PTSD: The Battle Buddy that Nobody Sees

He spends the day and a half on patrol, no sleep. He learns to still the instinct of chatting with the young child with the soccer ball because he knows there very well could be a bomb strapped to the lad. All the years of learning to treat all races and cultures, ages and genders, wealth and homeless, as equals has been set to the recesses of his brain. Here the young girl who reminds him of his little sister is a victim and cannot have a choice in her day to day life. Here the young woman who might remind him of his high school sweetheart may be used as a ruse in an ambush. Most are victims; yet some believe they are doing it for the same God he was always taught was compassionate to all.

When he calls home, there is no complaining; there are only words of love and reassurances that he will be coming home. He misses them but he has a job to do. His country has called him to serve. While the President and the celebrities get the accolades, his comrades are piecing together better armor for their vehicles and asking for heavy sweaters to wear under their BDUs because they aren't allowed to wear the jackets issued "by mistake."

He insists that his mother stop her second job and use some of his military pay for the family. He explains the rules of engagement to his younger brother who wants to know if he's shot at anyone. He signs all his letters Taking care, Taking God and Missing Mom and sleeps with a cross over his bunk and he keeps a picture of his mom at the kitchen sink in his left breast pocket. And he thanks her for teaching him about God and giving him the choice to choose how to live his life.

They applaud him and his comrades in the airports. They have parades. They remember at award shows to thank those who serve in uniform...the military abroad; the police and firefighters. They've come along way since Vietnam. But they don't have the privilege of really knowing these people. They don't know that when a police officer is involved in a shooting that they are mandated to see a counselor before returning to duty; yet soldiers in a war zone don't have that time. They don't know that when a young man sees a little girl die in an explosion that he calls home across the time zones at 5:30 in the morning just to hear his sister's voice. They don't know that some marriages and relationships are ended in Dear John and Dear Jane letters by cowards who can't face these heroes because they must know they don't measure up so they hide behind email.

They don't see the young men and women who walked through palaces filled with gold and shake their heads at the poverty beyond the palace walls. They don't see the soldiers who cry at the mass graves of strangers under a tyrant's rule. They don't see the ones who came home with feelings of guilt because they survived by luck and chance what could have been any of them at any given moment. Who made friends over there and now worry about their safety because not every Muslim is evil and believes Allah wants all Americans dead. They can't watch the news because it's growing more violent every day and sometimes they wonder if it isn't just best to try to go back because the job isn't done in their eyes. Who think if they went back maybe the nightmares and blackouts would stop. But then they talk to Vietnam vets and realize they may never stop but they can be dealt with in more constructive ways than the vets had back then.

They don't know that the war comes home with these honorable young men and women and stay with them the rest of their lives. That the VA system puts off these heroes when they ask for help in hopes that they just "go away." They don't know that while we have gone through many changes since the Vietnam era, some things really haven't changed at all.

They won't know until it happens to their family.