Slap in the Face, Courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

A Slap in the Face, Courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs
I had another anxiety attack today. I left the post office and walked to my car. The rage was building, the despair was creeping, and I could tell I was losing it, but I kept going. I called my advisor from the Disabled American Veterans, and screamed into the phone. I got into the car, still yelling, and started the engine.I had just gotten three letters from the VA. The first two were just like the ones I had been receiving for months. “We are still processing your application for compensation. We apologize for the delay.”

It had taken me years to be able to admit to myself that I had PTSD. I registered with the VA when I got off active duty. The first time I went to the VA hospital, I knew the numbers, and I knew it was a disaster. Then I saw it first hand. At first I saw the Vietnam vets. Men that were hustled through their midlife years and were walking with canes or in wheelchairs, sometimes muttering to themselves the regrets that only a broken soldier knows. Then I saw the World War II vets, clinging to life with the pride of a dieing breed. Then I saw the vets that looked like me. They bore the scars I recognized but couldn't feel. The IEDs of Fallujah echoed in the halls. I thought I didn't belong.

I got a consultation for PTSD, but missed my first appointment and never rescheduled. I didn't want to be a burden. There were those far more deserving than I. But then I needed help, and help came in the form of a fistful of prescriptions. It didn't help.Then a Vietnam vet told me that I had earned my due. I needed to file for disability. It was the cost of my innocence, but I felt dirty to put a price tag on that and I didn't want to even ask what kind of check came with the “70%” label. So I filled out a lot of forms, and in a gut-wrenching all-nighter, described in detail my “stressors.” With my advisor, I turned in the forms in person in a building that could only make a bureaucrat smile.
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