lower legs. I have a theory that says: what the body can’t feel, the mind fills in ..and sometimes with bizarre effect. For Ramón, it can make a dusty street feel like a rocky stream .. or level ground feel like an uphill slope. He says he’s learned to look for visual confirmation, but sometimes his eyes deceive him. He went to an optometrist but couldn’t pass the eye exam. He says he could see the letters clearly enough, but they would rapidly morph into other letters. For instance, an ‘M’ would become an ‘N’ then a ‘U’ then an ‘O’. When he mentioned this to the eye doctor ..she let him take the test over a few times. Ramón learned that if he blurted out the first letter he saw, he did much better. Out on the street however, phone numbers dissolve before he has a chance to repeat them. He can’t remember things he just read because when he gets to the end of a sentence, he’s forgotten the beginning. Now whole movies fade away by the time they reach the end, which he says is cool ..he can watch them over and over again as though he were watching them for the first time. I’d say the things that tethered him to mother earth have slackened a little, which accounts for the sliding sensation he gets in the pit of his stomach, the one he says feels like his car is skidding off the road even when he’s sitting at his desk.

Footnote: Music that used to annoy him ..dissonant-sounding jazz from performers like Coltrane or Björk ..now appeals to him. I put on the Beatles Revolution number 9 ..which sounds like a loop of recorded chaos and impromptu screaming. He was delighted. Then I put on a track of improvised rock recorded at a Grateful Dead concert. He said it sounded natural to him, like riding in the back of a truck on a winding road through the woods. This leads me to another theory ..when the mind adjusts to blur ..it can also make a melody out of noise.

He's gone

“He’s just not the same anymore” his mother says “Does he ever talk about it ..?” I ask “The only thing he ever mentioned was the time he had to retrieve his friend’s body from a supply truck that exploded. It was too gruesome for me ..he’s just not the same anymore.” He can sit at a crowded table with friends and just smile and not say anything for hours. His prior relationships have ended and he can’t remember most of the people he went to high school with. “He isn’t who he was when he went in” a former girlfriend tells me. He can’t drive ..traffic laws and street signs elude him. It scared her to death one night when he drove for miles and did not stop for a single red light. Later on I find out he didn’t really learn to drive until he was in Iraq, and that was mostly on unmarked desert roads. He’s not aware of it when he hits curbs on both side of a residential street. He misses other customary signs of danger as well. He’ll blindly walk across a busy boulevard to reach a starbucks and meet friends. I’m reminded of a line from a book by John Irving and tell him to keep passing the open windows.

Breathing exercise

A simple breathing exercise for someone experiencing a flashback or a seizure due to post-traumatic-stress. It is meant to draw you away from the what’s going on inside your head and bring you back to the present moment by way of the breath. It is a good way to begin ‘grounding exercises’ most excellently described in the blog ‘PTSD and Me’ [link]

• Place your hand lightly on top of your stomach like a float.
• Breathe in slowly and deeeply ~ follow the breath ~ feel your stomach rise. Say out loud: “Breathing in ..rising.”
• Hold your breath ~ feel the pressure of the air in your stomach and chest. Repeat: “Holding my breath ..holding my breath”
• Breathe out slowly and loudly through your mouth ~ feel the breath leaving your throat and mouth ~ feel your stomach go down ~ listen to the sound of the breath leaving your mouth. Say: “Breathing out ..breathing out ..letting go ..letting go.”
• Experience a brief moment of stillness between breaths. Say: “Being still”.
• Breathe in and repeat the breathing process again for five to ten minutes.

More Victors

In my estimation, there are probably thousands more soldiers, like Victor, returning from Iraq with mental conditions that are too subtle to detect without long-term evaluation. I know that when the brain takes a hit ..the first thing to go is attention. The second is impulse-control. It looks to me like these two things are causing Victor’s problems. Much of the surface area of the brain is dedicated to reducing ‘out-of-scope’ activity ..allowing us to focus, and act, on what’s relevant. Anything that impairs this action can leave us open to signals that disrupt conscious experience. This may account for the way Victor misperceives his parents, cars and carbonation. Symptoms like these may not appear for months after a soldier returns home. What often brings them to the attention of health care providers are complaints from family and friends who say they are no longer following the ‘script’ of the wholesome teenager they once knew ..growing up in the sheltered community of Santa Barbara. Or, worse ..they’re not following the script of the ‘noble young man’ returning from war ..which is complete bullshit because there’s nothing in the background of a teenager growing up in Santa Barbara ..or Nebraska for that matter ..that will ever prepare them to counter the horrors of war and it’s aftermath. The long-term consequences of our policies in Iraq ..and the ‘stop-gap’ policy of recruitment ..will be felt by this generation of Americans for a long time to come.

Victor's war

Victor returned from Iraq last fall after suffering a ‘head trauma’. He was knocked unconscious by the shock of a roadside bomb while on patrol. At first he seemed OK ..just a ruptured eardrum and a little blurring in his left eye. His parents were relieved. He was an honors student in high school. However, after returning to college ..he couldn’t keep up with his studies. He claims he can’t remember a thing he reads. But tests found that he’s not having problems remembering ..he’s having problems concentrating. He can’t tune-in long enough to finish a sentence without being distracted ..either by noise from another room ..or conversations he had earlier that day. He’s acquired some form of adult ADD. He’s also having problems at home. He used to be a pretty easy-going guy ..but now he ‘flies off the handle’ easily. He can’t even tolerate his parents asking him how his day went ..sounds like an interrogation ..so he’s doesn’t answer anymore. He quit going to school ..and won’t go anywhere by car ..he says it looks like other drivers are trying to ram him. He also avoids beer and other carbonated beverages because the fizzy noise they make sounds like bullets whizzing by. He’s getting more heavily into drugs.