Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Here's the thing, I was just like you.  Some Vet would start talking about how they were having a hard time, and I'd kind of look off at an angle - not not looking at them, for sure, but not looking at them either.  I'd change the subject right quick, I'd do the thing it took to let them save their dignity.  I was a Vet, back then, but not really.  "Not Veteran enough syndrome," a friend of mine calls it.  I served.  Went to where the Persian Gulf War was happening, but nothing happened to me.  Right?

I came so close to getting my head blown off at the North Chicago Inn one empty spring night in 1991 that I can still feel the powder burn on my cheek and my left ear feels perpetually over-pressurized.  My ribs still ache from the gang stomping I got while I was on the ground just trying to cover up.  I still get the sweats.  Come even near to threatening me or mine and my eyes go in the direction of my gun safe, no matter how far from home I am.

"Give me our money or your friend is dead" said the black man in the back seat.  I was the friend.  The knife at my throat was all the convincing I needed that this guy probably wasn't playing.  When the Corpsman injected my finger with Novocain, it plumped up so much I could see the wriggly fat cells like dead maggots under my skin.  He'd tried to cut my jugular, but I pulled the knife away from my neck and all he got was my empty wallet and my Navy ID.  Sucker.

We lost power sitting off Kuwait City.  I was sitting at the CIWS control panel, right next to the Electronic Warfare specialist.  The last thing either of us saw before the CIC went black was a half-dozen Iranian surface-to-surface missile batteries radiating us.  We were sitting ducks for 20 minutes.  That's what I was told.  I don't remember any of it.

I used to be like you.  I used to try and let a Vet save their dignity when they started in talking about how they couldn't get right.  I used to turn away from them, get embarrassed for them.  Man, what a dick I was.  This shit?  This PTSD shit?  It's a bear, man.  It will eat you up.  There is no dealing with thing on your own, and the Veteran who's turning to you for help, she deserves better.

If you're still doing to that to Veterans when they express the need to talk about what they're struggling with, do me a favor, punch yourself in the face as hard as I would if I were there.  Keep in mind I'm a pretty big guy and I can rock a heavy bag.  Put some ass in it.  You deserve it, and so does the Veteran you're neglecting.