It’s very humbling to hear from our readers. Last week, we received an e-mail that really impacted us. Here is an excerpt:
I must show some thanks to this writer just for bailing me out. Because of browsing through the web, I believed my life was gone. Existing without approaches… is a serious case, as well as ones that would have badly affected my entire career if I hadn’t come across your site. I am not sure what I would’ve done if I hadn’t encountered such a point like this. It’s possible to at this point relish my future.
To post a response to our blog, our system asks writers to provide an e-mail address. After reading Douglas’ post, I immediately wrote him an e-mail and sent it out. Unfortunately, my correspondence came back as not deliverable. And I get that. Sharing your story takes a great deal of trust (please know that we made our privacy policy extremely rigid in order to earn that trust).
So, I want to take time in this blog today to write an open letter to Douglas in hopes that it will encourage him and you also. Please keep the e-mails and letters coming; we read each correspondence and feel privileged to be a part of your journey. -Virginia
Douglas,
Thank you very much for taking the time to post to our blog. You are the exact person we are looking to reach out to through The Veterans’ PTSD Project.
I wanted to reach out to you personally since I have been exactly where you are now. I want you to know that, like thousands of other Combat Vets of Iraq and Afghanistan, I worked through my Post-Traumatic Stress and have come out stronger than before – with better relationships, stronger faith, and a confidence that was forged through fire. I believe that you will, too.
When I was at the beginning of my journey through PTSD, I felt like I had lost everything – my mind, my relationships, and even my sense of self because everything I knew was tied to being a Soldier. It took me a long time to work through my PTSD because I was ashamed and I did not look for help until I was completely broken. This will not happen to you because you recognize now that you can get the help you need and come back stronger than ever.
The first step I suggest is to find a support network. These do not necessarily have to be other Combat Vets, but people you can confide in and who can be aware that you are working through your PTSD. For me, it was my church. I spoke to my pastor and had an amazing group of friends through our Bible study who called me every now and again to check in with me and see how I was doing. It made a difference. You can even find groups online to support you – if you need help finding one, let us know.
Next, start focusing on how you can come back stronger than before – it is time to reach out and find professional help. If you had a broken arm, you would not hesitate to get the bone set; the same goes for PTSD – once you get “set” your healing will be rapid and miraculous. But it’s like shin splints: the only way to let them heal is to lay off running for awhile – but, by awhile, I do not mean a year or ten years. You will start coming back stronger in a matter of weeks, and this will inspire your next breakthrough. There has been more research on PTSD in the last five years than the 50 years before that because so many researchers, counselors, pastors and doctors care about Combat Vets like you. It is important to link into professionals who have been proven to help Vets. You can find help through military groups like the VA or civilian groups like Give an Hour who provide free and confidential counseling to Combat Vets. You can do this – the most you have to lose is an hour of your time.
With these two steps, you are very well on your way. Having your unique perspective will give you an edge in your career, your family and in your relationships. When you are at the end of your journey through PTSD, you will marvel at how different you are and how far you’ve come.
Douglas, I want you to know that this struggle is worth it. The life and the perspective you will gain as a result of having come through PTSD is amazing and it will inspire you to reach out to others and change the world in a way you never anticipated. You will be better than okay – you’ll be a better man, father, and husband because you had the courage to face this. It’s not easy, but it is worth the battle.
Lastly, I encourage you to reach out to others for prayer. I know that this was an integral part of my recovery and resilience. Even if you do not have a faith background, there is nothing lost by having dozens of people who care about you petition God on your behalf.
Again, Douglas, I thank you and I encourage you to keep in touch with us. You are going to get through this and, when you do, I will look to you to reach back through The Veterans’ PTSD Project or through other means to pass on your lessons learned. I pray God’s abundant blessings upon you and your family and I am excited knowing that your life is about to change forever in a very good way.
Sincerely, Virginia
Thanks for your time in reading this. You can reach us directly at virginia@veteransptsdproject.com and joan@veteransptsdproject.com
Throughout the last few weeks on our Facebook page, we’ve been talking about the effect PTSD has on families. Our Veterans’ PTSD Project story this week comes from Leila Levinson, a gifted writer who speaks about this issue with compassion since she has lived it herself. Leila founded the online community veteranschildren.com where Veterans and their children share their stories. Leila just launched the e-book version of her award winning book, Gated Grief, on February 16. It is one of the most poignant accounts I have ever read about WWII liberators, PTSD, and families. The e-book will be available to download on Amazon for $1.99 until February 23. I believe that you will be as moved and inspired as I was by this Veterans’ PTSD Project story. -Virginia
My Father’s War Cursed Me Before It Became My Blessing
by Leila Levinson
Until I was five, I knew the silence of a mother who sat at the kitchen table smoking endless cigarettes and drinking bottomless glasses of wine. Then, one day while she and I were shopping, policemen appeared and arrested her for shoplifting. On the way to the station, my mother clutched my arm and pleaded, “Don’t leave me. If you let them take you, I’ll never see you again.” At the station they did take me from her. And I never saw her again.
Silence became my family’s language as well as its atmosphere.
For weeks I begged to know when my mother would return. My father looked over my head, my words inaudible. The word “mother” disappeared from our home. I entered the silence of forbidden grief, a silence whose external frame of melancholy encased my two brothers and me. Instead of conversation at dinner, my father played records on a stereo, the voices of Barbara Streisand or the Yale Whiffenpoofs occupying the space. The one song I remember is “A Motherless Child;” its refrain “sometimes I feel like a motherless child a long way from home” repeated over and over like a mechanized needle driving into my brain. Yet no one else at the table seemed to hear the words.
I became the perfect daughter—the star pupil in school, the well-behaved child at home, never having a problem, an issue, an upset—until the middle of my first semester of law school when the nightmare began to visit, when depression and anxiety sucked me down under the water.
I flew back to New Jersey determined to learn from my father what had happened to my mother. We sat at the linoleum-topped table in the small kitchen of his office, the only place he might open up and talk. “Do well in law school,” he urged. “Because no matter what else happens in your life, you always have your work.” He kept a lock on my eyes until I nodded assent.
We took our dishes to the sink, and as I rinsed them, I took a deep breath. “Dad, I need to tell you something.”
“What? Tell me. I’m listening.”
“I’ve been seeing a therapist—at school. I had a hard time this past January, having nightmares, being depressed. It all seemed to catch up with me. We’ve acted as if nothing bad happened to us, as if everything that went wrong didn’t affect us, but it did, and I’m trying to figure out how it did.”
He turned his face away from me..
