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Barefoot on the beach, my husband and I staked out a spot to call our own. The Fourth of July oceanfront celebration was about to start. It seemed to me the perfect salute to honor his recent return from Operation Iraqi Freedom. With the precision and punctuality that any military town would be proud of, the fanfare began.
Bright bouquets of red, white and blue fireworks burst into bloom against the black Virginia Beach sky. One after the other, rockets hissed and whistled over our heads. Plumes of gray smoke clouded the clear horizon and veiled the stars. The manmade thunderstorm and cheering crowds drowned out the lullaby of the gently rolling waves.
Every tiny crab scurried sideways to take cover in underground bunkers. Every seagull screeched, took flight and soared inland. Between one oblivious ooooohhhh and one mesmerized aaaahhhhh, I turned to smile at the man I had missed for months. Suddenly, in the wild finale of sparkling firecrackers and sonic booms, I realized I was celebrating alone.
I scanned the shoreline. I didn't see him anywhere. I walked upstream through an army of sky gazers, away from the commotion, to a quieter, darker stretch of the beach. My husband stood facing the ocean, his back to me and the flag-waving festivities.
He didn't respond when I called to him. He just stared into black water that swallowed black sky. The cool tide kissed our sand-sugared toes. I tried unsuccessfully to snuggle up to him, to squirm into an embrace that his rigid arms wouldn't allow. With tear-filled eyes and trembling voice, he made his quiet request: Can we just go home?
If I had known then what I know today, I would have understood. I would have realized that my husband, like the coastline crabs and gulls, was in a cold-sweat search for safety. Even he did not understand that, in what should have been a joyful moment, he was desperately looking for a hiding place for his painful memories of a war far from these shores.
The American Psychiatric Association's list of PTSD symptoms described my husband perfectly. Mark was physiologically reacting to cues or surroundings that resembled an aspect of his combat experience. He made every effort to avoid conversations, activities, places and/or people that were a reminder of the trauma.
Certain sights, sounds and even smells had the power to transform a fun family outing into a day I'd rather forget. Mediterranean foods, hot weather, sand, the smell of smoke, or burning oil, the sound of low flying aircraft, a slamming door or the whine of a vacuum cleaner made his heart race and catapulted him to another place and time.
A few months after my husband's second assignment in Iraq, friends invited us to spend the weekend with them at a resort in Phoenix. It seemed to us to be the perfect prescription for a marriage in need of a breather. My best friend and I caravanned behind our husbands to our destination.
Our drive was light with conversation and laughter. Tall palms stood at attention, lining the resort's dramatic entrance. As we wound our way up the hotel's desert-scaped driveway, the main lobby came into view. Cars cued up under three palatial archways where uniformed bellmen scurried and weaved their way between the arriving cars and guests.
Suddenly, my husband hit his brakes and came to an abrupt stop twenty yards before the lobby entrance. Startled by his red brake lights, I slammed on my brakes, too. Mark hit the accelerator and sped through an open archway toward the resort exit. Confused and concerned, my friend and I parked, checked in and waited for our husbands in the lobby.
Our entire weekend was weird. Mark could never seem to relax. Even the moonlit, after-dinner stroll through the hotel's fountained plaza seemed difficult for him. I didn't understand.
Mark shared with me much later that the whole experience brought flashbacks of time spent hunkered down in some of Saddam Hussein's former palaces. The hotel's palmed arches with bumper-to-bumper cars reminded him of Humvee convoys being hemmed in, unable to distinguish the enemy from regular Iraqis, vulnerable to ambush at any moment. To me, the architecture and landscape were a dream. To him, they were a nightmare.
While time and distance from the front lines have done much to lessen my husband's struggle, certain triggers still make his heart race and steal his attention. I am told that these will stay with him always. He is now able to more quickly identify the triggers and to talk more openly with me about their effect on him. I'm grateful for his honesty and vulnerability with me. It keeps us holding hands while our hearts heal.
I know a Vietnam Vet a Intelligence Sniper that goes to that place often.. dreams are nightmares, prayers are life and death struggles and he wont talk about his heroics as he saw so much death and destruction.. He is the greatest sniper that ever lived I think yet he wont talk about it he cries over what he had to do for his country. He was brave and was ready to die, yet he wont take credit for those he saved, he wont let anyone call him a hero.. he said he was just a man, that did what he had to do, that is all.
He is more than that.. he is an angel, sent to us in a time of need and he saved many lives, took many lives to save many and did what his country asked with out question, risking his own life, over and over again. He said he has been to hell and back, so no man or creature frightens him.
Its hard to go back to normal life, when youve struggled to survive, lived off bugs, snakes and muddy water. Seen men die every day, and did your best to survive. He did tell me the helicopter pilots he thought were so very brave as they would land in bullets, to rescue men.
His wife left him, for a man with more money as being rich was not a big deal to this man, he just wanted to live. So he wasent money driven. He raised his children alone as a single parent and still raising his married daughters sons. He is a the best grandfather in the world from what I can tell.
