He restores my soul and defeats PTSD

Psalm 23 (New International Version)
A psalm of David
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

He restores my soul and defeats PTSD
by
Chaplain Kathie

The military has forgotten one of the most important rules in combat. Know your enemy. No army on earth has ever been able to defeat an enemy until they understood them, knew how they thought, what they needed to in order for the enemy to be able to be subdued. When it comes to PTSD, they still don't understand it enough to have a good idea how to defeat it.


The evil that veterans fear comes when their compassion has been attacked. These are normal humans exposed to abnormal events while they risk their lives. They see what man is capable of. A picture of this reality is captured beyond their memories. It is embedded within their soul. They no longer see the moments before. They cannot remember what they were thinking right before "it" happened. If the military does not understand what PSTD is, where it comes from, why it chose them instead of others, then how in the world can the military ever really expect to do anything about it? This has been the biggest problem of all and no amount of funding can stop this enemy from killing more after war than are lost during it.

The military needs to understand all that makes the men and women serving so different from the rest of us is courage fed by compassion. The deeper the ability to feel the wider the door to PTSD swings open.

While dehumanizing the enemy allows them hold the "kill them all" attitude, that soon fades after the action is over. What is left is the fact the enemy they killed were still humans just like them. They had friends and families. They had hopes and dreams just like everyone else including the soldier who pulled the trigger. Under different circumstances, there would have been no need to kill. This haunts them. They forget what they did to try to prevent killing.

In Vietnam, innocent people were killed. The enemy hid among civilians. Kids with hands reaching out for candy with one hand held a grenade in the other. Women would attack the GIs as they thought they were in friendly territory. No one could be trusted. Nerves were on edge. Attempts to warn them to stay back were ignored and innocents were killed. The GI forgot what they tried to do to prevent having to react and only held onto the memory of what they were forced to do in order to protect their brothers.

This happened in Iraq as well. They were told to reduce the insurgents into a sub-human category. When they died, they were no longer humans but like animals on the ground. Body parts were not part of a human but parts of animals. The grief was reserved for their brothers as they were placed into body bags with gentleness. In the heat of the moment that image took over yet their subconscious took in the memories of what came before that moment. These images begin to be frozen as the anger is allowed to remain.

The compassion within the soldier, the very reason they wanted to serve by acting as defense for the rest of the population, becomes that which hurts them the most. Deep feelings enabling them to love, care about others, has a flip side. It also enables them to feel pain more deeply. Compassion is the doorway to PTSD.

When they know what to expect as the demons haunt them, they know how to take control over them, defeat the evil trying to capture all that is righteous inside of them. They stop wondering when they became evil, when God stopped being good and when the faith they had all their lives stopped being real. The images they have replaying in their mind's eye is able to be changed back to when they tried to prevent what they had to do. Then they are able to see that God is still good and He was there with them because even with all that was going on around them, they were still able to care, to feel and to grieve. Evil cannot inspire those things. The ability to still grieve after what they have been through is a testament to their soul. The ability to keep doing what is asked of them no matter how deeply they are in pain, is a testament to their commitment. The ability to still rush into danger no matter what has already happened is a testament to their courage. This is what they need to see within them.

PTSD is an emotional wound. It comes only after traumatic events. It does not come from within but it invades into the soul. There should be no shame in being a caring individual especially when that was the basis for why they wanted to serve in the first place.

When we think of King David, we remember the courage he had when he faced the "giant" while others ran from him. We think of the fact he was a warrior. Then we remember the sins he committed and how he was forgiven. What we tend to not see was the compassion and love he had. That is evident in the psalms he wrote. When we think of Christ, we remember the stories He told, the miracles He performed, His birth and His death with His last words being about forgiving those who nailed him to the cross. His story is also about having compassion and courage. Christ could have said He would not sacrifice His life as it was supposed to be, but we tend to forget that and thus, we dismiss the courage He showed all of His life.

The men and women in the military care. Some care for others more deeply. Some would willingly sacrifice their life even off duty. The depth of their compassion is what should be used to predict PTSD. The deeper they feel the deeper PTSD will cut them.

Just as there are different levels of PTSD, there are also different types of PTSD. For the military/veterans and law enforcement, there is the ability in their core to take lives in order to save lives. There is also the fact that there will be one too many times when they had to risk their lives, witnessed horrific events and participated in them. They either turn stone cold retaining no emotions other than anger or they grieve so deeply they cannot find their way out of the abyss. They are the "Michael" angels. Courage and compassion feed their soul.

For the emergency responders, including the National Guards, their core is different. They have it within them to risk their lives for the sake of someone else, but taking lives is beyond what they were intended to do. No amount of preparing can over come the "Gabriel" angel within them. When asked to do what they were not guided to do, their cuts go deeper. It is also depending on the number of times that became the time too many.