“So, Dad, I really need to know what happened to her—to my mother.”
Silence.
“Can you tell me, Dad, please?”
Tears ran down my father’s face—tears falling onto his beautifully pressed light blue Brooks Brothers shirt.
“I can’t talk about it—not yet,” he said in a voice so soft I leaned over to hear him. “Maybe someday…”
I wrapped my arms around him, his arms by his side, as my own tears spotted his shirt. He pulled away. “We can’t cry. We have to be strong. We can’t stop now, after all this time.”
When my father died several years after I graduated from law school, I thought I’d never know the story of my life. But then in the basement of his medical office I found his WWII Army trunk. Inside was a shoe box full of photographs he had taken as an Army doctor in the European Theatre.
Most brought to mind the little he had told us about the war: crossing the English Channel on June 2, 1944. Prelude to the invasion at Utah Beach.” Photos of GIs lying on the ground, covered in white bandages. “The Clearing Station on Utah Beach, Mountains of rubble next to the remains of churches and homes. Fields of snow, of tanks and bodies covered in snow. “The Ardennes.”
I flipped through the photos, repetitive with war’s destruction until, at the bottom of the box, blurred stripes seized my eyes. Rows and rows of stripes that cascaded into a wave. A foot emerged from the chaos, a leg. Many legs. Grotesque, frozen faces. My fingers pinched the top corner and turned over the photo. “Nordhausen, Germany. April 12, 1945.”
Nordhausen. What in God’s name was Nordhausen? Another, more focused: a long canal-shaped ditch filled with bodies. Body after body. In a row. An endless row of bodies. “The burial of the concentration camps victims. April 15, 1945.”
It took me twelve years, major episodes of depression, and teaching a course on the Holocaust before I became ready to understand what these photographs were showing me. I went to my aunt, my father’s only surviving sibling.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Your father’s medical battalion liberated that camp. It’s where the Nazis forced prisoners to make the V-1 bombs that hurled fire onto London. After more than two weeks of trying to keeps its survivors alive, your father had a nervous breakdown.”
My father? A nervous breakdown? Impossible. He had always scorned psychologists and therapists; the mere mention of the word depression aroused ire. “I didn’t raise you to be a princess,” he had said, when in law school I had confessed my crippling depression to him. “We pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. We keep the flag flying.” But I remembered that in one of my father’s photographs, he was sitting on a beach, barely dressed, his face bleached with despair. On the back his handwriting noted “Cannes, May 1945.”
Over the next year I located and interviewed more than seventy World War II veterans who had also liberated Nazi concentration camps. “I was never the same, never,” one man told me. Another said, “The shock was complete. My mind froze.” “I’ve never told anyone,” a Veteran Army surgeon said. “Words cannot convey… .” “I’m still not prepared for Mauthausen,” an 86-year-old veteran whispered.
Sixty-five years later, these men and women remain traumatized. Yet very few have spoken about it with their spouses, and even fewer have shared their memories with their children, though their children—like me—know on a deep nonverbal level what their fathers and mothers have witnessed, because, like me, they absorbed the repressed grief in their silent childhood homes.
A few months ago I was lucky enough to attend a listening circle for Veterans and their families in Atlanta. When my turn came, I described how my father exiled grief from our home and was unable to see the consequences of his silent rules. A veteran of Vietnam began crying and said that as he heard my words, he saw that he had also banned grief from his home. “I was terrified,” he said, “that if my children grieved, I would have to feel my grief.”
The grief is so vast, the memories so horrific, that—as one veteran told me after I had packed away my tape recorder—“I was certain they would destroy me.”
In discovering my father’s trauma, I discovered my own. For years my therapist had suggested I had been traumatized. No, not me, I insisted. Not me. But as I met these Veterans, I came to see that what we call PTSD takes different forms. The media shows PTSD as rage that leads to alcoholism, abuse, suicide. I observed none of those in the Veterans I met. I saw profound melancholy along side a deep abiding drive to do good. I saw repressed grief, a resistance to looking back at the moment of the trauma. Because looking instantly transported them back to that moment, the horror happening again, never having stopped happening. I saw disassociation from the person who witnessed the unthinkable, a sudden switch to speaking of themselves in the second person—“you” rather than “I.” Rather than rage, I saw anger and resentment that the rest of us have no idea and don’t want to have any idea.
Many of these attributes are my own. I absorbed and reflect my father’s trauma.
PTSD is more than a disorder of the brain. It is a wound to the soul from witnessing and participating in killing.
We know we are more than capable of killing. Are we as capable of healing?
I can say yes, because I now live free of nightmares and– except for fleeting days– of depression and anxiety. Writing has played an enormous role in my healing. For fifteen years now, I have written and rewritten my memories, recreating the scenes, recovering the details, opening up the empty spaces between memories. At first, my intent was to recover; I did not realize that my giving words to my trauma also defused the power of the trauma. My words took the memories out of me, exposed them to air and light, and there, the terror shriveled.
Writing– and therapy and yoga– have given me not only a way to quell my fears but the means of recreating my future.
Over the last several years I have met many other children of Veterans and found how much we shared, how in all those years of living within suffocating silence, I was not alone. Children absorb and manifest their parents’ unresolved trauma.
Now I work with Veterans and their family members, sharing what I know about writing and how it can become a tool for healing. As I help others heal, I continue to heal myself. Now I see my heritage as a blessing, because it gives me work that can help others. This past January I published a book about what my father’s photographs revealed to me. The most satisfying moments the book has brought me are when people tell me how I have opened a window for them to understanding and having compassion for their Veteran parent. I have helped them to find peace.
Healing is a journey. I’m not sure if we ever arrive at the place where we can say, “I am healed.” I see life as a spiral, not a straight line, but if we maintain our practices, whatever ones we find that bring us light and peace, we will keep moving forward.
About the Author:
The daughter of a Nazi concentration camp liberator and army surgeon, Leila Levinson is the author of Gated Grief: The Daughter of a GI Concentration Camp Liberator Discovers a Legacy of Trauma which won the President’s Award from the Military Writers Society of America. A graduate of Vassar College, Indiana University at Bloomington and the University of Texas School of Law, she has appeared on CNN, is a regular contributing blogger for Huffington Post, on veterans’ issues and has written for the Washington Post, the Austin American Statesman, the Texas Observer, WWII Quarterly, and War, Literature, and Art. Levinson found the online community veteranschildren.com where veterans and their children share their stories, and is now organizing a network of services for veterans and their family members in Austin, Texas, where she lives.
