Florida Navy Officer Shares Personal Experience with PTSD

While Lt. Firth says "When you return home in that mindset, you are considered abnormal.” he is following along with something many others do. The issue here isn't a matter of coming home "normal" because there is nothing "normal" in a human's life connected to combat. They are "not normal" in the first place when you consider they are less than 1% of the population of this nation. They are already unusual.

Look up the definition of "abnormal" and this is what you'll find.

Definition of ABNORMAL

deviating from the normal or average : unusual, exceptional

We have less than 10% of the population living as veterans. When you understand this, then understand that while they may be "abnormal" to the rest of us, the changes they go through after combat is not. There are different levels of change, but every single one of them are changed by what they went through. The rest of us expect them to be "trained" to just go and come back as many times as they are sent without needing anything from us. It is all "normal" to them just as it is normal for a police officer to leave his family, get into a police car and be prepared to not be able to go back home again.

Navy Officer Shares Personal Experience with PTSD

Posted February 3rd, 2012 by USNavySeals
A member of the Navy Safe Harbor community shared his journey with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Lt. Chet Firth was diagnosed with PTSD in 2011 after being deployed to Iraq for a year as an Individual Augmentee (IA). At present, he serves as a non-medical care manager for Navy Safe Harbor, the wounded warrior support program of the Navy and Coast Guard at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, in Florida.

Firth admitted that he was among those who did not consider PTSD as a real condition, but eventually had a change of heart. He shared: “After spending a year in a combat zone, you can’t return the same person… your brain is wired differently. You experience so many close calls that you become emotionally numb. In combat, that numbness, as well as demonstrating constant vigilance, makes you brave and strong. When you return home in that mindset, you are considered abnormal.”
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