The "Promise" the Silver Star and PTSD

The "Promise" the Silver Star and PTSD
by testvet6778
Mon Nov 19, 2007 at 09:20:01 AM PST
There are a lot of stories of PTSD out here and many of them affect me. This one touched me in a way none other has, and that speaks volumes to the writer Barbara Barrett of McClatchy News she is based in Washington DC it is a multi part story written over a week.

Her telling of the Sergeant at the heart of it, SFC Chad Stephens takes you from the deployment to the hell he is living with daily, today. Dealing with visits to parents of soldiers that were killed under his command, and the torment he has to deal with now. It is heart wrenching.

testvet6778's diary :: ::
I can NOT begin to do this story any justice you have to read it for yourselves. It will take a long time but you should read all the parts of it, it takes you thru the deployment, to Iraq, the battles in Iraq, the deaths of his men, his visits to their families, and how it effects his own family.

How the day he is awarded the Silver Star for heroism, the Armys second highest award, his own father dies a Korean war veteran.

It deals with how he drives more than 100 miles away to a Veterans center far from his home so no one will know he is seeking mental health help, how he ignores all the advice to go to AA meetings, fails to get prescriptions filled for anxiety drugs to help him deal with the nightmares, etc.

click post title for the rest