May God rest his tortured soul.
PTSD is unfortunately the gift that keeps on giving. It is impossible to describe in any meaningful way what infantry combat is like. Even the best efforts by authors who have been there fall far short. No one can describe and convey an experience that touches every sense. I can't help the reader feel the ground and the air shake, smell the exploding munitions and rent flesh mixed with the sweat of fear, nor hear and see the explosions, cries of the wounded and dying, nor the confused mix of emotions. Only those who have experienced it and lived through it understand.
In addition to the warrior culture induced inhibitions and the stigma laid on by an woefuly ignorant society, combat veterans feel comfortable talking only to each other and sometimes not even to their peers. It is therefore hard to open up and expose ones self to dismissal, pity, rejection, or ridicule. To those who have faced it, combat changes you forever no matter how well you adjust.
I will shift you back some 43 years to the fall of 1969 when I went from a morning firefight on August 23 to a college classrom on Sept 7th. I was fortunate that I reentered the college I had left to enlist in the Marine Corps and my old classmates were now seniors. I had friends, and while I did make many new ones, the old ones were willing to help me adjust and get over the rough spots. In spite of this I was soon prescribed valium, I requested a transfer from a double room to a single, and when we went north to the mountains for the weekend slept far away from everyone else. One night very late a couple of Freshmen were fooling around and dropped a string of firecrackers onto the ground beneath the window to my room. Within seconds I had my boots and trousers on and was headed down the hall with a knife in my hands. I became conscious of where I was about the same time the 2 jokers saw me coming at them and ran away. I went back to my room shaking and couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. Within a relatively short time I became "normal" thanks mainly to good friends who would put up with me. A friend commented a couple of years later that when I went to the student union I always chose a table in a corner with my back to the wall and whenever an oriental student came into the area my eyes never left him or her even though I continued to carry on the conversation uninterrupted. My point here is simple, all real infantry combat veterans will to a greater or lesser extent exhibit some of all of the same symptoms in varying degrees. To the civilian world they are strange and un-nerving... to the infantryman active or veteran, they are survival skills honed and guided by experience. I was glad to see that upon the return of 3rd BN 5th Marines from Helmud Province Afghanistan last May the Marine Corps decided to keep the unit together without transfering people for a guaranteed 6 months. This type of action is a major move toward allowing grunts to decompress and work out their issues.
Sorry for this long rant Belinda, but this hit a hot button for me. We are doing a lot better for our veterans now than we were 10 years ago, but we are still a long way from where we need to be.