The War at Home

Earlier this month, in a chilling reminder of our enemy's strength and capabilities, Taliban forces launched a coordinated assault on two remote outposts in Afghanistan's remote Nuristan Province along the Pakistani frontier. Eight American soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were killed in action, and almost forty more were wounded in the hours-long defense of their firebase.

In 2004, I faced a determined and courageous enemy inside a large house during the Battle of Fallujah while serving with the U.S. Marine Corps. Some forty insurgents had come to the house to protect a meeting of local leaders. We stumbled across this gathering while searching for weapons and ammunition. The initial contact surprised both sides, and while we recovered quickly, part of my platoon was cut off and trapped on the second floor of the house. For almost four hours, we launched repeated assaults up the stairwell to try and rescue our fellow Marines. We faced grenades, machine gun and small arms fire every time we tried to push up onto the second floor. The battle only ended when our battalion executive officer ordered us to pull back and the house was destroyed by laser guided bombs.

Such desperate fighting has unseen consequences. Our battle in the house, just like the sharp and intense clash the 4th Infantry Division just endured in Afghanistan, can be so traumatic that the human brain suffers long-term consequences. I did not realize that until I came home in early 2005. I had anger issues and a short-fuse, though before Fallujah I had been easy going and relaxed. I couldn't sleep, and when I did, the same nightmare invaded my dreams. I would be back on the stairwell, but this time unarmed as insurgents chased me. Every morning, I'd wake up in a cold sweat, shaking from the experience.

I began to self-medicate. My professional life fell apart, as did my marriage. Finally, after suffering a flashback at Parris Island, where I served as a Drill Instructor, I was sent to a doctor who diagnosed me with acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I learned the hard way that the war doesn't stop when our boots touch home soil again, it just changes form.

Fighting my way free of PTSD's crippling effects on my family and me took every reserve of strength I possessed. I could not have done it alone. Yet, as I traveled around the country, first with the Corps' command sergeant major then later with Vets for Freedom, I met countless combat veterans who have never reached out, never sought the help they needed to cope with the trauma their brains experienced. We're tough guys, and tough guys don't need help. For generations, that's been the ethos in the military. And sure, we can survive and endure any manner of physical test--we're trained to do that. But none of us received any training on how to cope with the physiological changes acute trauma can cause in a human being.

I teamed up with John Bruning to write Shadow of the Sword which chronicles my experiences in Fallujah as well as my struggle to conquer Post Traumatic Stress. The truth is, none of us who suffer from PTSD will ever be totally free of its symptoms. We have to learn to manage them, learn to recognize how it affects us and develop coping skills to mitigate their effects. It is not an easy battle, but it is one that almost half of all soldiers and Marines face as they return from Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the fluid nature of the fighting overseas right now, one expert has called the Global War on Terror the perfect incubator for PTSD.

I wrote the book as a beacon to those who suffer behind closed doors as a way to let them know they are not the only ones going through this ordeal. They need to reach out and get help, because no man or woman can conquer this alone. Each soldier and marine we lose to suicide here in the states is a combat casualty, sure as anyone else who died in theater. My goal with the book is to de-stigmatize PTSD and show our readership that courage and heroism on the battlefield comes with a heavy price. We are proud warriors and patriots, but here at home, we need more than just parades and yellow ribbon magnets. We need support, help and understanding.

In a few months, when the 4th Infantry Division's deployment ends in Afghanistan and the troops return, let's make sure these brave warriors have all the support and access to the tools and treatment they need to win the new fight they will face here at home. No more suicides. No more broken lives. We will fight on together, shoulder to shoulder as we did when the bullets once flew our way.


Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Workman received the Navy Cross, the second highest award for valor in combat, for the house fight in Fallujah. His book Shadow of the Sword was released by Presidio Press in September.

 

 

Comments

[eileenflemingWAWA]

HuffPost's Pick

The universally accepted definition of insanity is the persist in the same behavior while expecting a different outcome.

Violence only reaps more of its own and it is Failures of Intelligence that has reaped so much misery in our world.

"For decades, the military built a sense of solidarity out of a singular purpose, the Cold War struggle between free markets and state-planned economies—the shining city on a hill versus the evil empire…meshed neatly with ideologies [that connected] nationalism and fundamentalism…Communism…the dark alternative should we fail to unite. Fundamentalism thrived…a neat, black-and-white [theology and] a foreign policy. The end of the Cold War deprived militant evangelicals of that clarity [and] the emergence of “radical Islam” [became] the object of a new Cold War."
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1267&Itemid=219

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe wrote the first Mother's Day Proclamation:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says:
Disarm! Disarm!

In 1999, the UN dedicated the first decade of the 21st century to Create a Culture of Nonviolence for All Children of The World.

America is on the record as abstaining for it would make it too hard for US to go to war!

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1278&Itemid=220

[CitizenT]

Thanks for your continuing service SSGT. I know several Vietnam vets who suffered in silence and thought it would be "unmanly" to seek help. I'm glad the culture is changing!

[Angie Cordeiro - Huffpost Blogger]

Amazing interview! Eye opening.

Interview - Dahr Jamail - Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX3hogynWIo

[ziploked]

It just breaks my heart that our soldiers die abroad and at home from the effects of this horrid war, while politicians sit around and quibble over it, as if it's a game of chess.

I am deeply sorry for your hurt and pain, and I want to extend my fullest appreciation for the sacrifice you and so many others in our military have made for our country.

Thank you, and thank you for bring this to our attention.

[MoodIndigo]

Thank you for your service and I think your cause is long overdue. It has been my impression that for too long the effects of the stress (which is an under-statement) of combat have been ignored for our brave soldiers. I can not event begin to image what you have experienced.

I think & hope that you will receive great support from a grateful nation. (and I will buy the book)

[mommadona]

Congratulations, dear.