Yochi Dreazen War Correspondents Battle With PTSD

The path not taken: A war correspondent’s struggle with PTSD
Boston Globe
By Yochi Dreazen
OCTOBER 02, 2015

I had full-blown PTSD, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I was a war correspondent; I was a tough guy. Tough guys, I believed, didn’t need help.

SCOTT NELSON/GETTY IMAGES

Journalists scrambled behind US Marines practicing squad rushes in northern Kuwait in 2003.

Yochi Dreazen is the managing editor of Foreign Policy. His book “The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in an Era of Endless War,” from which this essay is adapted, will be reissued in paperback on Oct. 6.

I WANTED TO be a war correspondent from the day I entered journalism. In 2003, with American troops massing in the Middle East, I got my chance. I left for Iraq that spring, drawn, like so many of my colleagues, by the excitement and danger of covering a war. I wrote about the invasion, flew back to the United States for a couple of months, and then went back to Baghdad in August to help open The Wall Street Journal’s bureau there. I lived in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and, after that, went back every few months to do combat embeds with the troops fighting what had by that point become a full-on civil war.

I saw dead and dying Americans; I saw dead and dying Iraqis. I was interviewing a tribal sheikh in southern Iraq once when my translator stepped away to take a phone call, sat back down, and told me that there had just been a major suicide bombing in the nearby city of Karbalah that had killed dozens of Iranian pilgrims, including a large number of children. In Karbalah, I watched a chador-clad woman slowly make her way up and down each row of corpses, pulling back every sheet, until she found the shattered body of her son. At the sight, she let out a scream and then collapsed to the ground. I will never forget the sound of that mother’s grief.

I returned from that trip, and from all of my others to the war zones, far different than when I had left. The war was changing me, hardening me. I felt flashes of pure rage when someone ran into me on the basketball court or cut me off on the road. I chose tables at restaurants that were as far from the front doors and windows as possible, in case a bomb went off outside. I would wake up whenever there was a sound in my bedroom and then be unable to fall back asleep. In some of my dreams, loved ones died. In some, I did. I had full-blown PTSD, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I was a war correspondent; I was a tough guy. Tough guys, I believed, didn’t need help.

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War photographer Jason Howe's battle with PTSD

Jason Howe's photograph of Private Stephen Bainbridge stepping on an IED in Afghanistan set in motion a traumatic chain of events for the photographer himself

A cropped version of Jason Howe's 2011 photograph for the Telegraph of Pte Stephen Bainbridge. It was the first image of a wounded soldier on a battlefield in 30 years  Photo: Jason P Howe

The Telegraph
Jessica Salter
November 8, 2014

After a few ‘tough months’, gradually his new life seemed to be helping him. He forged a simple structure to his day: feed the chickens, take the dogs for a walk, tend the vegetables in his garden. He avoided coffee and cigarettes, and stopped reading the news or watching films about war – triggers for his symptoms. The problems were still there, as were the nightmares and depression, but he said he had been managing it.

Despite Howe’s best efforts over the past two years, in a recent email he told me that he is currently suffering a relapse of PTSD. The main debilitating issue is depression. ‘I have a very dark view of the world where, whatever I do, it doesn’t change,’ he said. But it is compounded by problems concentrating and hyper-vigilance – he exhaustively imagines the worst outcomes of every situation.

^{After Howe’s traumatic experiences caused him to give up front-line photography, he retreated to a farmhouse in Andalusia, where he now leads a simple life, walking his dogs and tending his vegetables.} 

^{PHOTO: James Arthur Allen}

He also feels anger. And at times he feels abandoned by the media industry, but ‘then I feel I have nothing to complain about since it was my choice to go to war, and I have to deal with the consequences myself’. Because he has not been able to work, Howe is now facing eviction from his farmhouse. He is planning a road trip around Europe, photographing people who seek a simpler, more sustainable way to live than modern life offers.

He plans to trade website photography for campsites and meals.

‘I am a very positive person, a fighter and a survivor,’ he said at the end of his email. ‘But it is a hard battle and one that I do not always foresee there being the energy available to fight.’

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Joe Galloway At Angel Fire for Memorial Day

Memorial Day speaker Galloway: ‘War correspondents are not heros
Sangre de Cristo Chronicle
By Ellen Miller-Goins
Staff writer
Published:
Thursday, May 22, 2014

ANGEL FIRE — War correspondents are sometimes lost to history. Perhaps their name becomes nothing more than a forgotten byline on a forgotten news story. Perhaps, like so many of their brethren, they die alongside the soldiers whose stories they came to tell.

This is not the case with Joe Galloway, a journalist whose career spanned many decades — and several wars — before he retired from his last regular “beat” in 2010. Galloway, 72, is so well-known among veterans and others he is frequently asked to be a guest speaker at Memorial Day and Veterans Day Events nationwide. This year he will be keynote speaker during the annual Memorial Day Ceremony at Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park, 11 a.m., Monday, May 26.

“I’m excited to see the memorial in Angel Fire and to see Angel Fire,” Galloway said during a recent telephone interview with the Sangre de Cristo Chronicle. “I’ve had many invitations over the years. This time I was determined to do it.”

