PTSD: Resilient Does Not Mean Impervious

War Icons We Fail To Remember
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 25, 2015

When a veteran looks at a young person enlisting in the military they are torn. They remember their own decision to serve and the pride they had stepping up to put everything they had on the line "up to and including their own life" at the same time they remember what it felt like to awaken to the simple fact they would never, ever be a civilian again.

How do they warn them? How do you tell a teenager fresh out-of high school they will live with this one decision for the rest of their lives? Would they go back in time and do any of it differently?

There are choices in life that define all of us. Terms in the dictionary we hardly ever hear the meaning of while assuming we know it all. When a nation decides to send men and women off to fight wars, we want it all nice and tidy clean. We cheer them as they go and wave flags. We don't want to see what they go through. We don't want to see the horrors they see.

When they return, we want to believe nothing bad happened to them or because of them. We want to believe it all occurred as if Harry Potter gave them all magic wands to cause the enemy to fall. We want the icons.

We want to see the images like George Washington crossing the Delaware Christmas Day 1776 but we don't want to see how the soldiers with him were freezing because they did not have enough supplies or support.

"The freezing and tired Continental Army assembled on the Jersey shore without any major debacles. Once ready, Washington led his army on the road to Trenton. It was there that he secured the Continental Army's first major military victory of the war. Without the determination, resiliency, and leadership exhibited by Washington while crossing the Delaware River the victory at Trenton would not have been possible."

This is the definition of resilient "able to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens: able to return to an original shape after being pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc."

We want the image of raising the flag at Iwo Jima but we don't want to be reminded of what they went through before it or afterwards.

"There are six Flag Raisers on the famous Iwo Jima photo. Four in the front line and two in back. The front four are (left to right) Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley and Harlon Block. The back two are Michael Strank (behind Sousley) and Rene Gagnon (behind Bradley). Strank, Block and Sousley would die shortly afterwards. Bradley, Hayes and Gagnon became national heroes within weeks."

That is what the military thought they could create in soldiers over seven years ago. Soldiers are not manufactured things with no feelings or emotional bonds to others.

Somehow they got the notion that they were no longer humans filled with all the complexities of what makes military folks able to do what they do at all. They are brave. It takes bravery to be face off with an opposing force wanting to kill them and their friends. They were already resilient and proved that simply by getting through military training pushing their bodies and minds past the point of no-return to their civilian youth. They are bonded to their units and pulled from their families just long enough to be sent back to them with the war ingrained on their soul.

If you look up the definition of capacity you'll see what has been happening when they come home. "The ability to hold or contain people or things: the largest amount or number that can be held or contained: the ability to do something : a mental, emotional, or physical ability." For all they do, all they are willing to do in service no one thinks of their capacity to accomplish the task has limits.

The solider trained in this theory believed it meant they were to become Impervious "not capable of being damaged or harmed."

It seems the military had the same misunderstanding of what this research project they bought into would accomplish especially when Generals tried to pin the suicides to what these soldiers lacked when they were afflicted by PTSD and no matter how much training they had, could no longer live with the pain.

"Some of it is just personal make-up. Intestinal fortitude. Mental toughness that ensures that people are able to deal with stressful situations." General Raymond Odierno

That thought must have excluded Medal of Honor icons like Dakota Meyer suffering from his memories so much so he pulled over to the side of the road one day, removed the gun from his glove compartment, put the barrel to his head and pulled the trigger not knowing the bullets had already been removed. Omitted remembering all the other Medal of Honor recipients openly discussing their own struggles.

Today there is another icon capturing the attention of the nation, Chris Kyle, "American Sniper" and subject of the mega hit movie. The bravado statements he made in his book were only part of his story just as what he did after he came home from war for the last time but could not find peace. Even today, after death to him was up close through the scope and personal because he could see the eyes of his target as well as what happened when his bullet ripped flesh and bone some dared call him a coward. Some use his service as a call to hate but most view his suffering as a call to help heal.

When more left the military entering into the civilian world again, Americans were shocked to learn there were 22 of them committing suicide every day but the shock wore off. They didn't understand that these veterans were still only human after all. They didn't want to be reminded of the fact they were sent because Americans wanted them to go as long as they didn't have to subjected to any of the horrors or be held responsible for the aftermath.

They didn't want to know that as shocking as those numbers were, they were only a fraction of what was really happening. Only 7% of the population yet veterans are double the suicide numbers of civilians and the most stunning number is that young veterans survived combat yet their rate of suicide is triple their peer rate.

These veterans were trained to fight in combat but that training prevented them from surviving home.

Seeking help was not an option when they all received the same convoluted message of being trained to "return to an original shape after being pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc."

Right now we are faced with a growing number of combat veterans after troops have been removed from Afghanistan and Iraq. These veterans are no longer counted by the military. After washing their hands from the defiling of yet one more generation of warfighters, we were suffering from the delusion of them being cared for and about by those leaders. We search for other reasons when the facts have been slamming us in the face for years.

Parent after parent stands at the grave of a veteran shattered by all that was done to them piled on top of what they had to do. They wonder why it happened then they wonder what they can do to prevent another family from suffering the same deadly end. They get their story into the newspaper and their community becomes aware for a time. Then they go back to reality TV shows. They get the attention of a politician willing to hear their story. They are promised something will be done while what was already done and failed far too many before is never mentioned.

They get a Congressional Bill produced with the same name ingrained on the tombstone and the family goes back home joining the ranks of the other families led to believe fairy tales only to pick up the newspaper years later discovering nothing changed and more died by their own hand.

They blame themselves wondering what they did wrong. Friends blame themselves for not seeing warning signs. Communities show up and hold candlelight memorials when the real memories they should have held were about the promises they heard before.

Older veterans however remember. They remember the time when they came home and no one noticed the burden in their minds. When they stood and fought the government to "bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle." As these veterans watch younger folks join, they remember it all up to and including the fact that just because they come home from war, the war was not left behind.