Vietnam medic still battling post-traumatic stress disorder

Vietnam medic still battling post-traumatic stress disorder
Vet feels bad for guys who are doing three or four tours, ‘this is going to tear them up.’
By Tom Stafford, Staff Writer
10:51 PM Wednesday, November 10, 2010

“The closest thing I can relate it to,” said Randy Ark, “is like when your blood sugar gets low. There’s that nervousness, that edge.”
Moments before, a longtime friend had sneaked up behind the Army combat veteran in the basement of the Vineyard Church, covered his eyes, and shouted, “hey.”
A seed of anxiety and dread “started to multiply,” said Ark, who had been a medic in Vietnam. An episode in the life of a person with post-traumatic stress disorder was beginning to unfold.
“I kind of knew it was coming. I almost could feel it coming,” he said.
Although Ark’s wife was there, as were other friends, he asked for his friend Rick, who’d also been in Vietnam.
“I thought maybe he could help me a little bit.”
But Rick was across the room at the dessert table.
“I couldn’t see him because of the people milling around and walking around,” Ark said.
So he planned a retreat.
No, he told his wife, nothing was wrong.
He just needed to get to the bathroom.
There, alone, in a space where the hard surfaces make for echoes, he turned around a couple of times, took hold of the center stall divider and put his head down, waiting for what always comes.
“I just started sobbing and shaking,” he said. “When something scares you like that, it just brings back that emotion of a sudden occurrence where you don’t know what’s happening, but it could be bad.”
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Vietnam medic still battling post-traumatic stress disorder