Military wife talks about husband's rage after combat

Caregiver Confronts Husband’s Combat-related Rage

By Elaine Sanchez
American Forces Press Service
SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 30, 2011 – When her soldier husband was injured in Iraq, Catrina Tomsich gave up everything to be with him. She shut down her business, left a support network of friends and uprooted their 5-year-old son, Brayden, to move here to help him recover.

Army Sgt. John Tomsich and his wife, Catrina, play with their son, Brayden, at the Warrior and Family Support Center in San Antonio, Nov. 10, 2011. Tomsich came to Brooke Army Medical Center for treatment for a spinal injury. Catrina Tomsich put her business on hold to join him. DOD photo by Linda Hosek

She did so without hesitation, but not without fear.

Her concerns didn’t center on her husband’s recovery -- his injuries weren’t life threatening -- or their uncertain future, but on her own safety and that of her son’s.

Catrina’s husband, Army Sgt. John Tomsich, had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder since 2005. The noncommissioned officer maintained a stoic front for his troops, but barely could contain his rage at home.

“For five years I heard, ‘I hate you; I don’t love you anymore’ every day,” she told American Forces Press Service. “That can definitely take an emotional toll on someone.”

Catrina first noticed a change in her husband after his 2005 deployment in Kosovo, his first since he joined the Army in 1998. He was there during a period of political tension, he recalled, and was out shopping one day with several of his leaders when hostilities broke out around them. Weapons were fired, he said, but no one was seriously injured. They wound up cornered in a hotel, uncertain of what would occur overnight.

“That’s where the anger started,” Tomsich said, “but I didn’t talk about it to anyone.”

Noncommissioned officers couldn’t discuss their problems with anger or depression, he believed at the time, or the troops under them would question the integrity of their leadership. Instead, he said, “You try and fight it and not tell anyone you have problems.”
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