Marine's Mom talks about what PTSD looks like

The only term I would change on this is when she uses "victim" instead of survivor. PTSD only comes after traumatic events. The person standing there after, survived the event but sometimes it hurts more. If we manage to focus on this, then they will feel like a survivor, acknowledge they lived through something horrible, the same way they would see other people with amazement over the fact they made it out of hell.

We need to change the way the troops and veterans look at PTSD. It is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign they are a survivor. It is a sign they were compassionate enough to feel the pain just as surly as they felt love more deeply. It is a sign they had the courage to act on that level of compassion to put the lives of others ahead of their own lives when they decided to serve.

PTSD is a wound to the soul and the best way to heal it is to understand it but the military has a very hard time understanding what targets some over others. After all these years I can assure you, it is the depth of their ability to feel that causes them to carry away so much pain.

Eager: Combat PTSD by knowing the signs
Posted Sunday, Apr. 11, 2010

"Open fire!"

The phrase is expected to be heard on a battlefield, but not after a soldier or Marine returns from combat. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is an enemy that follows some home, a sniper of sorts that marks its target and picks off its unsuspecting victim with pinpoint precision.

What does combat PTSD look like? The disorder might be easier to treat if the blow were from a real bullet, where a wound or blood is visible and a clear-cut protocol for treatment exists.

Victims of PTSD often trudge on, initially not realizing they are wounded. No cries of "Man down!" are heard.

Sometimes there is only silence until it is too late. They are our community's walking wounded.

PTSD was not at the forefront of my thoughts when our son first deployed to Iraq. I had a naive hope (or denial) that he wouldn't see much combat.

That illusion was shattered March 17, 2007. Soon after he deployed as part of the surge into Anbar Province, we received a phone call. I could sense something was wrong.

My usual question of, "How is your squad?" was met with, "One is no longer with us."

A fellow Marine was killed by a sniper while the squad was on a foot patrol. It was a precise hit; death was immediate.

Little did I know then that 2007 and the ensuing months that our son was in Iraq would be the deadliest since the start of the war. But at that point, a new worry fixed itself within me: How will this affect my 21-year-old son, who witnessed his buddy's death on the battlefield?

It is as impossible to determine who will be the next victim of PTSD as it is to determine who will be the next battlefield casualty. Out of our son's original squad of 13, nine came home together. Three others were severely wounded.



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