Former Marine Scott Carey Slipping through the cracks

Slipping through the cracks

Former Marine Scott Carey came home from Iraq after being shot and hit with shrapnel with a case of post-traUmatic stress disorder that drove him to self medicate and ultimately get in trouble with the law. Until his legal problems Carey did not get much treatment for the disorder but now uses counseling resources from the V.A. Hospital. - News-Record photo by Nathan Payne

By BRANTLEY HARGROVE, News-Record Writer
Published: Saturday, March 15, 2008 10:36 PM MDT
The yellow ribbons came down and the roses wilted. The rah-rah ebbed and the flags held in the hands of a row of other proud veterans who fought other wars stopped fluttering. The “welcome home, soldier” celebrations ended. There were no more slaps on the back.

Life for everyone else went back to normal. It followed the normal rhythms of the everyday, the mundane, even the complacent or ambivalent, half a world away from the Middle East.

But the euphoria of making it home alive dissipated for Scott Carey after he returned from Iraq in the spring of 2003.

While everyone else went about the day-to-day, he tried to figure out what exactly that meant for him. The former Marine Corps combat engineer caught a bullet through both elbows and his left hip in Iraq. While he was waiting to be evacuated, a mortar detonated nearby and shrapnel pierced his back.

Life as he knew it ended before that day, though. The things he’d seen came home, too. He looked death in the face in the form of improvised explosive devices he routinely cleared. That hyper-alert awareness that evolved inside him — an adaptation in combat — became a liability in civilian life.

How does one shift from fifth gear to first, where such behavior is seen as paranoia, not caution?

It changed him, body and mind. The skinny private first class became more lineman than lean soldier in the years after his return. Wearing a camouflage UFC T-shirt and a camouflage cap covering close-cropped hair, Carey has eyes that are both melancholy and direct at times.

For six months he was a VA inpatient on a heavy regimen of anti-depressants — about 1,300 milligrams of Seroquel for his anxiety and depression, and Trazadone for sleep. He felt like he was losing sight of himself in the drugs.

After his medical discharge at the beginning of 2005, Carey didn’t want to be thought of as a pill-popper, a mental health stigma the VA and the military are trying to turn on its head. The rationale among soldiers is if you make it out alive, you can take care of yourself afterward. You should rely on your combat buddies, not some head shrinker who wasn’t there, who doesn’t understand. But his buddies scattered to the four winds to reclaim their own lives. There was no one around who understood.

He wasn’t a part of that family that gave him place and purpose. It’s a common theme among vets. Many still in the service will keep it together, vets say. That military structure girds their traumatized minds. When it’s gone, they crumble.

“When I got medically discharged, it was like ... they took me away from something I was good at.”
For them, the hardest part is just asking for help.
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HOW TO FIND HELP- If you or someone you know is having a hard time dealing with combat experiences, help is out there.-
Leon Chamberlain is the advocate for vets in the northern part of Wyoming, and he can find you help. He can be reached at (307) 359-2430.-
The number for the VA clinic in Gillette is 685-0676.-
The number for the VA Medical Center in Sheridan is (307) 672-3473.