PTSD: "I was an iron soldier"

The Iron Soldier 
A DECADE REMOVED FROM THE TRAUMAS OF IRAQ
FORMER ARMY TANKER AGIFA CONSTABLE IS STILL TRYING TO COME HOME
APP
Ken Serrano

The perfect enemy 
CHAPTER ONE

“I just kept playing sane, acting like I was normal, like I was OK. I knew I had PTSD, but I thought I could fight it alone.” Agifa Constable


Agifa Constable jiggles a bottle of anti-anxiety pills so fiercely it sounds menacing.

The 34-year-old Iraq War veteran stalks through his garden apartment, pops the cap and throws two pills in his mouth.

"I'm rattled," he says, his body visibly tense, his movements sharp and erratic.

Constable served as cannon loader on an Abrams M1A1 tank, spending 17 months in combat in Iraq before it ended for him 10 years ago.

"I was an iron soldier," he says. "I was trained to suck it up and drive on." 

With his razored Mohawk, prizefighter's physique and piercing stare, Constable looks ready for combat. But on the inside, the former tanker admits he is coming apart — trapped within his own emotional armor.

For more than 10 years, he's battled post-traumatic stress disorder, like more than 200,000 other U.S. veterans who returned with the condition from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Constable has "severe PTSD" based upon multiple traumas during combat, according to a report submitted to a judge by clinical psychologist Mark Siegert.

The veteran also suffers from brain concussions and amnesia, among other mental and physical injuries, Siegert said. Shinbone fractures have left Constable with a limp.

Of the men and women who receive treatment for PTSD, most will recover, experts say. But it's not at all clear if Constable will be one of them.
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