Posted in Guest Posts, Resources & Inspiration, Veterans' PTSD Project Stories, WWII
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Tagged children, concentration camp, Gated Grief, Leila Levinson, military families, parents, Veteranschildren.com, WWII
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with other Veterans’ service organizations in the Virginia/Washington DC area to learn how they are reaching out to Vets working through PTSD. There are many roads back to wholeness – and not all of them involve a drug regiment or talk therapy (which, for the record, I absolutely swear by myself – my psychologist is amazing). As the rates of suicide keep going up, I admire that organizations are trying something new: yoga, film making, meditation, mindfulness – there’s a lot out there about which you may not see a brochure at the VA.
Last weekend, I attended “The Telling,” a stage drama of real life stories put into a scripted performance by The Veteran Artist Program. The stories themselves were gripping and I was inspired by the courage it took each of the cast members to get up on stage and tell their personal stories of the military, war and life after.
I also told my story, but not on stage. Veteran advocate Charlie Palumbo and I were invited to participate in an upcoming documentary, ‘When Jane & Johnny Come Marching Homeless’ by film maker Nina Gilberti, and speak candidly about our experiences managing PTSD and the importance of paying it forward by giving Vets and Service Members hope that there is life – wonderful life – even with PTSD.
And this week, I am trying something completely new – group therapy. I am finishing up my masters in counseling at Liberty University and am in residence this week for a required class on group therapy. Much to my surprise, this is no lecture series – we are all “in group.” I just finished day one, and I have to admit that I am blown away by the method’s efficacy – before today, I had thought that it was just a cheaper alternative to individual therapy, and I was wrong. This is an amazing and effective therapeutic experience for me. I’ll report back at the end of the week.
In the meanwhile, have you found something non-standard for your PTSD that works for you?
Posted in Questions & Answers, Resources & Inspiration
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Tagged artist, Charlie Palumbo, film making, group therapy, Liberty University, Nina Gilberti, PTSD, talk therapy, The Telling, Veteran Artist Program, yoga
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2011 was brutal – just really, really busy. For me, I moved myself and my household back to the States, started a new job, bought a new house, made new friends, and even launched this new site. Many moving pieces fused together, by way of sheer miracle, at the very last minute – every single time.
It was exhausting.
This year, I’ve decided on a New Year’s resolution that I wish I had come up with years ago: in 2012, I promise to be easier on myself. This hit home for me four weeks ago. During the four-hour drive to my Reserve drill weekend duty, I felt overwhelmed with a depression that was as dark as what I had experienced after I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2006. I’d had a hard couple of weeks prior with family issues, work, and a lack of sleep. The stress grabbed a hold of me in a way I did not anticipate, and, before I knew it, nearly six years of healing flew out the driver’s side window and I found myself in tears – cryin’ and drivin’.
I heard my mind say, “Why am I even living?” and I immediately recognized that voice – that was not me; it was PTSD. I called a friend who has known me for years and she pulled me back into reality.
After I pulled myself together, I felt ashamed of having fallen into depression – how could I slip back six years in just a few weeks? Then, I thought, “Who cares?” I have had the advantage of reading all the submissions to our site, and not one author has found a cure-all or ended their narrative by saying, “and I never suffered from PTSD again.” Lasting healing takes time, and that’s okay.
At work, when someone asks for something particularly foolish, we tell them that we want to help them “manage their expectations.” Their request may be perfectly reasonable, but their expectations of when or how that request will happen are not. It is a favorite euphemism of mine, and, while recovering from my drivin’ and cryin’, I got to use it on myself.
And what is so bad about that? Maybe it is time to “manage our expectations” – not change our goals, or lose sight or our dreams. In 2012, why not commit to being easier on ourselves? Now take this for what it is: I’m not suggesting that we all ride the couch and fall into a food coma; I am suggesting that we give ourselves a break while coming back from PTSD. Healing will come; getting frustrated about the timeline will not help it come faster.
If there is one community that is driven to a fault, it’s this one – the military has high standards, and so does everyone who is or was part of it. We’re also pretty critical, especially of ourselves. While that instinct helped you max your PFT and ace your promotion board, it is not necessarily helpful to be hard on yourself when working to come back stronger from PTSD.
I’m not preaching from any perch – I just came to this resolution last week. And choosing to be easier on myself is helping. For 2012, I want some breathing room, and I am betting that you do, too.
This Veterans’ PTSD Project story is from award-winning author and United States Marine, AW Schade. It takes a different tone from our previous narratives in that AW speaks candidly about his experience transforming from civilian to Marine, fighting in Vietnam with his brothers, and fighting his demons for more than forty years after the war. Behind this powerful account is tremendous humility. While corresponding with us this past month, AW said, “I felt a need to work through my problems and help others through writing what I could.” Presenting AW Schade’s story is an honor. I believe that his honesty will not only give his readers courage to get the help they need, but that we will all come away more inspired, more thankful and more encouraged to take on the challenges we feel today. Truly, this is a gift for Christmas week. -Virginia
The Demons of War are Persistent – by AW Schade, USMC 1965/69
My pledge to God, Country, and Marine Corps was over forty years ago. As a young, unproven warrior, I consented to the ancient rules of war. At eighteen, like many others, I was immersed in the ageless stench of death and carnage in the mountains and jungles of Vietnam.
However, my journey began much earlier, on a sixty-mile bus ride with other nervous teenagers to New York City’s legendary Induction Center at 39 White Hall Street. We went through lines of examinations and stood around for hours. We recognized one another’s bare asses before we had the chance to learn each other’s names. We did not realize so many of us would remain together in squads and fire teams, building deep-seated bonds of friendships along our journey. Our initial ‘shock’ indoctrination began immediately at Parris Island, by intimidating Drill Instructors, who scrambled our disoriented butts off the bus. They organized us into a semblance of a formation and herded us to barracks for a night of hell. Anxiety, second-guessing our decision to join, and apprehension was our welcoming. This was followed by what we thought would be sleep, but was merely a nap. We were woken in awe by explosive clamor as the DIs banged on tin garbage can lids next to our bunks yelling, “get up you maggots!” Even the largest recruits trembled with the smaller guys.
We remained maggots for the next few weeks as we began the intense physical and mental training of boot camp. Slowly recognizing the ultimate importance of the team, not the individual, was entrenched in our minds. In less than sixteen weeks we were proud United States Marines! It was a short celebration as we loaded our gear and headed to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Camp Pendleton in California, Okinawa and the Philippines, where we continued to enhance our stealth killing skills until the time came to execute our new talents on the blood-soaked fields of Vietnam.
