Kelly Kennedy: For Veterans, a New Normal

In a barracks in Germany, an infantry soldier reads a chapter or two from the advance copy of a book about his experiences in Iraq, and then, unable to process more at that moment, he passes it on to the next guy.

Who reads a chapter or two, and then, after a couple of nights of tears and laughter and memories, shoves it away to the next soldier.

But together, in the barracks, three years after their hellish tour in Adhamiya, the story opens them up to talk about what they saw, about how much they miss their friends, and about how people will finally understand exactly what they went through.

Their company lost 14 men. In one platoon of about 40, they lost nine brothers. Dozens more were shot, hit with shrapnel or horribly burned. A 19-year-old private threw himself on a grenade, saving four friends but leaving them to wonder how they could have saved him. A first sergeant killed himself after realizing he could never provide enough to keep all of his men alive. A sergeant shot off suppressive fire even as flames degloved his hands. The men of one platoon, having seen too much and feeling betrayed by their command, refused to patrol an area filled with streets designated “black” because of the hidden, deep-buried bombs – bombs they had seen rip 30-ton Bradleys to pieces and kill too many of their friends.

But just as in past generations, they keep that story inside. They don’t want to hurt their families. They don’t want to tell their story to a buddy at a bar who quickly loses interest. They don’t answer questions like, “Did you have to kill anyone?” because it’s too personal and it isn’t the whole story and it’s not on their own terms. They are attacked by strangers who hate the wars and whose few hurtful words cause decades of pain. They hear things like, “Honey, I can’t listen to this,” or, “You can’t keep talking about it. You have to move forward.”

And they do stop talking about it.

But they don’t move on.

They often face nightmares and sleepless nights that never allow their brains the rest they need to heal. A sound or a smell throws them straight back to Iraq, and even if they can pull themselves back to reality, their heart rates go up, their hands grow sweaty and they become distracted – which can make the whole day a wash. Many of them feel a constant sadness, and they don’t allow themselves to emerge because how could they possibly leave those dead friends behind? Their pain is a memorial.

And then they hear the words “post-traumatic stress disorder.” But it doesn’t feel crazy. They’re sad because of a specific event. They’re wracked with guilt because if only they had arrived a second sooner/taken a different route/not taken the day off, a friend might still be alive. They’re distracted because normal no longer feels normal.

It doesn’t feel crazy because there’s a story there. How could a person possibly go through what he or she did and come home without the pain and sadness? There’s always a story. Even the therapy involves telling the story over and over until it doesn’t hurt as much when they tell it or think about it. Or it involves allowing the mind to put the pieces into order – into story.

But as a society, we don’t allow that. As a country, we vote to send our service members to war – even if we didn’t vote for the party or the president, we still own the decision. We still own the results as so many of our veterans return to their communities and face the relationship struggles, the battles with alcohol and drugs, the need to stay off by themselves because nobody else could possibly understand what they’ve been through.

They still face the stigma of a “mental illness,” rather than what Jonathan Shay, author of “Achilles in Vietnam,” calls a “psychological injury.” Recent science shows that people with post-traumatic stress – or any of a number of stress-related symptoms that fall in that spectrum – have experienced actual chemical changes in the brain. It’s a change as physical as a gunshot wound, but as we have heard so often, it’s invisible. Even the service members themselves often don’t see it until someone else notices a change in behavior.

But Shay also points to past behaviors that could help our combat veterans. Centuries ago, communities gathered around their fighters to listen to their stories. They passed those stories down. They respected what they said, and learned from it. Today, veterans have called for ways to do the same: They’ve asked churches and colleges and community organizations to allow service members to tell their stories on Veterans Day, and to talk about what a combat psychological injury is and to say what communities can do to help them. They’ve asked families and friends and the guy sitting next to a service member on an airplane or at a bar to start with simple questions: “What was your job? Where were you based? What was it like in Iraq?” He or she can then choose what to share. Just listen.

In the barracks, the guys wait for the book to be released to the public. The story will be different – more in-depth, more detailed, more horrifying – than they’ve let on, and they’ll have a lot to explain to their mothers.

But when they send notes to the author, they often include this line, “I’m glad people will know our story.”

(Check out Tina Croley’s post on Kelly’s book).

Kelly Kennedy is the author of “They Fought For Each Other” and a 2008 Dart Center Ochberg Fellow.She is a staff writer for the Army Times and a veteran of Desert Storm and Mogadishu, Somalia.