From Provider to Patient - I

My whole time in the Army I have been a combat soldier. Whether as a recon infantryman or a medic in the Stryker Brigade I was a shooter. So when I got to Ft Hood and was assigned to the hospital I was ready to jump into traffic. The politically correct environment of the clinic did me no good. An opportunity to go to the Warrior Transition Unit as a squad leader was a godsend. I would be around combat troops again. Not whiny doctors or know-it-all nurses, but shooters, my people.

I was there for about a month when I noticed something. I had eighteen soldiers and about fifteen of them were severe PTSD cases. I began to realize that the complaints they were giving me were exactly like some of the things my wife was telling me about me. Nightmares, irritability, extreme anger, and fear of every unknown sound. There was no way I had PTSD though. I loved Iraq. I relished the combat experience I'd had. The only thing that kept me back was my family. If I was single I would have stayed with my old unit to deploy again and again. I could have skated out of my deployment but managed to bullshit some family care plan paperwork and go.

I had a soldier continuously tell me that I had PTSD. I thought he was joking. By January 2008 I realized that it was time to do something. I went to the clinic that was basically a mental sick-call to see a shrink. The guy that came out looked like a '60s throw-back. He wore a ponytail and dashiki with beads and an earring. He turned out to be a retired warrant officer that just went native. He referred me to the PTSD clinic to get treatment...that is after he told me to "retrain my mind." I was to change what wrist I wore my watch on, flip the guitar when playing Guitar Hero, and write lefty just to practice.

Regardless of what I thought he said I had "it" and was going to see psychiatry in the hospital.