We argued and fought among ourselves as brothers often do, but never lost sight of the bonds we shared: we were United States Marines with an indisputable commitment to always cover each other’s back. Crammed into the bowels of Navy carrier ships, we slept in hammocks, with no more than three inches from your brother’s butt sleeping above you. The Sailors laughed as these self-proclaimed “bad-ass Marines” transformed into the wimpy “Helmet Brigade,” vomiting for days on our way to Okinawa for counter guerrilla warfare training. Nevertheless, aware we were going to Vietnam, we partied hard in every port. The first of our battles began as slugfests in distant bar room brawls.
In confidence, we spoke as brothers about our fears, hardships growing-up, family, girl friends, times of humiliation, prejudice, and what we planned to do in our lifetime once our tour of duty in Vietnam was over. We knew how and what many of us were thinking about, and spoke as though we would all be returning home alive, never considering the thought of death or defeat. We had not learned that lesson yet. We dreamed of going home as respected American warriors who defended democracy in a remote foreign land.
Within sight of Saigon, we heard the roar of artillery, mortars and the familiar crackling of small-arms fire; sounds we were accustomed to through months of preparing ourselves for battle. However, for the first time we understood the sounds were not from playing war games. Anxiety, adrenaline highs, and fear of the unknown swirled within my mind. Was I prepared? Could I kill another man? Would another man kill me? From that point forward, death became part of my life.
The first time we touched down on Vietnam soil, we mechanically spread out in combat formation. Immediately, everything I was taught to watch out for rushed through my mind – was the enemy around us, was I standing near an enemy grenade trap, or stepping toward a punji pit filled with sharpened bamboo spikes? Seeing our company walking through the low brush gave me comfort, until an unexpected explosion deafened our senses. Our first meeting with death was due to one of our brother’s grenade pins not being secured.
Throughout a number of engagements we plunged by helicopters from their soaring formation to hovering a few feet off the ground. We anxiously leapt – some fell to the ground – into the midst of an already heated battle. The enemy sprung a deadly assault upon us; I became engrossed in the shock, fear, and adrenaline rush of battle. It was surreal! It was also not the time to ponder the killing of another human being, recall the rationale behind the ethics of war, or become absorbed in the horror of men slaughtering one another. Thoughts of war’s demons certainly were not on my mind.
When the killing ceased and the enemy withdrew, I remained motionless, exhausted from the fighting. With only a moment to think about what had just occurred, shock, hate, and anger were buried under the gratitude of being alive. I had to find out which of my brothers did or did not survive, and, as I turned to view the combat zone, I witnessed the reality of war: dreams, friendships, and future plans vanished. We knelt beside our brothers, some dead, many wounded and screaming in pain. A few lay there dying silently.
As I moved about the carnage, I noticed a lifeless body, face down, twisted abnormally in jungle debris. I pulled him gently from the tangled lair, unaware of the warrior I had found. Masked in blood and shattered bones, I was overwhelmed with disgust and primal obsession for revenge, as I realized the warrior was my mentor, hero and friend. I shouted at him as if he were alive: “Gunny, you can’t be dead! You fought in WWII and Korea. Wake up! Wake up Marine! I need you to fight beside me!” Tears flowed down my face as I held him close and whispered that he would not be forgotten. I placed him gently in a body bag, slowly pulling the zipper closed over his face, engulfing him in darkness.
Combat is vicious; rest is brief – destroying the enemy was our mission. We fought our skillful foes in many battles, until they or we were dead, wounded, or overwhelmed. Engaging enemy troops was horrific. Memories of guerrilla warfare in jungles and villages were equally, if not more, agonizing. We had to either accept or build psychological boundaries around the terror. Nonexistent were the lines of demarcation; we constantly struggled to identify which Vietnamese was a friend and which was a foe.
I was not aware of the change in my demeanor. In time, I realized that I had adjusted emotionally to contend with the atrocities and finality of war. I acquired stamina, could endure the stench of death, eliminate enemy combatants with little or no remorse, suppress memories of fallen companions, avoid forming new deep-rooted friendships, and struggled to accept the feasibility of a loving Lord. I never detected the nameless demons embedding themselves inside of me.
At the end of my tour, I packed minimal gear and left the jungle battlefields of Vietnam for America, never turning to bid farewell or ever again wanting to smell the pungent stench of death and fear. Within seventy-two hours, I was on the street I left fourteen months prior; a street untouched by war, poverty, hunger, or fear. I was home. I was alone. Aged well beyond my chronological age of nineteen, I was psychologically and emotionally confused. I had to transform from a slayer back into a (so-called) civilized man.
Except for family members and several high-school friends, returning home from Vietnam was demeaning. There were no bands, cheers of appreciation, or feeling of accomplishment. Instead, we were shunned and ridiculed for fighting in a war that our government assured us was crucial and for an honorable cause. I soon found that family, friends, and co-workers could never truly understand the events that transformed me in fourteen months, from a teenage boy to a battle-hardened man.
I was not able to engage in trivial conversations or take part in the adolescent games many of my friends still played. For them life did not change, and “struggle” was a job or the “unbearable” pressure of college they had to endure. It did not take me long to realize that they would never understand; there is no comparison between homework and carrying a dead man.
I fought alone to manage recurring nightmares. I locked it all away in a chamber labeled, “Do not open, horrors, chaos and lost friends from Vietnam.” However, suppressing dark memories is almost impossible. Random sounds, smells, or even words unleash nightmares, depression, anxiety and the seepages of bitterness.
I didn’t recognize the persistency of the demons to mature. Each time I thought I beat them, they were simply hidden deep within my soul. Disguised and deep-rooted, I assumed anxiety, loneliness, depression, alcohol abuse, nightmares, and suicidal thoughts were traits that haunted every man. For thirty-five years, I would not admit to these demons in my mind, and believed asking for medical assistance was a weakness as a man.
When the first Gulf War began in 1990, I sensed the demons bursting from within. No matter how hard I tried to avoid them, I saw vivid images and news coverage of every aspect of the war. The bodies and faces in the media were not strangers anymore. Instead, they were my brothers from a much older and forgotten war. I sought refuge with VA and began attending group therapy.
During my third or fourth group therapy session at the VA, the psychologist leading the meeting persuaded me to speak about myself, starting with my overall thoughts of my tour in Vietnam, but only to focus on what I accomplished instead of what I lost of myself. After a long hesitation, I told them the greatest accomplishment in Vietnam was the hundreds of people our teams personally saved from rape, torture, or savage death. We did not give a damn about the politicians and college students back home arguing, or running off to Canada to avoid the draft. We were enlisted Marines, on the front lines, protecting innocent people caught up in a horrific war.
