General Carter Ham, hero in fight to heal

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, this man is a hero to all the troops and veterans because he's an example this is nothing to be ashamed of by showing no shame in himself. It's a human, normal reaction to abnormal events. Thinking, feeling people are often wounded by what they see and do.

A general battles post-combat stress
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, January 11, 2009
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Just back from a year in Iraq, Gen. Carter Ham got into the car with his wife, Christi, and began a strangely silent, cross-country drive.

“I probably said three words,” Ham recently recalled of the trip four years ago from Washington state to Washington, D.C.

His time in Iraq, what the future held for them, the sites along the way — that was a lot not to talk about, Christi thought, for her usually communicative husband.

It was almost like he resented being home.

“I sensed a huge feeling on his part that there wasn’t a huge purpose to his being here (with her) and there were important things being done (in Iraq), and that he wasn’t part of it,” she said.

The trip provided the first of several signs that would eventually persuade Ham that what had happened during his year in Mosul in 2004 had left him a changed man — and that to recover, he needed to talk.

Now the commander of U.S. Army Europe, Ham, along with his wife, discussed his post-combat difficulties in an interview just before Christmas. It was the second interview the pair have given to a newspaper. Their willingness to speak publicly about the issue is rare in traditional military culture, but they appeared entirely comfortable.

“Frankly, it’s a little weird to me that people are making a big deal about it,” Ham said of the response to his openness. “Like lots of soldiers I needed a little help, and I got a little help.” click link for more