PTSD Cuts in Many Directions

Iraq War veteran struggles to regain basic human emotions after 14 years of combat
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BY ANDY MARTINO
Sunday, June 14, 2015

Back in the states, Sean was trained to kick ass and destroy. Now his orders are to be sensitive, engage with the people, build relationships. He is supposed to show compassion, just as he is losing the ability to do so.

You lie awake one night in the basement of a mansion that belonged to one of Saddam’s sons, either Uday or Qusay Hussein, wondering what kind of twisted s**t went down there, and at noon the next day you see death bobbing in the Tigris River.

The caravan of Humvees stops, and soldiers begin to step out into the 120-degree Baghdad day. You hear on your radio, “Hey I think we’ve got something in the water,” then, “yeah, it’s a body.”

You walk to the river, past your men. They’re smoking, chatting, securing the area. The guy in the water is an Iraqi civilian, or was. Now he is face down, gently bumping against the concrete wall that divides water from land. His stomach is bloated. He is wearing khakis and a short-sleeved, button-down shirt. Hands tied, exit wounds in the back of his head.

And you know what bothers you most? That you have to wait around for the Iraqi security forces to arrive and clean him up, which will take hours. Which means you will miss dinner at the chow hall. Which means that you will have nothing but a Pop Tart to eat before you go to sleep. This matters much more than the dead guy, his family, whatever.

It is late summer, 2006, nearly a year into your first deployment, and this moment tells you that your empathy is shot.

But he is starting to realize that it is not peace he is feeling. He has not, in fact, conquered stress. He lost the ability to care.

That’s not to minimize how combat rewires the brain for anger, too. PTSD cuts in many directions.
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