My most positive moment, I continued, was when I lifted a three-year-old girl from the rubble that separated her from her parents, who were slaughtered by the Viet Cong for giving us rice the day before. Though traumatized and trembling in fear, she reached up to me, and I cradled her gently in my arms and made her smile for only a moment. I handed her to one of our extraordinary Corpsman, and continued to seek out the enemy who committed these atrocious murders. It was then I understood why I was in Vietnam.
However, as with all things I masked in my subconscious, I obscured that moment of compassion for decades until this small therapy group encouraged me to glance back and look for positive events which I buried within the worst of war’s memories.
Moving on to questions regarding my post-war years, the doctor asked me to focus on my career, an area where he knew I had some success. I explained that when I left the Marines after four years, I was youthful and confident in myself. I had no clue as to what depression and anxiety were, and I thought the nightmares were personal and temporary. I was determined to look forward, and in no way backwards to the war. Unfortunately, today I realize that while constantly looking forward helped me avoid chaotic memories of war, it also cloaked the memories of my formative younger years, and positive events throughout my life.
I never relished talking about myself, and thought it would be a good time to stop. However, the group asked me to continue. As peers, they knew I needed to feel a purpose, and not think my life was a second-rate existence. I was reluctant; as I looked around the room and knew many of the Vets succumbed to PTSD early in life and did not fare as well as I did. I felt I was about to sound like a wimp, or worse, a self-centered ass.
Awkwardly, I began to tell them – with many gaps – about my career after Vietnam. My first recollection was one they all understood; I went through eleven or twelve jobs feeling totally out of place. Watching sales managers gather their teams, and with fanatical enthusiasm tell them how great we were, and together would attain the highest sales revenue, beating all other regions. To me this was a game, compared to combat in the jungles of Vietnam.
Feeling extremely frustrated within this environment of man-games, I was ready to head back to the military. However, before reenlistment happened, I got married to my current wife of 42 years-who will be the first to tell you that living with a type-A personality with PTSD is often a living hell, especially when she had no idea what I was battling. But neither did I. Like millions of warriors before me, I never spoke to anyone about the war, or the nightmares that abruptly woke me, soaked in sweat and tears.
I decided not to reenlist and pursued a career in business, receiving an offer from a very large computer company to join their company as a collection administrator. Within about eight years I was selected to attend Syracuse University to attain a degree in Management – paid by the company at full salary. I accepted challenging positions in finance, marketing, business development, and sales, but the nightmares, depression, anger, and anxiety were increasing beyond my control. Traveling once was great, but after the second or third twenty-hour flight to Bangkok or Singapore, it got old quickly.
I began to realize boredom and repetition were major catalysts for my emotional setbacks; having too much time to think was a recipe for falling hard into the bowels of PTSD. Anger, frustrations, mood swings, and depression were common events affecting my family and career. I had stopped moving forward, and spent more time battling the memories of the past. It was at that time I understood the demons never leave; they simply wait for a sliver of weakness to overwhelm you; they are persistent.
Then, around the time of the First Gulf War, everywhere you turned there were vivid pictures of death, battles and impoverished families, and no way to escape the memories of Vietnam. At that time I still did not accept I had PTSD, but my brother-in-law, who has been treated for years, was resolute and talked me into getting a quick check up. Three psychiatrists later, I was not only diagnosed with PTSD, but for the first time understood about the demons I had been fighting alone for forty years.
Today, I have not fully won the battle against the demons, but, with the help of medications, therapy, outside physical activities and writing, I look ahead. The demons continue to haunt me with nightmares, depression, memory loss, anxiety and need for solitude. Because of these conditions, as well as road-rage, quick to anger, or sometimes not able to carry on a coherent conversation, I retired early from my job.
Although I am not able to sit down with a Vet and talk about war, I have taken on a cause through writing stories, such as this one, to reach out to young and senior Veterans to break the stigma of PTSD and seek assistance. It took me over three years to write my story.
Wishing someone had mentioned the following suggestions to me earlier in my life, although being macho I probably would not have listened, following are a few suggestions from one old warrior to others of all ages:
• Break through the stigma of PTSD and get medical assistance – it is real!
• Unless you are in a high-risk job, you will probably not experience the adrenaline rush and finality of your decisions as you did in combat. For me, I lived playing business games – never finding the ultimate adrenaline rush again. It is a void within me I think about often.
• The longer you wait for treatment, the harder it will be to handle the demons. They do not go away and can lay dormant in your soul for decades.
• Understand it is never too late in your life to begin looking forward and achieving new objectives.
• If you do not want to speak about PTSD with your family or friends, then hand them a brochure from the VA that explains what to look for, and why you need their support. You do not have to go into detail about the tragedies of war, but without your loved ones understanding your internal battle, your thoughts can lead to divorce, loss of family relationship, or suicide – a terrible waste of a hero.
• Silence and solitude is not the answer, if you have PTSD you may not be able to beat it alone.
• If you are concerned about your military or civilian job, seek help from peer resources. They have been what you have been through, and help keep you in the present, instead of the past.
• Or, just call a person in a peer support group anonymously. They will not know you, but will talk for as long as you wish.
• You cannot explain the horrors of war to someone, except maybe a PTSD psychologist, that has not experienced it.
• Get up off your ass and take a serious look into yourself!Accept the fact that if you have continuous nightmares, flashbacks, depression, bursts of anger, anxiety, or thoughts of suicide, you have PTSD. If so, talk to someone who can help. There is also financial assistance through the VA. The demons are not going away, but, you can learn to fight them.
Finally, let your ego and macho image go. There are too many individuals and groups today wanting to help you. If you do not, you may find yourself alone and bitter for a lifetime.
Semper Fi!
AW Schade; a Marine, Vietnam 1966/67, is a retired corporate executive and author of the award winning book, Looking for God within the Kingdom of Religious Confusion, – “A captivating, comparative, and enlightening tale that seeks to comprehend the doctrines and discord between and within Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Secularism. What the seeker discovers, transforms his life forever!” You can find videos and reviews online at www.awschade.com
Vietnam Veteran Ernie D’Leon lived with Post-Traumatic Stress for 25 years before a friend and fellow Veteran recognized Ernie’s suffering and encouraged him to get the help he needed to come back stronger. Across generations, we can learn much about PTSD from our Vietnam Vets. While the AO is different, these experiences ring true from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan and beyond. We are so honored to highlight our Vietnam warriors this month and give them thanks from a grateful nation.