For the uninitiated who may be wondering why a journalist is being tapped to speak to — and on behalf of — veterans, consider that Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway “the finest combat correspondent of our generation — a soldier’s reporter and a soldier’s friend.”

He is the only civilian to be awarded a Bronze Star by the Army for his actions rescuing wounded soldiers under fire in the Ia Drang Valley during the Vietnam War. War correspondents are there to be a witness, Galloway has said, but “there are some events that are so overwhelming that you cannot simply be a witness. You get caught in a situation where that’s not enough… you must stop and render aid.”
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Vietnam Veteran reminds you "They May Have Been Heroes"

Before you go to the link below and look at the stunning pictures, take a second to understand the photographer is a Vietnam veteran. Be prepared to look at their faces and into their eyes and ask yourself what you would say to them if you were standing next to them. Would you stand next to them? Have anything to say at all? Ask them any questions? Offer them help, a hug or even say you will pray for them? Or would you just see them and walk to the other side of the street so they wouldn't bother you?

Ex-Drill Sergeant Travels The Country Finding And Photographing Homeless Veterans
FStoppers.com
Gary Martin
February 5, 2014

Photographer Jerry Tovo has spent the better part of the last 2 years pursuing a personal project around the USA called “They May Have Been Heroes.” The project is dedicated to raising the Nation’s awareness to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of homeless Veterans, by photographing, videotaping and otherwise recording their stories. The photos and stories are both captivating and heartbreaking.

About Jerry Tovo
Jerry Tovo is a married 67-year-old photographer from the Heartland of America. A former Drill Sergeant from the Vietnam era with a minor military disability, Jerry has chosen to take on this incredible challenge.

When Jerry was 56, and already considered by many to be a world-class photographer, he seized the opportunity to spend seven years in the field working with some of the greatest photographers in the country as a representative for Kodak Professional. It was there he came to the realization that new digital technology was a perfect fit for the black and white imagery he has so readily embraced. During that time, Jerry found himself diving headlong into combining that new technology with the style of the old masters. He has since refined that combination into a new style that is perfectly tailored to this project.
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Photographer embedded with US soldiers severely wounded by bomb

Blast photographer wounds 'severe'
(UKPA) – 5 hours ago
The family of a London photographer blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan have said in a statement that his injuries are "severe and complex".
Giles Duley, 39, underwent multiple amputations after the blast in Kandahar on Monday last week, before being flown back to the UK.
He had been embedded with US troops when he was critically injured by an improvised explosive device.
He was brought back to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham for further surgery, and was said to be in a stable condition on Saturday.
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Blast photographer wounds severe

Vietnam veteran captured more than history on film

Steve Robinson took pictures in Vietnam and is using them to help other veterans heal.

Newly revealed war photos help veteran open up
By LES COCKRELL Denton Record-Chronicle © 2010 The Associated Press
Dec. 5, 2010, 12:04AM
DENTON, Texas — Photographs of the Vietnam War that were locked away for more than 40 years are now helping other veterans unlock their own feelings about being under fire.

"It helps them to talk about their experiences," said Steve Robinson, who served as a combat photographer with the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Air Cavalry Division. "A lot of my photographs have brought out situations that they wouldn't talk about otherwise."

Robinson, who recently shared his photos while visiting Denton, understands why veterans are reluctant to talk about their experiences, and that is why about 1,500 personal photos he took during two years in Vietnam were hidden away for so long.

"I never talked about the war," he said. "I was trying to forget the war."

It was a show on History about Medal of Honor winners that helped change his mind, Robinson said. He remembered shooting photographs of a soldier who was later awarded the nation's highest military honor.

It was in June 1968 when Robinson focused his Pentax on Spc. Hector Santiago-Colon and other members of a nearby mortar crew. A short time later, Santiago-Colon threw himself on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers, an action that earned the Puerto Rico native the Medal of Honor.

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Newly revealed war photos help veteran open up

Combat cameraman’s valor earns Silver Star

Combat cameraman’s valor earns Silver Star
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 15, 2008 8:51:22 EST

It was daybreak on April 6 when the air assault force thundered around the corner of a mountain in northeastern Afghanistan into what they knew would be a buzz saw.

One soldier on the mountain that day had never seen anything close to real combat.

Spc. Michael Carter, 25, a combat documentation and production specialist with 55th Signal Company (Combat Camera), was near the end of his first deployment to Afghanistan and was there that day to videotape parts of the mission.

He was filling in for his more experienced boss, a staff sergeant who was sick, and joined the men of ODA 3336 only hours before they departed for the mission.

Carter is one of 10 soldiers who on Dec. 12 were awarded Silver Star medals for heroic actions in that battle.

Read the soldiers’ narratives from the battle
Battle narrative
Staff Sgt. John W. Walding
Staff Sgt. Seth E. Howard
Sgt. David J. Sanders
Staff Sgt. Ronald J. Shurer
Capt. Kyle M. Walton
Sgt. Matthew O. Williams
Spc. Michael D. Carter
Staff Sgt. Dillon L. Behr
Staff Sergeant Luis G. Morales
Master Sergeant Scott E. Ford

click links above for the rest