Wounded Times New Site For Old Mission

Wounded Times New Site For Old Mission
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 8, 2014

Wounded Times Net went live yesterday. It is a new site but the work is a 30 year compilation driven by my life. I remember what it was like the day my Dad met my husband. "He's a nice guy but he has shell shock." Coming from a disabled Korean veteran, that meant something to me. I grew up surrounded by veterans. My uncles were all WWII veterans on top of my Dad's service.

Wounded Times blog began in August of 2007 after receiving an email from a Marine in Iraq. He wrote to tell me that he loved reading my "stuff" but didn't want to have to read the political BS on my old site. Not thinking about him or where he was or what he was doing, I responded back defending my right to report the truth. Not long afterwards he sent me back one question. "Are you doing this for us or yourself?"

I balled my eyes out. He was right. I fell into the same political trap I had always complained about. Leave it to a Marine to set someone straight as simply as possible. After my pity party, my eyes cleared up enough to respond to him. I made him a promise. From that moment on I would start a new site where if he ever read anything political, it would be because a politician did something to them or for them. The rest of the time it would be news reports and more about Combat PTSD than anything else.

I never heard from him again after that but I have a feeling he knows he is responsible for what I have done on Wounded Times. This isn't about me. It is always about them.

Everything I have done for the last 30+ years has been because I fell in love with a Vietnam Veteran and saw what the pain of Combat PTSD does to a veteran as well as their families. Back in the 80's it was nearly impossible to learn about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder without the internet. I had to go to the library and read clinical books. Most of the time that was done with a dictionary as well because I couldn't understand most of the words I was reading. (You know how psychiatrists have their own language.) I was just an average person getting a good job right out of high school. I went to a vocational high school for business. What did I know about psychology? Nothing!

It was one year out of my husband's life. Just a year but that year was in Phu Bia near the DMZ when he was just 18. He turned 19 while deployed. I looked back at my own life while reading about trauma and what it does. I had a lifetime of trauma including the years when my Dad was a violent alcoholic. I almost died when I was 4 years old after an accident at a drive-in movie so I understood what terror was as well. I was on top of a very high slide without my brothers. I was so terrified being up that high alone that my hands grabbed the rails so hard that the impatient kid behind me shoved me hard to get me out of the way and sent me over the edge. I had TBI before anyone knew what it was.

I knew what it was like to be attacked because my ex-husband tried to kill me. The list goes on but while I understood what he went through and how it could have changed him more, I couldn't figure out why none of what I faced over a lifetime didn't really changed me.

The answer became clear. My family talked everything to death. I talked, they listened and most of the time they gave bad advice, but I knew I was safe and they loved me no matter what. The other factor, which is a huge one, is my faith in God and how I think of Christ knowing He loves me no matter what.

Veterans needed someone safe to talk to as much as I did growing up. They needed to know they were loved no matter what and to understand that the Bible is not filled with condemnation but the New Commandment Christ delivered before the Cross and what He did when He forgave even the hands that nailed Him to it.

The books I wrote, the videos I've made are all to make it easier to understand what it has taken over half my life to learn. Combat PTSD does not have to win. It does not have to destroy lives or breakup families. It does not have to and it won't as long as veterans receive the help they need as simply as possible.

Wounded Times is about the stories covered by news reports from across the country and many articles written to counter some of the crap that is being reported because too many reporters do not have even a basic understanding of any of this but I have an archive with almost 21,000 posts on it here.

The videos I create are on PTSD and the videos I film are on Central Florida Veterans events.

Veterans are just 7% of the population but they are so deserving of my devotion that they are the only subject that matters here along with their families. Combat PTSD does not have to win anything!