Only human after all

Only human after all
by
Chaplain Kathie

After the training is over they are rough, tough, combat ready Marines. Their bodies are young, conditioned, able to be pushed past where most others would collapse. Their senses sharpened by training and the sense of individuality beaten out of them by the Drill Instructor's constant taunting. They are ready to face any enemy, any obstacle and any harsh condition. This training also attempts to prepare them to forget about being human.

Marines try to explain that when they come home from combat, after watching bombs blow up friends, seeing buddies burn, picking up pieces of what used to be someone they knew, they are not supposed to cry. They have witnessed the worst man is capable of at the same time they have witnessed courage beyond all measure from their buddies and themselves. While back home they may reflect on the actions of others in full perspective, they often forget about their own. They focus on the pain they finally allow themselves to feel when the danger to their buddies is over. They tell themselves Marines don't cry because it means they are weak.

What they don't see is the Marine who did their duty no matter how much pain they were in, no matter how much they were grieving and no matter how much PTSD had already taken away from them. They had a duty to do and they carried it out but they forget that part when they are back home and then they blame themselves for not "preparing their brains" for not being "tough enough" and for being human.

We talk a lot about PTSD and what it does to them when they come home but what we don't talk about is the magnificence of their spirit when they are able to endure so much while deployed and others are counting on them to be fully engaged in the battle. This they do no matter what but once out of harms way, when they are alone, when they are back home, the greatest danger awakens. There is no one there to remind them of their courage rising above the weight of the world on their shoulders.

"Never leave a man behind" is often regarded as an action taken in combat but should be always part of what happens when they come home and one of their own is in danger from the enemy within. They need to be retrained to accept the fact they are only human after all.

I've held Marines in my arms as they run out of words to explain the pain they are carrying but the silence is broken with apologies for falling apart because I was dealing with a "Marine" who thought that returning to a human state of mind meant they did not train properly.

I've talked to soldiers in shock as they wonder what the hell happened to them. When they couldn't wait to go home and then once there, they couldn't wait to go back into hell. The hell of combat became a familiar place and home became foreign territory because the person inside of their skin changed.

National Guards tell a familiar story but for them it is more complicated because they return home to civilian life in communities facing the same demands and problems everyone else has but carrying the memories of combat while they listen to their neighbors complain about the trivial details of their own lives. They hear co-workers complain about having to stay an hour late to finish a project after they had just returned from days without much sleep at all and a year on a project that could have cost them their lives.

With all of this, somehow they got the message that being human, suffering from PTSD, is their fault. Somehow they got the message that they should be tough enough to defeat this enemy on their own. No one told them they were not deployed into combat alone, didn't fight the enemy alone over there and they should not have to fight the enemy inside of them alone either.

We read about the rates going up and shake our heads wondering when it will stop being too late to save the lives that managed to survive combat but cannot survive coming home.

Here is one of their stories

A Marine's Suicide Brings The Battle Home
by Wade Goodwyn

Tina Fineberg/AP
Mary Gallagher, photographed at her home in October 2007, the year after her husband, Marine Gunnery Sgt. James Gallagher, took his own life.

'Lot Of Ugly Things'

Mary Gallagher said when her husband returned stateside, he kept the worst of it to himself: "Most Marines were not ones to really talk at all. Jim always said he'd placed it in his heart, and he said, 'I'll carry it forward because that's what I have to do and that's how I'll get through it.'

"I'm sure he saw a lot of ugly things. I just don't know all the ugly he did see."

After he returned home, Sgt. Gallagher was soon sent to the Marines advanced course. Mary Gallagher said her husband seemed mostly fine.

"I didn't really see it coming at all. I think that people are a little misled at the fact that PTS is very visible, but it's not as visible as people think," she said.

PTS refers to post-traumatic stress.

It is only in retrospect that Mary Gallagher can see what she missed at the time.

"To me, he just seemed sad. You know, he was not quite himself, but, you know, I just had no idea that he was really struggling as bad as he was," she said. "And obviously he was struggling a lot.

"And that's the hardest part for me. You know, it's something I carry with me every day, that I didn't notice that I didn't realize how much he was hurting."

A Sergeant's Suicide Brings The Battle Home
NPR
July 30, 2010
A U.S. Army study released Thursday says it suffered a record number of soldier suicides last year, pointing to a military that has been stretched thin by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.


The report says 160 soldiers took their own lives in 2009; another 1,800 tried to commit suicide. The report says multiple deployments and too little time at home are part of the underlying problem.

"Our last phone call of that day, he just repeatedly told me how much he loved me and, you know, if I truly knew how much he loved me, and I said, 'I do, Jim, and we can get through this together.'

"And my children and I came home, and my daughters actually found their father before I could protect them from that — and he was hanging in the garage in our home."

click link above for the rest of this

This can help because too many are not getting any mental health counseling at all.

N.J. Sen. Frank Lautenberg introduces mental health counseling bill for U.S. soldiers
Published: Friday, July 30, 2010
MaryAnn Spoto/The Star-Ledger


WASHINGTON, D.C. — A day after the U.S. Army released a report showing alarming increases in suicide rates among its soldiers, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg today introduced legislation to help more military personnel get mental health counseling.

Called the Sgt. Coleman Bean National Guard and Reserves Mental Heath Act, the bill extends to National Guard and Reserves members the same access to mental health as active-duty personnel.

Last year’s National Defense Authorization Act amended added a provision requiring five in-person mental health screenings for military personnel returning from combat. But that provision did not extended to the Inactive National Guard, the Individual Ready Reserves and Individual Mobilization Augmentee, who, unlike full-time Army personnel, have a more difficult time accessing mental health services after returning from combat because they return to civilian life.
read more here
Lautenberg introduces mental health counseling bill

Here's some more links you may want to read
• U.S. House of Representatives passes suicide-prevention measure named after N.J. soldier
• N.J. Army soldier's death highlights gap in military suicide prevention efforts
• U.S. Rep. Rush Holt introduces military suicide prevention bill named for N.J. soldier
• Military suicides: Cases of post-traumatic stress mount at alarming rate
• Military suicides: Army Sgt. Coleman Bean's downward spiral ends with gunfire
• Military suicides: Hero's life transforms to nightmare for Marine James T. Jenkins
• VIDEO: Military suicides: U.S. soldiers struggle with torment of war