Scroll down for an update to this post.
I’m more than a little angry right now. Yes, I’m irate that some sh-tbag Major
(“sh-tbag” is often used as a technical term in the Army) opened fire on a
group of his fellow Soldiers killing 12 and wounding 30. But that’s not even
what is under my skin right now. What is bothering me is the general reaction
of our media and those stupid enough to think this was not an act of terrorism, but was caused by supposed PTSD caused at Walter
Reed Army Medical
Center.
You want to know what PTSD is like? I'll tell you. You have nightmares that go on for weeks. Mine would always be the same. Wherever the window was in the room in which
I was sleeping I would see a bright white flash. I would wake up screaming to
my wife “Get up! Get the f-ck up! An IED just went off!” Sometimes I would just wake up screaming in
agony as I relived the moment where my right arm was ripped from my body by an
Iranian shape charge. (I may not know
what childbirth feels like, but I know what it's like to go an hour with my arm
ripped off without painkillers (I'm allergic to morphine).) PTSD makes you paranoid as hell. “Why is that person staring at me? Are they a threat? Where is the nearest exit?
Why are these people so close to me? Why
is no one pulling security? What was that noise? Where is the nearest cover? I need to get out of here.” 
You lie wide awake in bed at night wondering
if it's safe to go to sleep or if you should get up and start pulling security.
When I got home from Walter Reed and started college (a week later, stupid
idea) I would often stay up for days at a time without sleeping. Eventually my
body would completely shut down from exhaustion and I would sleep for 12 hours
or more only to complete the cycle all over again. (I still cannot believe I
got all As and Bs.) Since I was injured
in a humvee I am especially susceptible on the road to the effects of my PTSD. I still get nervous and hold my breath every
time I drive by a piece of trash or tire debris on the shoulder or median. I avoid guardrails and broken down cars on
the side of the road. On a couple
different occasions I yelled out “tire!” to warn my wife (who was driving) of a
potential IED in the road. There was nothing there (no tire, no nothing). One late night while driving home completely
exhausted on our small two lane country roads at slow speed I locked up all
four tires on my car to keep from hitting a cardboard box in the middle of the
road. At that moment I would have bet
the contents of my bank account it was an IED.
That's what PTSD is like.
At no point in time have I ever felt the desire or need to grab a weapon
and go shoot someone or something up. At
no point in time have I ever grabbed a weapon and broken a law because I felt
the need to protect myself. PTSD urges
you mitigate the risk of events that happened in your life. But if you've never had anything traumatic
happen in your life, you can't have PTSD.
If you can get PTSD from treating soldiers at Walter
Reed Army Medical
Center then why the hell haven't
more people snapped? Why haven't all the
therapists in physical therapy and occupational therapy, and all the staff on
Ward 57 ran around shooting up the place?
They have seen far more wounded Soldiers than this POS ever
did. My occupational and physical therapists, like many of the civilian personnel
at Walter Reed, have been there since the beginning of OEF. They have taken care of countless (probably
hundreds) Soldiers with a variety of different injuries. Missing arms (like me). Missing legs. Missing
both. Missing parts of the face. Severe
burns. Whole chunks of the skull missing. Missing jaws. Ears. Eyes. Severe
PTSD. Severe TBI (traumatic brain injury)
to the point that Soldiers would forget where they were going while walking the
50 feet from physical therapy to occupational therapy (they would be found
wandering the halls unsure where they were supposed to be going. I had a buddy who used to do that walking the
20 feet to prosthetics. My TBI is bad, but not that bad).
So why haven't they gone crazy? Because you don't get PTSD from sitting on
your ass around Walter Reed. Not only is
it not possible to “catch” secondhand PTSD, but it is not that kind of a place. I would know, I was a patient there for nine
months. The place is simply not that
stressful or chaotic. When I was there
my PTSD got better, not worse. And I
would be willing to bet my dog tags that I saw far more wounded Soldiers than
sh-t bag Major did during our overlapping time there in 2007. I regularly visited Ward 57 to give advice to
the new wounded. Other Soldiers and amputees did it for me when I was there so
I considered my visits “paying it forward”. I had daily physical and occupational
therapy with other Soldiers. I regularly partook in
activities in and out of Walter Reed with present and past wounded Soldiers. To say that this guy got PTSD from being
stationed at Walter Reed is an absolute farce. The people who are making this sh-t up have
never set foot on Walter Reed, let alone met a soldier with PTSD.
In order to actually have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you
have to go through some sort of traumatic event(s) to have “post stress.” Can therapists
be emotionally troubled by the things they hear from patients? Yes. But you cannot catch PTSD from someone. It's not the f-cking swine flu.
I cannot tell you how angry I am right now as a former
patient of Walter Reed. It is an
absolute slap in the face for people to use his time there as an excuse
for what he has done. It is an absolute slap in the face for all the wonderful people there who help soldiers
every single day. Some of the most kind,
caring, and noble people I have ever met in my entire life work at Walter
Reed Army Medical
Center day in and day out helping
wounded Soldiers like me.
To fallaciously say this guy has PTSD from his time at Walter
Reed as an excuse for opening fire on a group of innocent Soldiers is beyond
reckless. It's an absolute slap in the
face for every caregiver and every wounded warrior who ever set foot on Walter
Reed Army Medical
Center.
Update- Nov. 9
First, I would like to thank everyone who has been
reading my thoughts and passing them around the web. When I decided to write this it was not my
intention to create something that would go viral. I was simply blowing off steam and debunking
yet another ridiculous claim by our fact-less media. Second, I feel it is necessary to address my rather
colorful language in this post. A day or
so after I wrote this, I went back and reread it and thought “wow… I sure did
swear a lot!” As regular readers (all three of them) can attest, I almost never
include such expletives in my writing. So
how did they come to be? It has to do
with the way I “type.” The IED that
almost killed me left me with four remaining fingers, only three of which somewhat
work (my pinky is just “along for the ride”).
So when I type something long like this blog post, I use my voice
recognition software. So I'm not actually “typing,” I'm talking. When I'm very angry and I talk I tend to
throw around an expletive here and there, like any good combat Soldier should to
prove his worth with the English language.
Unfortunately, such language tends to turn off much of the general
public, and tends to retract from the overall statement being made. So I decided to clean up the language to a
more PG-13 rating so that it will possibly get bit more exposure. Please realize I am not doing this so that I
can get more attention, but rather to protect the good name of my fellow Soldiers
and all the hard-working folks at Walter
Reed Army Medical
Center by debunking some of the BS being perpetuated by our media. (If you're the kind of guy (or gal) who likes
a bit of vulgarity in what you read, you can still view the unedited version
right here. Proceed at your own risk.)