The Silver Bullet
by Ernie D’Leon
For 25 years, I lived with all of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. I fought in Vietnam in the year 1968, but rarely, if ever, did I speak of the war. All of those memories had been compartmentalized and neatly boxed up into a safe little area, in the back of my mind.
When I came home from Vietnam, at the age of 22, I went back to college. It wasn’t easy, it was difficult to concentrate. My mind would constantly wander back into the war zone. It took me longer than most, but I finally graduated and I began to move forward in my chosen profession. I tried hard to fit back into society. I married, bought a home and had three children. The stresses that came along with that were normal for most; but at times seemed insurmountable to me. Stress aggravates PTS and my symptoms of anger and depression became chronic. I began to over react to everything that occurred in my life. I had night sweats and I thought that was normal, but nothing about me was normal anymore. Combat had changed me and the changes were dramatic.
As the years progressed, so did the memories. The façade that I had created long ago began to deteriorate. The recollections that I harbored of the war were breaking through the barriers and entering into my everyday thoughts.
I began to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. I was trying to sleep, I was trying to forget, but nothing helped.
It was difficult for me to relate to people, the war had made me different and I knew it and much worse, I felt it. Problems began to arise in my marriage and career. My life was spiraling out of control and the world I lived in now, began to collapse. Eventually, I lost my job and then my family.
I faced each day with a sense of dread and despair. The dimly lit essence that had flickered in my soul, was surrendering to the complexities of life.
The same recurring nightmares haunted me. I began to isolate. I knew that I was exhibiting abnormal behavior, but I couldn’t stop myself. The flashbacks of the war became more frequent and like a pack of hungry wolves stalking its prey, they soon began to follow me through the day. The physical wounds I received in battle had healed, but the emotional scarring continued to fester. It felt as if the flame that drove my spirit was slowly being extinguished and I began to get desperate.
My life became painful and I had fleeting thoughts of ending it all, but I was unwilling to surrender. I was a combat warrior. I had succeeded in performing the most dangerous job in the world and now I wanted desperately to come home. I wanted to belong.
I needed help, though I believed that no one, save another combat veteran, could understand my pain. I went to visit my friend Curtis, a former Navy Seal. We were in Vietnam in the same year. I wasn’t a Seal, I was Army Recon, but we were brothers-in-arms and he understood. He knew I was suffering greatly and that I was struggling with all of the symptoms of PTS. Curtis had also been wounded in the war and was already in therapy for post-traumatic stress. He advised me to do the same. With ominous feelings of guilt and shame I began therapy at the Vet Center in my area.
I was always reluctant to talk about my life. My behavior hadn’t been exemplary as a civilian and I wouldn’t talk about Vietnam. I didn’t want to be judged by someone who hadn’t been there. Instead, I blamed my depression and anger on everything and everyone around me.
Then one day, I spoke about my recurring flashback, an ambush, a firefight that took the lives of the two men on either side of me. I remembered listening to the screams for medic as I stood there unscathed. I had been in firefights before, but nothing this terrifying.
I remembered diving into the thick jungle carpet and firing my machine gun non-stop. The explosive outbursts of hand grenades and rockets jarred my body. My bones ached with the force of each impact. I could feel the heat of the enemy’s barrage of bullets as the projectiles danced around me. The sweet smell of spent gunpowder permeated the jungles lush, impassable surroundings. The crackling of the bullets whizzing past was bizarre and unnatural, like the noise a horse fly would make, if it traveled at the speed of sound. I heard the order to regroup and move out of the kill zone. In my haste, I grabbed the barrel of my machine gun. It was nearly white hot from the firing, but I couldn’t drop the weapon. As I spoke to my therapist, I again felt the searing in my hand go all the way up my arm and then I began to cry. I couldn’t understand why I had made it home alive, when so many of my brothers did not.
“They were all great warriors”, I told my therapist.
“Then honor their greatness,” she said. Be the best that you can be, the best father, the best son, the best friend. You need to fire one more bullet”.
“What‘s that,” I asked?
“A silver bullet, forgiveness, you need to forgive yourself,” she said. “You made it home alive; you survived the war and its ok, its ok.
So, I fired one last shot,” the silver bullet” and I began to understand.
These feelings I have, this abnormal behavior is all the product of serving my country honorably. I was acting normal, for having gone through very abnormal circumstances. War takes no prisoners, not even the survivors escape the aftermath. The things I saw in the war zone were horrendous and I was punishing myself for having survived it all. I know these memories will haunt me forever, but I felt now I had some choices. I couldn’t save anyone then, but I could save myself now.
When I left my therapist’s office, I felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from my heart. Something had ended or maybe just begun. It was an amazing feeling, both uplifting and calming at the same time. It was like the end of a storm, when the rain stops and the heavens open to sunshine and blue skies. It was an emotional breakthrough. I walked outside, closed my eyes and I literally felt the warmth of my spirit ignite. I looked up at the heavens and acknowledged my fallen brethren with a loving smile. I felt alive for the first time in many years and I knew that my life had changed. I had forgiven myself for surviving, and it was okay.
Ernie D’Leon: I was a reconnaissance scout with the 7/17 Air Cav. I
was wounded in action in April 1968 and awarded the purple heart. After
17 years of individual therapy and 6 years of group therapy, I have a
much better understanding of PTSD. I now volunteer at the VA hospital in
La Jolla, CA with a group called ACVOW (American Combat Veterans of War). We
are peer-to-peer mentors and help the new warriors through the transition
after the war zone.
This Veterans’ PTSD Project Story comes from Carl Hitchens, a Vietnam Combat Veteran. Our Vietnam Vets have incredible perspective on Post-Traumatic Stress. PTSD was not a diagnosis until the 1980s, and many Vets from this era lived with undiagnosed PTSD for decades. They have first-hand experience of life with PTSD – and can speak to the miraculous change in their lives once they sought the help they needed. Carl Hitchens truly came back stronger once he was diagnosed; his resilience is an inspiration to Veterans of all generations, and especially his fellow Marines. -Virginia
The Hero’s Journey - by Carl Hitchens
Since my childhood, I heard the cultural hero tales that every nation passes on to generations. I wanted to reach the highest human potential and join forces with World War II legend Lt. General Lewis “Chesty” Puller, the most decorated U.S. Marine in history. My idealism ripened as I pushed through my childhood rites of passage to that inevitable, act of daring – in November 1967, I joined the United States Marine Corps and headed to Boot Camp. Five months and two weeks later, I entered the crucible of the Vietnam War.
