Tyler Curtis survived bullets and bombs but could not survive the wound of his mind

PTSD blamed in former soldier’s suicide

The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Dec 2, 2007 15:17:40 EST

LIVERMORE FALLS, Maine — When serving in Iraq, Tyler Curtis survived bullets and bombs. But once he got home, he couldn’t escape the emotional wounds he suffered.

Curtis, 25, took his own life on Thanksgiving morning, three months after returning to Maine following his 2006 discharge from the Army.

Curtis was unable to go on after Iraq, his sister, Gretchen Errington, said in a letter that was read to mourners who filled a funeral home last week to say goodbye.

“He served his country and ended up paying the ultimate price,” Errington wrote in the letter, which was read by a friend because she was too distraught to speak.

In the months after his return from two tours of duty, Curtis had grown inward and sad. He talked about his desire to return to Iraq and his grief for the families of those he may have killed.

Two weeks before his death, he told his former wife, Randi Sencabaugh, that it wasn’t the fact that he had to shoot people that bothered him most, the Sun Journal of Lewiston reported.

“It’s the fact they had a brother or a sister,” she remembered him saying. “I can’t imagine somebody — my sibling or my parents — dying.”
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_soldiersuicide_071202/

Why do we still call it a non-combat death? Would they have after trauma stress if they did not go into combat? Would their minds be wounded if they did not endure the horrors of combat? I still to this day cannot figure out why the combat veterans with PTSD are not awarded the Purple Heart? It is a wound. This wound, so insidious, latches hold of them and drags them into the abyss where hope is as elusive as the enemy they once tried to find.

The darkness of humanity exposed to trembling eyes. Stench penetrates their nose embedding in their mind, waiting to awaken when they feel they are safety out of danger. Visions slumber in the stillness until they come back with horrific hauntings of vengeance. The crime committed was the audacity to survive.

So the stalker claims its prey. This stalker does not strike the weak, but lashes out at the compassionate. It does not stalk the coward, but embraces the courageous as a worthy opponent. The only weapon in the human arsenal is hope. The hope of healing. The hope of becoming alive again.

Too many cannot do more than see hope exists but cannot reach it in time. How many more will we let slip away to this enemy? We lose more after combat than we do during it. This enemy cannot be defeated by more violence or more fueling of hatred. It can only be defeated by knowledge, compassion and mercy. kc