I came back from Iraq in February of 05. I congratulated myself on being so well adjusted. I did a lot of convoys in Iraq, sometimes in the gun turret. I left control of my finances to a friend who I’d known for ten years. I picked him because he was so much more educated than I was, platonic, and so logical.
I was in a battle that lasted 22 hours and pitted us not only against a force that outnumbered us at least ten to one, but against a civilian leader who told Bremer we were facing 'teenagers with guns.' That prolonged the battle.
I had close calls I can't write about. I saw things I don't know *how* to write about, much less speak of. And I fell in love with a country that was not mine, and a people who wanted us to be there, who just wanted to live better than they had under Saddam.
I came back from Iraq and I was amazed to have a bed in a room of all things-----all by myself! I'd been flinching at particular loud noises for a while. (Once a mortar landed in front of me during the battle and after that I can't remember anything.) I'd spent the last two weeks of my deployment in Kuwait, in an airplane hangar with a hundred other women---and one electrical outlet. One single room in my house had more outlets than that.
The problem was, my ‘friend’ had emptied my checking accounts, and treated my checking account as a means to reimburse himself after his Power of Attorney expired. He decided whether or not he deserved reimbursement. He kept both the accounts and the checks secret from me. For weeks I was dazed at the lack of gunfire and bombs. When I finally wised up, he’d spent all of my money but eleven dollars----and no lawyer would take the case. After all, I’m a blue collar woman and he’s a college professor. Not even JAG lawyers would help me. He wrote all the worst checks after I came back. Maybe he had an issue with the new me.
Things I’d never noticed weighed on me. Humvees smell of diesel and they rattle from the armor. So do buses. I don’t drive, so I take the bus. I went back to work, and I found I had much more confidence than I had when I left. by the hour My boss loved me. I loved working. Really, how often do you face bombs in America? In Iraq I faced them every day. We’d drive over bomb craters in the roads every day, and then wave at the civilians.
I started having nightmares. Then one day I got on the bus—at night----and found that my vision was doing strange things. I was hot and cold, and coudln’t/ hear properly. My stomach was profoundly upset and I thought I was going to pass out. I got off at the next stop and threw up. I was shaking. Stomach virus, I thought. But soon it wasn’t just at night that I couldn’t stand the bus, it was going to work, too. I started starving myself before and during work. I started taking cabs because I simply couldn’t take the bus. I lost twenty pounds in six weeks. I started having nightmares that wrenched me out of sleep, nightmares of all the people I’d met in Iraq, all the people I’d promised we’d help to make free. I knew the insurgents had killed some of them. The problem is, they never were anything but people to me----people who trusted me, and then they were dead—because of me. I’d been a fool. They’d suffered. What little I experienced seemed a fair price to pay for my stupidity.
An NCO overheard me talking about the nausea and other symptoms and asked me, “You know you’re having panic attacks, right?” No, I didn’t. I’m not a…panic attack…kind of person. I didn’t know what they were, and if somebody had told me, I’d have scoffed at the idea. She made me go to the VA.
There they asked me if I’d had a traumatic childhood. I told them my childhood was notably short of dead bodies, mortar attacks, and sieges where I was outnumbered at least ten to one. They put me on a drug that…caused anxiety. I had such a bad panic attack that I passed out at work, and thought I was having a heart attack. I called 911. After that, my boss wouldn’t answer my phone calls and wouldn’t use me. Could you blame him?
The panic attacks got worse and worse and I stopped leaving the house. The VA switches my meds and gave me anti-anxiety meds. All they did was keep the nightmares somewhat at bay. I started drinking. Drinking made me pass out and kept me from dreaming. It made me feel horrible and gain weight, but it kept the nightmares away. That was the thing. The VA pretty much ignored the nightmares. They operated from a one-size fits all playbook, and they kept trying to force me into what they called ‘exposure therapy.’ This meant confronting my fears----alone and undrugged, in public, when the possible outcomes included losing consciousness and other symptoms too humiliating to mention, without any support at all. They took me off the anti-anxiety meds. I crashed. Last year I became convinced that I was a murderer and a coward, and started cutting my arms till they bled so I could get some sleep. I’m a Catholic, after all, and I believe in sin. There was no one I could confess to who could help me expiate my sins. I wanted to be punished and yet I was a revolting human being. I wanted to die.
The VA put me in a ward with shoplifters and wife beaters. Aside from the Viet Nam and Korea vets, I was the only one with actual combat experience. I was listening to guys complain about how they were getting nailed for shoplifting. Oh, yeah, and after the sexism of some of the other soldiers in Iraq, I had to sit there while wife beaters complained about how their wives didn’t want to fuck them.
I have to say, yelling at assholes and highly-educated assholes is very therapeutic. But the big thing is that they put me on better meds----which keep me from actively wanting to kill myself----and avoided the issue of whether or not I have PTSD. I had to submit video of the battle I was in to get them to take me seriously when my NCO dragged me to the Disabled American Veterans and made me file a claim. Fix me, is my attitude. Fix me and I’ll go back and fight. I was a good soldier once. I did a good job. That’s all you have to do. But they seem devoted solely to butt-covering. I hurt my back and shoulder in Iraq and two years later they still haven’t done an MRI-----and I can’t lift my arm above my shoulder. If it weren’t for the DAV I’d have given up and literally killed myself. That’s how depressing it is when you’re already depressed and in despair. I didn’t even know that wanting to die from guilt was considered being in a suicidal mood. For three months that was what I lived with. I considered it a lack of courage that I didn’t kill myself.
I’m 43 years old and I’m an old bitch who can fight. What about all these twentysomething soldiers who are respectful and deferential of authority? We’ve had two Marines kill themselves after they were turned away for care at the local VA, and I know these guys did way more shit than I did. How many other soldiers are dying not of wounds inflicted in battle but by their very allies? How many young soldiers, sailors, and Marines are going through this without knowing that they’re not alone and that it’s not a weakness, but another war wound? How many people get twisted into talking about childhood knee scrapes instead of the four-year-old who was murdered on your watch?
I don’t expect much, but I just want to work a job again. I just want to walk away from my house without checking for snipers. I want to get rid of the nightmares, the insomnia, the guilt, above all----the guilt is like acid. I keep offering the VA a good deal: fix me----and I’ll go back. I re-enlisted before I got sick. That’s how much I love the Army. In a heartbeat, I’ll do what they ask. I’ve served with too many good people. They saved my life. It’s only fair that I get the opportunity to return the favor. Is that too much to ask? That’s all I want: fix the damage. I’m not touchy feely but I can’t shake the flashbacks and shit like that.
I don’t want pity or…whatever. I want promises answered. I’m not ashamed to say that I served and I want only what’s coming to me. I want to be whole so I can be a good soldier again. I loved being a good soldier. I learned two other languages and travelled to twenty different countries. Until Iraq, it seemed one could put in twenty years and not fire a shot. I was literally defending myself when I fired those shots, but how come the enemy is my own countrymen this time?