I am on the other side of that war now, forty-two years later, and through the benefit of a stubborn nature, a Marine Corps never-give-up attitude, and a late-coming Post-Traumatic Stress diagnosis and counseling, I can say that life for me is much sweeter, much fuller. There is a completeness to it, a sense of integration between my war and after war selves that was sorely missing.
Chesty and I went up against General Vo Nguyen Giap, Commander of the People’s Army of Vietnam. Battle joined, it was a combat mind that got me and my brothers in arms through each day and each month. Hyper-vigilance, hyper-sensorimotor response, and hyper-suspicion gave us the ability to anticipate danger and stay alive. The adrenaline-rushed instincts of this combat mind were necessary for our survival. When we returned home, however, a different norm existed; one taken for granted by those unconditioned like us to instant chaos and death.
War is always, ultimately, personal. The finality of premeditated killing strips away any casualness from war. It is serious business with serious consequences, the ramifications of which are borne by the individual Warrior. This prolonged exposure to stressful events took its toll. Like a physical wound or injury traumatizing the body, my emotions and mind were repeatedly shocked in war’s literal reality.
Once I returned from war in Quang Nam Province, confusion about any good I had done for myself or my country obscured my quest for human potential. My dream to elevate the human condition got lost in the details of war and was eventually replaced by ambivalence over my plunge into mortal combat. Simple things like a car backfire, an overhead helicopter, the click-clacking of a child’s toy meant something entirely different to my senses: booby trap, medivac, gunship, AK fire is what went off in my mind. Quick movement of any kind, unidentified sounds and noises; crowds – spontaneous, excitable, unpredictable – were threats.
My stateside duty felt like a joke, compared to the real thing. Civilian life felt more akin to life imitating art than reality; all the rhetorical yakking, signifying assent or dissent to the war, was based on populace ideas and not reality.
GI educational benefits seemed like a good idea, until I got in school and had to contend with students my age that hadn’t seen anything of life, but “knew” everything – especially about the war and our innate bloodthirstiness. Other population groups were no better; they somehow knew, from journalistic reports and the rumor mill, everything about Vietnam. I might as well have been a door for their opening and closing arguments.
Then there was the working thing. I went through jobs with the same casual manner as shopping in a department store, merely going through the motions of wanting a career, of living in a nice neighborhood, of retiring one day and going fishing. When in reality, I wanted… Well, that’s just it. I didn’t know – aside from wanting some clue on how to fit in the accepted norm. I saw the unending pursuits requiring hard work, academic degrees, and meaningful relationships all ending the same way: aging, decrepitude, and death. Relative satisfaction in acquiring things, fortune or fame, felt empty. Compared to Vietnam, it all seemed dull and pointless; just some mediocre substitute for true contentment, whatever that was.
Still, connecting with others in some way appeared to be a human instinct. So I married around three years into civilian life, into an already-made family. I guess I was still used to being part of a “squad.” Marriage turned out to be a two-edged sword; I had no time to focus on my own issues, but didn’t know I had issues. Weren’t people just as mindless and stupid as I thought? This incompatibility led to divorce after an eight-year run. Tried again, different situation, same result – that’s when I decided companionship was overrated.
Serial unemployment, poverty, social isolation, and substandard living was my norm for several years, even when married (the marriages themselves were characterized by periodic separations). Maintaining distance seemed like a better solution than trying to mix it up with others and having the same unsatisfactory results. On weighing the dubious benefits of typical, upward mobility career options, resulting in forced association with colleagues and bosses who I had nothing in common with, I chose, for the most part, to rotate every few years to different employment. I was the perpetual short-timer, you might say.
Then destiny intervened in September 2004. While doing research on the 7th Marines, I stumbled on a website devoted to the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, my unit in Nam. In the roll call section of the site, I ran across an e-mail address containing both a machine gunner’s nickname in my old company and Hill 55. This particular gunner and I were in Alpha Company together and had run patrols off of Hill 55.
I e-mailed “Rican” and he e-mailed me back. It felt like things had come full circle; this was my first contact with anyone in my unit since I had left the war. Rican (Orlando Ramirez, that is) got me in contact with my old squad leader, Elmer Sangster, who lived north of me in Tuba City, Arizona.
Both Sangster and Ramirez, independently of each other, diplomatically suggested that my life description fitted PTSD symptoms to a tee. Naturally, I thought they were mistaken, but I knew they were well-meaning and concerned for me. They pointed out that my penchant for staying off trail, anticipating enemy contact, and locating cover were classic symptoms of PTSD. It was my combat mind, still on patrol, reaching into post-combat life.
I didn’t buy it, though. My life was disciplined, minimal by choice, and emotionally restrained for when the other shoe (jungle boot) dropped. Incoming rounds were inevitable, and the poor saps that didn’t get that were fools. Still, after all these years on patrol, I was exhausted, disillusioned, and damned depressed; living out a life of “quiet desperation” – too stubborn to quit and too tired to be hopeful.
But it seemed that my Alpha Company past had slyly maneuvered me into checking out this whole Post-Traumatic Stress deal. If nothing else, investigating this matter would at least put the idea to rest. I tentatively agreed to follow up on Sangster’s e-mail introduction to Carlena Hart, a PTSD counselor at the VA Northern Arizona Regional Medical Center in Prescott, AZ, where I live. Thirty-five years after Vietnam, I made an appointment to see Carlena and opened the door for the very first time to learning about PTSD.
Carlena asked me why I was there to see her; I floated the idea that I was indulging my Alpha Company buddies. During our conversation, she asked me to read a list of PTSD symptoms to see how many applied to me. Just about all of them did. Carlena said that, if I wanted help, I could start counseling. Curious, I agreed, even if only to debunk the idea. By doing so, I had “tricked” myself into letting the cat out of the bag – a cat that I didn’t even know was there. Ultimately, I was diagnosed with PTSD and this changed my life for the better.
Eventually, I got up the courage to consider getting into a group counseling situation at the local Prescott Vet Center, and this was the start of my journey to fully recover the part of myself lost in Vietnam. Ken Hall, the director of the Vet Center, conducted some initial one-on-one counseling to get a sense of whether group counseling would benefit me and what group might be a good fit. Ken found a place for me in an appropriate group.
I ended up in a small, intimate group of Vietnam combat Marines and Soldiers. It was a good fit and I got a lot out of meeting with Veterans of my own era. Through these group sessions, I found acknowledgment, support, fellowship, and a reference point for where I had come from and where I was going on this Hero’s Journey. I found a place within myself for that idealistic, young Marine who went to war to make the world a better place, but got disillusioned and self-abandoned along the way.
