PTSD & PSALM TWENTY-THREE

Introduction Out of the corner of my eye, I see a Vietcong sneaking up on me with a drawn knife. Instinctively pivoting my body’s weight upon the bottom of my right foot, I turn, chopping the weapon out of his hand. In doing so I sense his dread and my rush for survival. It’s him or me. I have to complete the maneuver.

It is beyond my control now as all my training and combat experience kick in to finish the job. I can feel his breath which means I have less than a second and only inches between life and death. I want to close my eyes, but can’t, lest I miss the mark and he wins and I die.

“Robert,” my wife of 38 years yells, as I face her in the kitchen of our home in the Appalachian Mountains of Southeastern Kentucky. There we stand inches apart, in two different worlds within a loving home, strained by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Cheryl’s eyes are the size of saucers and her lovely face flushed of all color. My eyes are focused and my face stern.

As we stand looking at each other, all I can say is, “You startled me.” Cheryl is speechless, frozen in fear.

“I suppose I better make an appointment to see Doctor Dunn,” I softly say, in a broken voice of disbelief of what could have happened.

“Yes, you better” Cheryl says as she backs up from me, guiding herself with her hand on the kitchen island overflowing with stuff.

Stuff. So much stuff yet to deal with that neither of us knew had to come to the surface. Our lives could have been transformed into something resembling our disarranged kitchen island. A family forever changed. A murderer standing over his dead wife. Over what? A pan! A lousy pan.

Cheryl was bringing me a pan which she thought I would use to make breakfast. Instead, she stepped into my world of PTSD, in which I am constantly on guard. The VA psychologists call it “hyper vigilance.” We combat Veterans with PTSD call it “survival.”

Time has moved on since that episode in 2013, but it remains a constant reminder to Cheryl of a time she was paralyzed by raw fear. It remains a concern to me of Cheryl’s wondering of a future repeat.

We walk side by side and hand in hand together – two hearts knit together by love and trust. We, however, walk in two different worlds never losing sight of each other. It is faith, hope and love that holds us together and keeps us close.

Welcome to our world. Some of you will instantly understand and identify with the previous and that which will follow. Some of you will struggle to understand – if so, thank God, for you do not have PTSD.

GUARD DUTY

I hear every sound, including my beating heart. My brain, like a computer, tries analyzing all the strange new sounds. My mind attempts to create pictures in my head of all the noise makers. My overloaded nervous system sends mixed messages to all my organs, which in turn catapults me into hyper alertness. Man, I’m flying and I’m not on any drugs; but my body is saturated with adrenaline.

- I have been on guard duty for less than five minutes and this is happening to me. What will two hours bring? Heck with two hours, what will 363 nights of this stuff do to me? My entire body shakes at the thought. I hope my fellow guard does not hear my rattling bones and clicking teeth.

- Deep from within my soul rises a prayer: “God help me.” I have prayed before. I come from a heritage of prayer. But now gloom fights for dominance in my heart as I face an unseen enemy in a darkness blacker than any I have experienced. I cannot let it happen: knowing if it does, my faith would crumble and with it my sanity. The thought of such a life in such a place for such a long time nearly bursts my heart with grief. Further prayer pushes back despair to allow peace of heart and mind to regain their proper places.

- This internal battle seems to have been raging for hours, but in reality it’s been seconds. My eyes return to their wartime duties as do my ears, as does my mind. My entire body follows. Once again, I’m engulfed in the reality of a war that could take my life at any moment. Sitting in the open turret of this Track, with my fellow guard, I join him in defying the odds of death hoping to face one more day. One less day of our tours. One day closer to our homes.

“Stop it” I tell myself, realizing thoughts of home or of getting out of this place while on guard duty is dangerous and could get me and others killed. Nearly two hours still to pull. This is going to be harder than I ever imagined. Nothing prepared me for guard duty in war. Nothing prepared me for the gruesome reality of war. Nothing prepared me for tonight. But here I am.

DWELLING

“Where do I go from here?” is asked by many Troops upon coming home from war. If someone doesn’t fully understand what these men and women have experienced and survived, they might simply say, “Go home.” Home sounds nice. Home sounds safe. But is it? To the surprise of civilians the answer often is “no.”

War doesn’t stay on the battlefield, it often comes home with the returning Troops. Sometimes, it is obvious as these men and women start falling into self-destructive behaviors. But then there are those who are not as obvious, for they suffer in silence. Holding everything in, they live like nothing happened, but down deep there is something happening and it’s trying to get out. Eventually it does, to the surprise and sometimes demise of relationships with family, friends and coworkers. War has finally come home. Then there are some very fortunate folks who leave war on the battlefields and live free of its negative effects – hopefully all of their lives.

Coming home from war involves much more than just coming home from war. It is giving up one way of life for another. What? One no longer has to kill to stay alive. One no longer has to be hyper vigilant to maintain safety. One no longer has to sleep with a loaded weapon to fight off enemy. One no longer has to live in fear of being thrown into conflict in a minute’s notice. One no longer has to pull guard duty two or three times a night. One no longer has to look for traps cleverly laid out by the enemy. One no longer has to be hard core emotionally to maintain sanity. But we do. Why? War is hard to break.

- Some Veterans are able to break free from some of these things, while other Veterans drag them along until death do they part. The cost of war is costly, especially to families. And what makes up communities – families. And what makes up countries – communities. A sad statistic of combat Veterans is the high divorce rate. One Veteran – multiple families that have multiple families.

- Some men and women feel forsaken by God while enduring the harsh realities of combat. Where is God? How can God allow this to happen? Does God even care what’s happening to me?