Think of war like an ex-wife

Think of was like an ex-wife
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
September 30, 2012

28 years ago today, this was us. It was the day I married my best friend. I can honestly say I still feel that way but there was a time when I wondered "Who the hell did I marry?"

I don't like to look back on the dark times in our life together. It gets pretty painful to remember because of all the years. I'm sitting here right now trying to push the words out and I can't because I don't want to dwell on the worst years since the years after I wrote my book have been so much better.

That is what I want to share with you right now if you think it is all hopeless. It is far from hopeless.

If you think love is all we needed to stay married this long, you are living in dreamland. It takes a hell of a lot more than love to make any marriage work. It takes being willing to go to war to make a marriage work when you are married to a combat veteran.

Put it this way. Think of the war like an ex-wife wanting to take him back so much that she keeps showing up doing all she can to come between you and your husband. That's what Vietnam was to me. I knew I couldn't fight for him unless I was willing to fight "her" with everything I had.

First I had to learn as much as I could about the time he spent with "her." What was Vietnam like? What happened when he was there? Who were his buddies? I was only in grade school when he was there but I did everything possible to learn what he wouldn't tell me.

Once I understood as much as possible, I knew where he was when he was having a nightmare. I knew where he was when he had a flashback. He was with "her" and reliving all the misery "she" inflicted on him.

It took a lot of years and a lot of listening but I had the knowledge to help me know what to do to help him. I keep grieving for the new spouses trying to get through this alone without knowing what they are up against. It was almost impossible for me to do it even knowing what I knew. How much hell they are in when they don't need to be fighting this alone?

The problem isn't lack of love. It is lack of knowledge getting in the way of all of these families and the military isn't going to teach anyone what they don't even understand.

After all these years, this is the type of report we're reading instead of reading about what works.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord tries personal approach to curb military suicides
Published: Thursday, September 27, 2012
By The Associated Press

When Vicki Duffy asks soldiers what comes to mind when they hear the words "suicide prevention," she gets an earful about stale command briefings and overplayed commercials on military television stations.

Duffy, who is Joint Base Lewis-McChord's suicide prevention officer, said she doesn't take it personally. She's been in the trenches of the Army's program to curb suicides for four years, and she knows those old briefings aren't enough to do the job. "They're valuable," she said, "but they're done in a way that is very old fashioned in the Army."

Duffy and Lewis-McChord commanders this month updated their outreach down the ranks by ditching the old PowerPoint presentations in favor of one-on-one interactions between care providers and soldiers.

The effort peaked in the last two weeks with a leadership retreat for about 80 noncommissioned officers. At the same time, a suicide "stand down" was held in which officers and enlisted leaders took a walking tour of the base's social support services.

No one can say if those steps will save a life, but the idea is to empower more soldiers with resources they can use in a moment of crisis.

Better yet, the courses are intended to help noncommissioned officers monitor and improve the health of soldiers in their charge.

"This has been one of those nagging problems, and I hope we have found a way to positively affect it," said Col. Jeffrey Galin, the top medical officer for Lewis-McChord's I Corps.

"Suck it up and drive on" not working

The outreach marks a change from early in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars when commanders did not pay as much attention to emotional or psychological issues.

"It used to be 'suck it up and drive on,'" said Sgt. Thomas Hollis, 46, of Lakewood, a four-time combat veteran from Lewis-McChord's 4th Squadron, 6th Air Cavalry Regiment.

"'Suck it up and drive on' isn't working anymore," he said, citing alcohol abuse and suicides as signs of stress in the Army.
read more here

Families have been facing the aftermath of combat all these years without knowing they had to train to fight this enemy as hard as their veteran had to fight to go into combat. Too many had been waiting for the DOD and the VA to tell them what they needed to know and when that didn't happen, they just gave up. They didn't know any better. They thought it was hopeless.

Suicides, attempted suicides, divorces, homelessness, the list of suffering goes on making the headlines as if all of it is some kind of new thing when older wives like me are crying for the suffering all of them are going thru knowing it doesn't have to happen.

Here are some shocking numbers for you to digest.

Over ten years of war with over 2 million deployments.
500,000 veterans with PTSD.
Between 150,000 and 200,000 suicides.
One vehicle accidental death, unknown if it was accident or suicide.
Drug overdose deaths unknown because no one knows for sure if it was accident or suicide.
Homeless veterans figures change because while some are no longer living in their homes, they are being taken in and sleeping on the sofa of a friend but there are tens of thousands with no place to call home.
Suicides of spouse and children unknown. No one knows for sure.

Think these numbers are bad? Think these numbers came from Afghanistan and Iraq veterans? Nope. 

They came from Vietnam veterans.

The number of PTSD Vietnam veterans published in this study came with a warning.

"Treatment from the VA was difficult to obtain. The veteran began to feel depressed, mistrustful, cynical and restless.  He experienced problems with sleep and with his temper. Strangely, he became obsessed with his combat experiences in Vietnam. He would also begin to question why he survived.

For approximately 500,000 veterans (Wilson, 1978) of combat in Southeast Asia, this problematic outlook has become a chronic lifestyle affecting not only the veterans but countless millions of persons who are in contact with these veterans. The symptoms described below are experienced by all Vietnam combat veterans to varying degrees. However, for some with the most extensive combat histories and other variables which have yet to be enumerated, Vietnam-related problems have persisted in disrupting all areas of life experience. According to Wilson (1978), the number of veterans experiencing these symptoms will climb until 1985, based on his belief of Erickson's psychosocial developmental stages and how far along in these stages combat veterans will be in 1985. Furthermore, without any intervention, what was once a reaction to a traumatic episode may for many become an almost unchangeable personality characteristic."

So we were warned what was coming when the troops were sent into Kuwait during the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq to fight in wars no human is ever fully prepared to go into and prepared even less to return back home.

Families were even less prepared because all that was learned in study after study following Vietnam were lessons worse than forgotten. They were ignored!

If you want to read about what our life was like, you can read FOR THE LOVE OF JACK, HIS WAR/MY BATTLE online for a donation of $25 to help me fight for more families just like mine. Make sure you put "book" in the comment section and I'll send you the PDF file.

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