He said he would die for his country and I believe him. As he almost did.
http://www.pibluemoon.com
Blue Moon Investigations, Security and Protection
**Bobbi Bacha* , Private Investigator & President*
I live with a man who killed for his country. When there is no one to take the stress out on, it goes to his family. There are patched up holes in the wall, a gun has been drawn twice in anger and paranoia. When he hears the hum of the helicopters (we live near a Fort) he names them, parts and all. When we eat, he scours faces, which he did for his job and rarely pays attention to our own conversation.
He has calmed in recent years, but his anger at the world is evident. There is no joy, no fun and I am tired. Someday I will leave him and wonder why, when he did so much for his country, his country left him with nothing but memories of murder and some medals. Can’t raise a family with medals.
Wow Reblrosek9 all I can say is war effects everyone different, some the same. Overcomming it is difficult for many. My Ex vietnam friend, is happy smiling, enjoys life but he does have his nightmares, flashbacks, and he is in vietnam often in thought of loss of friends n buddies.
It sounds like your in an abusive relationship, and he could have been this way before war. But definately, he is now. Holes in walls, guns drawn are serious signs of abuse.. dont wait. Leave, you will find happiness, he will have to learn to deal with his pain on his own with out harming others or causing no fun, taking joy and happiness from his loved ones.
He will learn he cant act this way if he wants his family or any relationship with his children.
Its unacceptable behavior.
Good luck to you... and please contact a counselor your abused maybe not physically but you are mentally, your children too.
http://www.pibluemoon.com
Blue Moon Investigations, Security and Protection
**Bobbi Bacha* , Private Investigator & President*
I truly sympathaze with your pain. Believe in the power of prayers and pray.
May God be with you
Gool
Yes, it was unacceptable. I moved my older daughter out for 4 months and moved to the other side of the house. He lost my heart, but that was two years ago. He is calmer now and considerate, no more rages at all. It is, unfortunately, too little, too late. My children are happy now and the environment is better. I am here for my kids and only my kids.
Good for you, I know you feel for him but he has to start getting over his pain, and he cant take it out on his family. You leaving will help him learn to deal with it constructively, and youve spared your children the misery of this ordeal and yourself.
Just remember, your happiness, security and well being, makes your children feel that way.
Im so glad for you to take that big step to leave.
http://www.pibluemoon.com
Blue Moon Investigations, Security and Protection
**Bobbi Bacha* , Private Investigator & President*
This is my first posting on this site. I too have lived with the aftermath of PTSD. It started when my fiance’s mother was diagnosed with kindey disease and that she had but a few months to live. A few months after that, a friend was killed in Afghanistan. After the ramp ceremony, we returned home but our relationship was in turmoil. He would sit in the basement for days at a time, not wanting me close. His cave. He did not want to come out. Then the despondancy lifted and he was back at work. But his mother was living at home with us. He had to face her dying every step of the way.
He came back one day at 10 am. He wasn’t sure if he had hit his boss. Didn’t remember coming home and in fact got lost taking his regular route. He then got help but he was rushing it all. Wanted to be better right now. But his mind was not ready. Our relationship was gone. I could no longer live with his continual anger and frustration with himself. Never at me, but none the less, I felt surrounded by his unhappiness.
I finally moved out. My own anxiety had reached to beyond anything I had ever had to deal with. We didn’t speak for 2 months after I left.
We are now in regular contact but because he is still very ill, I have set up a support network with others to get him the help that he needs, without me being the only support person that he has. I had no energy left to help him and to keep my sanity. This way is a much better system and one of the people is military in the right department to ensure a smooth transition to civilian life without going bankrupt in the process.
I am a psych nurse and I was not able to cope with it all. I could not spend my day at work and come home to the same thing everyday.
He is working on getting back on track, but there is still a long way to go. Leaving him while he was sick was the hardest thing I have ever done. We are rebuilding our relationship, but very slowly and with great tenderness.
I know he will never be the same. However, I still can see the guy I fell in love with 7 years ago.
Am I making the right decision? Do I just pull out all the rest of the links and let him go his own way? I want to be with him, but not with all the anger. This is my decision to make and I am still debating the pros and cons of it all. I want him back in my life. I love him as I have never loved anyone before. That is worth the effort.
God help us all.
I never said I was leaving, I said I am here for my children. Leave and do what? Work three jobs again and never see my 4 year old? Move into a studio apartment with two kids..watch my teen live in poverty again as her friends have cars already? Take the only father in four generations who actually wants to be with his child away? Continue the cycle yet again? Where’s Daddy? I can hear it now...
Trust me, the stress of leaving would be worse than the stress of staying. As I mentioned, he is not violent anymore, he just puts it all into work 24/7. We fight and he is better about controlling the rage, but when I look into his eyes all I see is the face of a killer. He is still in North Carolina even tho his body is here. He will always be that killer and I need something else. Someone else.
Im so sorry for your situation. I know its hard being on your own with children to raise.. I did it with three children and I didnt date, I did it on my own. I worked two jobs, and became very sucessful..
Most important, my childrent are well adjusted, and they are happy.
Guess what, I also found happiness.
You can make it on your own and you will be happier.
Im glad your situation is settled but if you feel that much turmoil.. please try to leave.
http://www.pibluemoon.com
Blue Moon Investigations, Security and Protection
**Bobbi Bacha* , Private Investigator & President*
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