I now fully occupy myself – the dream of who I wanted to be and the reality of who I have become; they’re not far apart at all. Family, friends, and complete strangers get the whole me now.
Thanks to PTSD counseling, I’m now better (not perfect) at coping with the ebb and flow of society and family life. I’ve become aware of those personal triggers that bring up anger and feelings of alienation, and of how to mentally shift from strongly conditioned reactions to reason-based responses. I KNOW there is a solid place for me within life – a place that is not lonely, painful, devoid of happiness or purpose.
By applying what I’ve learned through readjustment strategies, I have adapted Marine self-discipline that once served me appropriately in war, to serve me appropriately after war. Nothing weak about that: Once a Marine, always a Marine.
Just a little over a year ago, I married a wonderful lady, have left my sub-standard lifestyle and living situation, and became a first-time homeowner. We enjoy a compatible, mutually supportive relationship. Oo-rah!
# # #
Carl Hitchens is a Vietnam Combat Veteran who served with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division: (Republic of Vietnam) April 1968 – May 1969. Mr. Hitchens was born in Washington, D.C., and is the author of Sitting with Warrior, a historical-mythical journey of war and redemption. He currently resides in Prescott, Arizona.
Posted in Guest Posts, Marines, Resources & Inspiration, Veterans' PTSD Project Stories, Vietnam
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Tagged 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, Arizona, Carl Hitchens, Marine Corps, Marines, Prescott Veterans Center, reintegration, Vietnam
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During the holidays, we slow down and examine what we are doing. We talk about what we’re thankful for, reflect on the last year, revisit traditions, make resolutions, and spend time with friends and family. Or at least we are supposed to. Slowing down is not my strong suit; I honestly prefer being busy. While I realize that being busy does is not the same as being fruitful, being busy is a lot easier than spinning over the things in my head that I cannot change.
Even with almost six years past since I was diagnosed with PTSD, I find that reflecting on that time is difficult. It’s not so much the time I was downrange that I find it hard to think about, but the way I was treated after I sought help. If I reflect on it, I am easily embittered about how I was treated by my colleagues who had not yet deployed.
Thank God so much time has passed. Today, we know more about Post-Traumatic Stress – and we know it is important to think about what we are thinking about. I can choose to be fruitful and I can use my experience to help others to never feel ashamed for getting the help they need to come back stronger. You can make this choice, too – to start over, to get better, to be the man or woman God intended you to be. At the lowest point in my journey, I clung to this belief because I knew it was true: I know that God wastes nothing and that He uses our experiences for good; we just have to hold on.
Today, I encourage you to get out of your head – and this is not just advice for those working through PTSD. Get out of your head and look at what is real: your potential is limitless. God intends more for you, for your family and for your community. Whatever you’re going through is only temporary. And if it happens to be PTSD you’re working through, you’re in luck – most people diagnosed with this come back stronger, and that’s a fact. I promise you that this journey is worth it; you will look back on this as the time your character was forged through fire.
Virginia
Posted in Resources & Inspiration, Uncategorized
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Tagged busy, Christmas, fruitful, God's purpose, holidays, inspiration, PTSD, Thanksgiving, thought life, victory
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This is my first Veterans Day in the U.S. since 2002. I’ve spent all of them since then overseas, and I can’t say that I remember any Veterans Day in particular before that – it was just another day. This one is really different for me, not only in that I am home, but in that this is no longer just another day to Americans. The radio show I listen to on the way to work is asking its listeners to call into the station and thank a beloved Veteran, every restaurant in town is offering free meals for Vets, and there are more special events honoring Veterans than I can shake a stick at.
For me, this outpouring of sentiment is unexpectedly emotional. People – civilians – are aware of Veterans’ issues in a way they never have been before, and they are asking new, bold questions: How can we help our Vets heal? How can I understand their experiences? How can we reintegrate our Service Members back into our community? This is all very new for me as a Combat Vet, and, now, as a Veterans’ advocate, and I find myself deeply moved by the outpouring of support.
Since starting The Veterans’ PTSD Project, we have had an opportunity to connect with Veterans and their families from all over the world and have learned that their coming home experience is very different than what we have here in the U.S. A Soldier from the UK told me that when he left university upon being recalled to fight in the Iraq invasion, his classmates literally threw feces at him on campus. There is no “Veterans’ Day” for them in the true sense in that they are celebrated as heroes and respected for their sacrifice. I, on the other hand, have a guaranteed day of free food and drink and will be embraced today by a grateful nation.
Today, America, I want to thank you. Thank you to reporters like Lisa Ling, who are working to change the national conversation on Post-Traumatic Stress with amazing reporting. Thank you to health Professionals like Dr. Matthew Tull who work to give Veterans with PTSD resources to come back stronger than ever. Thank you to organizations like Give an Hour who are working to provide counseling to Service Members and their families. And thank you, in advance, to every civilian who will shake my hand and express their gratitude today – truly, it moves me every single time.
My hope for you today is that you will embrace the gratitude and love in the hearts of others today and give thanks for it.
No, 11,000 on 11-11-11 is not a tax plan – it’s our Facebook challenge for November. We are close to connecting with 11,000 Veterans, family members, and supporters on Facebook and we ask you to help us meet this goal by Veterans Day on November 11th. Simply go to our Facebook site and “like” us by hitting the link on our page. Then, please spread the word!
While you’re at it, sign up for our newsletter. Just follow this link to our homepage and fill out the web form on the right side of your screen.
Thanks to all of you who follow our Facebook page and blog who sent e-mails this week. Those wonderful Facebook posts you are reading during the week are from Joan, but I thank you for your e-mails nonetheless! (If you met Joan in real life, you would find that she is as funny, sweet, and personable as her Facebook posts.) I recently started working the night shift so that I would have more time during the day to work on the PTSD Project, so I am often wiped out when I get off of work. Between that and Reserve duty, my time is tight – I am very thankful to have a great colleague and friend in Joan. Not only does she keep things grounded by connecting with all of you on Facebook, but she knows how to dream, too – absolutely vital for a start-up like this! I truly believe that we are changing the national conversation on Post-Traumatic Stress – to the point where I am happy to work crazy 12-hour shifts!
My hope for you today is that you will link into your passion and use it to change your life and inspire others. Keep those e-mails coming – we answer all of the, even if it takes a little while!
Cheers,
Virginia
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