Battle doesn't end when wounded warriors come home

David Killeen: Battle doesn't end when wounded warriors come home
6:00 PM, Dec. 28, 2011
David C. Killeen
My View
Padre, I need to speak with you."

Robert is a wounded warrior in his early 20s who served in Iraq, and as he utters these words, I see an urgency in his eyes that I have learned to recognize as a pastor. His expression says: "I need to unload a whole bunch of stuff, and it's not going to be pretty."

Robert and I were at a Wounded Warrior Spiritual Retreat held by the Episcopal Diocese of Florida at the Cerveny Conference Center and Camp Weed in Live Oak. A partnership with the Wounded Warrior Project in Jacksonville, the ministry seeks to care for the spiritual wounds of veterans.

By New Year's Eve, all of our troops in Iraq will be home for the holidays. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the lives of many warriors have been saved by the use of body armor and advances in battlefield medicine. That's the good news.

Robert's wounds are deep, but they can't be seen. He is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a common affliction for veterans returning from war. Robert has flashbacks of traumatic incidents. He sleeps only a couple of hours a night. A trip to the grocery store is nightmarish, because the aisles remind him of alleyways in Iraq.

He is also burdened by shame and guilt. He was an intelligence officer, responsible for gathering information on which missions were based. If he made a mistake, men and women that he personally knew died. Robert is haunted by the "what ifs." What if I had triple-checked that location? What if I went on that mission instead of my friend?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Rev. David C. Killeen is the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Tallahassee. He founded Wounded Warrior Spiritual Retreats in the Episcopal Diocese of Florida. Contact him at Dave.Killeen@saint-john.org.

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