The only way the military will understand PTSD is if they live with it

The only way the military will understand PTSD is if they live with it. It's as simple as that.

Frank Wheeler showed all the signs of PTSD. Doctors in the military did not agree and when they did acknowledge it, one of them said it was no excuse for domestic violence. The problem is if they understood PTSD, they would also know that too often, domestic violence is the result of untreated PTSD.

Flashbacks are a big part of it. There have been wives who have been "punched out" while their husband was having a flashback and the wife yelled at them. It's very frustrating talking to someone who is not paying attention, especially when it happens to be your own husband. In a flashback, the veteran is not in the room with you. They are back to where their lives were in danger. When they react to you, they are reacting to someone who is a threat to them and not "you" their wife. If you know what PTSD, then you know you have to adapt how you deal with them, notice the signs of them in moments of flashbacks and calmly handle the situation.

Nightmares are another problem when it comes to PTSD. Again, they are not in the bed next to you. In their dreams, they are back in combat. You are not their wife at the moment you decide to shake them awake or yell at them because you are frustrated with one more night of broken sleep. You are their enemy. Wives have ended up with black eyes and broken noses because they were in striking distance. If wives know what PTSD is, they know not to wake them up from a nightmare the way they would automatically do without thinking.

Even in arguments, there are ways to reduce the aggravation of PTSD symptoms and reduce the "enemy factor" when things are getting out of hand. Yet if the wife does not fully understand PTSD, they do become a victim of domestic violence too much of the time.

They end up calling the police. The husband is arrested. Wives walk away. Why? Because still to this day, after all these years, too many spouses are without the knowledge of any of this. While the military has done a lot better job of treating PTSD, they have taken only baby steps to really address all that is involved in it. They need to get up to speed on this before more military families have to go through what the Wheeler family did.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Staff photo by Raul R. Rubiera
Frank Wheeler sits with his family: wife, Katie, and sons, Christopher Wheeler, 1, Curt Hodge, 9, left, Kai Hodge, 6, right, and Warren Hodge, 8, top.

PTSD diagnosis doesn’t always carry through


By Michael N. Graff
Staff writer
In his dreams, former Sgt. Frank Wheeler says he finds himself in the war in Iraq.

Maybe he’s back on that road near Fallujah, responding to an IED attack, peering into a truck only to see clear through the skull of an Iraqi interpreter.

Or maybe he’s responding to reports of sniper fire and sees his best friend shot in the back of the neck and paralyzed.

Or maybe he is near Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where he is leading his platoon in pursuit of enemy forces through a neighborhood and into small-arms fire.

For his actions in that battle, Wheeler earned the Army Commendation Medal with Valor. The Army called his leadership “in the keeping of the finest traditions of military heroism.”

But this week, six years after the start of what had been a promising military career, Wheeler is leaving the Army in disgrace — as a private with a less than honorable discharge.

Army officials say privacy laws prohibit them from discussing the reasons for Wheeler’s dismissal.

But his military records show a pattern of being absent without leave and a history of domestic abuse that got so bad that the Hoke County Department of Social Services found it necessary to remove his children from their home.

Wheeler doesn’t deny that he has had problems, but he blames most of them on post-traumatic stress disorder. He accuses the Army of unjustly punishing him and dropping its original diagnosis of PTSD only after he began to break rules and laws. Records show Wheeler’s diagnosis was changed five days after an arrest in March.

Army officials can’t respond to that charge for legal reasons. But Lt. Col. Brian Burlingame, the deputy commander for clinical services at Womack Army Medical Center, said a diagnosis has never been changed for any reason other than medical merit.

Because of the layers of uncertainty that accompany many PTSD cases, such as this one, it’s difficult to ascertain whether Wheeler is a mentally ill veteran who was unfairly treated, or whether he is a mentally stable veteran who brought his troubles on himself.

What is known is that since the start of the war on terror six years ago, the Army has vastly improved its services for identifying and treating PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.

Still, gaps and inconsistencies in care exist, according to a recent national study. Mental illnesses are flush with gray areas, leaving open the possibility of differences of opinions by doctors.

Moreover, those illnesses are difficult to understand for people not living with them.

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