Survivors of traumatic events have a different type of PTSD and they also end up with survival guilt. After trauma there is the shock and then the reasoning. God saved them but why? God didn't save others but why? Why didn't God stop the perpetrator? Why did God allow any of it? How can God be good when all they just saw was evil? These questions come to all humans. What they see is evil and they do not consider that evil is not created by God. Just as if we believe in heaven, we must also believe in hell, we must also acknowledge that humans are capable of both as well.

While some will give their last dime to help someone else, someone else will take away a last dime from someone just because they want it. While some heroes get medals and refuse to call themselves hero, others will never do anything worthy but claim the valor they do not have, wear the medals they did not earn and pretend to be something they are not for whatever they feel they can gain. There is evil in every walk of life but there are more caring in every walk of life. They do not make the newspapers because good people still out number the evil ones. This makes the "good" ones wondering if everyone is out for themselves while in fact the "evil" ones are a minority.

They become evil because they avoid their destiny. They do not do what they were intended to do. They walk a path they have chosen and they become miserable.

When we follow our destiny, no matter what hardships we face, we find peace inside of us that overcomes whatever we face getting there. There are road blocks and obstacles trying to trip us up, hurt us, make us suffer. There are people we know able to help us, but they refuse to, all too often deciding to stand in our way. There are some who will judge instead of understand. Some will lash out instead of help up. Some will rejoice in our suffering as if they decided we deserve it while others only rejoice when we have overcome.

PTSD comes from that place inside of us causing us to question everything. Into our souls comes a struggle between that which is good within us and that which was evil we experienced. Seeing who we really are, what we were intended to become and what we intended at the time, enables us to fight off the hounds of hell trying to take over everything good within us, making us regret the tender hearts we have, confusing every part of our being. We think we are not courageous because we are soft and cry. We think we are evil because we were forced while fighting evil. We think we are now cursed instead of blessed. The inner struggle does not end unless there is the right help available to fight against it but the military still does not know what causes PTSD any more than they understand what makes the men and women in their command decide to serve in the first place.

The pay isn't great. The hours suck. Deployment after deployment followed by a transfer and having to uproot the entire family at the same time everyone is wondering if they will make it home again from yet another deployment. The fact that each day in combat could be their last or they may have to fly home because someone in their own family has die. Every moment they do not know what to expect from the next. Yet they are willing to do this. They are willing to forget their own individuality, give up making their own decisions and follow orders no matter what. Willing to sacrifice their lives should be a red flag to the military they have a unique caring individual among the ranks and this should be honored as well as cherished instead of being regarded as a thing of shame. They do not understand this,

Given the fact the civilian world responds with help after every crisis for the responders as well as the survivors, you'd think the military would understand they should do the same to avoid the breathing room PTSD needs to take control. The soldiers will go through hell and then minutes later go into the chow hall for a bite to eat sitting there without the strength to pick up a fork. Drained they sit in silence. They return to their bunks at the end of their shift with the images pounding in their heads, sounds in full volume pound their ears, smells grab hold in nostrils as they try to recover. Days, weeks, months later, they finally surrender to the fact they need help. When they need it they are told it is available, they may even be supported by commanders to seek it but when they go for it, they discover there is a long, long line in front of them or the person they are supposed to open their soul to does not have the slightest clue what PTSD is. This keeps happening.

Psychiatrist and psychologists fully educated in the workings of the human mind have not all been educated on PTSD. This has been omitted from the "training manuals" of common sense. They should all be experts on trauma considering combat is traumatic! Chaplains may have every chapter and verse committed to memory but what most of the words mean escapes them and they admit they know nothing about PTSD.

I belong to a group of chaplains comprised of walks from all life. Among the chaplains are VA psychiatrists as well as civilian psychiatrists. We have pastors and ministers, nurses and volunteers. We have law enforcement officers and emergency responders. All of us are dedicated to understanding PTSD before it become PTSD. Immediately after a traumatic event it is a crisis and we train for intervention. We do this to prevent the tearing away at the soul of the survivors. If we can understand this, why can't the military?

Are police officers less courageous? Are fire fighters? Are EMT's? They put their lives on the line everyday but they are expected to turn to a chaplain for support after or a trained professional. The military, well, they are expected to put their boots on and get back on duty no matter what. Even when they return to US soil they are not finding the help they need. They are not told what they should know and they are not helped in changing the images in their minds so they can make peace with the outcome.

There is so much the military does not understand and until they do, we will keep seeing the numbers of suicides and attempted suicides rise just as we see in the veteran population.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

If we allow evil to remain alive trapping out that which is good, then PTSD wins. They do not have to fear they are evil when they remember who they were and who sent them here. They can have a rod and staff to comfort them but only if that rod is the reason they grive and the staff is prepared for them to lean on as they heal. We need to help them remember that God is not evil and since He gave them that which is good inside of them making them want to be of service, they are not evil either.