Family violence in the military

My first husband, not a veteran, tried to kill me one night. That was the first and last time he was able to hurt me. Emotional abuse came first but considering what I had been through in my life before we met, it didn't do that much damage. My second husband is a veteran with PTSD.

We've been married 29 years and he is one of the nicest guys there are on this planet.

There were times in the beginning of our marriage when I was leery of how he would react to certain things. One of the first lessons I learned was to not wake him up in the middle of the night when he was having a nightmare in striking distance. Too many other wives had to learn that the hard way.

They didn't understand that during the nightmares, they are not in that bed. They are back in combat with people trying to kill them.

Flashbacks work pretty much the same way. You can see them sitting in the chair, get angry because they are not paying attention to what you are saying, but again, they are not really there.

There are ways to avoid all of this but first you have to understand what PTSD is and where it came from.

Family violence in the military: Batterers or soldiers with PTSD?
Dallas Morning News
By SARAH MERVOSH Staff Writer
Published: 25 October 2013

When men end up in Anne Potts Jackson’s office, the signs often paint them as domestic abusers: controlling behavior, angry outbursts that turn violent.

As an assistant district attorney in Bell County, home of Fort Hood, Jackson tries to determine what’s behind all that. Are these men true batterers, or are they soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?

Jackson spoke about domestic abuse in military families Friday at a conference hosted by the Collin County Council on Family Violence at Collin College’s Spring Creek Campus.

With the wars overseas winding down and troops returning from Afghanistan, Jackson said, more veterans will have to “deal with the demons” of war. When they can’t, she said, violence may erupt at home.

“Anger is the predominant emotion of the combat experience. It is the emotion that kept him alive, kept her alive, when he was in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Jackson said. “But it is the thing — the emotion — that will get him arrested at home.”

As an Air Force wife herself, Jackson understands the tensions that exist inside military households.
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They are not getting the help they need in the military no matter what the military says they are doing. They don't get enough help back home. Vietnam veterans didn't get it either but no one was claiming they were "addressing it" until the late 70's. We didn't have the support from the public because no one was talking about it. We didn't have the internet but somehow we managed to find what works.

There is no doubt in my mind that had more families been able to find the support to help their veterans heal, there would be less homeless and suicides. Now there are too many groups claiming to be doing something but as with everything else, doing something is not the same as doing the right thing.

We're getting there but PTSD has been researched for 40 years. We can't get there making the same mistakes over and over again pretending as if any of this is new.