Ongoing PTSD nightmare

How America Really Treats Combat Vets: A Marine's Story Part 3 (VIDEO)
Tim King Salem-News.com
A Marine Corps Iraq combat vet is placed in a jail "Unfit for insurgent prisoners" for growing marijuana plants that help him deal with PTSD.


So much for having a sense of humor; in Iraq combat
Marines had Phil Northcutt's back. Here in the states he
is a criminal for growing medical marijuana

(SALEM, Ore.) - In part one of this special three-part series report, we learned that Marine Corps Sergeant Phillip Northcutt of Long Beach, California, began his enlistment in the Marines in 1998 as the platoon "Honorman" or "Guide" - serving with honor during a volunteer one year "recall" tour of duty, and was injured in Iraq. In Part 2 it was revealed that police in Southern California like to arrest Marines, and that they don't know their own legal system.

This is part 3 in a special series on Marine Corps Sergeant Phil Northcutt, whose life went from Marine combat hero in Iraq, to homeless felon in California, simply because he used the only thing that helped him deal with Post traumatic Stress Disorder: legal medical marijuana.

While the DEA remains on point as anti-marijuana crusaders, Southern California law authorities seem to have it in for the Marines, and there are a great many of us who have suffered the wrath for our association with the eagle, globe and anchor in both LA and Orange Counties. It makes little sense, but is still the case. The marijuana element just aggravates an already volatile relationship.

Ongoing PTSD nightmare

Those who know people with PTSD are probably aware that many of these unfortunate sufferers deal with flashbacks and nightmares. Phil Northcutt survived one firefight after another in Iraq, but his psychological trauma is not strictly related to the battlefield.


The bars of an LA County Jail cell, courtesy: ACLU

"I suffer from PTSD. I have flashbacks not just from the war but from my incarceration. I never really knew what a flashback was. Now I do. Its a flood of emotion, like fear and anxiety, panic, that results from a single memory that just randomly pops into my head. Its like one long nightmare that won't end. Now my two separate nightmares, (War/Jail) just commingle into one."

When he emerged from the nightmare of jail, Phil Northcutt was homeless.

"My girlfriend, and I had a son together while I was incarcerated. Upon my release she returned to California from Oklahoma. We had nowhere to go. We stayed at hotels and on friends floors or couches. We had no money for food and had to borrow from everyone who would talk to us. It was so humiliating. Here my friends had just seen me as a Sergeant of Marines, who some considered a hero. A man who owned his own screenprinting business. My friends and family were so proud of me."

As a homeless, unemployed, convicted felon, Northcutt's own 15-year old daughter won't even speak to him. He says he wanted to just kill himself. "The only thing that kept me from doing it was knowing that no one would look out for my family. How would they eat? Where would they sleep?"

After 2 months on the streets, Phil got a job with a screenprinting company who had previously hired him as a print consultant.

"They knew my situation and hired me anyways. Like many Californians, they support medical marijuana and can't understand why they would mess with someone like me. So now, I work for about 1/3 of what I would usually make."

Now this former Marine can barely pay his bills. He lives with his family in a friend's studio apartment who is out of town. The problems working with the military continue.

"I have to miss work to go to the VA for my medical appointments so I lose money by going to my doctor. Then there's the court appearances and probation. I have to test for drugs even though the only drug I've ever been convicted of anything for is medical cannabis. They tell me at 8pm if I'm testing the next day. I miss work again. My boss is really bummed because I'm never there. I'm bummed because I wouldn't be making enough even if I was there. I missed an appointment this week because I didn't have the bus money."
go here for more
http://salem-news.com/articles/april122008/ptsd_phil_4-9-08.php

This is the part I wanted you to pay attention to. While there are some judges who do in fact use their right to decide what is the appropriate justice to deliver and send a lot of our veterans into treatment instead of jail, there are far too many who do not. They think jail will be the answer to all problems. At least it will get them off the streets for however long they can be locked up, in other words. This is what a lot of veterans have to go through when they have PTSD and trying to cope with it. They have the VA turning down their claims or seeing their suffering continue as their claim works its way up from the bottomless abyss of backlog claims, only to be denied for not following the "rules" or not submitting the right form.

This is how some end up homeless, unable to work but wanting to work and end up in jail.

This is what happens when their wound is not taken care of as soon as possible. This is what happens when the rules do not live up justice and treatment is denied along with compensation for the wounds they carry home with them. Very sad and very, very wrong.


Big thanks to Lily of Healing Combat Trauma for sending me this link.