PTSD: Scars That Run Deeper than Tissue

For 11 months and 28 days my father was on guard. He was 21 years old. He was older than most around him but to young to have to see the horrors of war. For those 11 months and 28 days he led, he followed, he cried, he killed, he survived. He was, and always will be a Combat Grunt in the United States Army.

Flash forward 41 years. My father is still a combat grunt; Even though his uniform can only be seen in the photos that hang on the wall, by the young man that carried a gun so many years ago. The memory of wearing that uniform and each and every day haunts him. There is never a day that goes by that he is not proud to have served his country, but every day that goes by is another day that he serves in his own body. The scars that he has are buried so deep and can't be seen in his flesh.

When talking about Veterans, war, and PTSD, there is absolutely no way to compare every Veteran in every war and wrap them in a neat and tidy bow. I can tell you, the combat troops of 1966-67 are in no way similar to the combat troops of 1969-70. The vast differences are too many to describe. I have found through my studies that "The War" was so very different. As I write this, keep in mind that I am writing strictly from the guys who served during the 1966-67 timeframe and only speaking about Combat Vets.

PTSD is not a mental illness. It is an illness, but it goes so much deeper and can not be written off as a mental illness. PTSD is in your pores, it is deep in your soul and it is in the tissue of every part of your body. Imagine spending 11 months and 28 days in a jungle, surrounded by young men like yourself who probably had not gone far from their own hometown before being drafted. Imagine, if you will, being shot at every day, having young men die before your eyes or worse, be dying before your eyes and there is nothing you can do about it. You're tired, hot, wet, and hungry; you are carrying a gun that might or might not work and a bag that is almost half your body weight. Every morning, if you slept at all, you get up and pick the leaches off your buddy and he does it for you. Every night you dig a fox hole and if you are not walking point, you try to shut your eyes and try not see the horrors of the day. This was the life of a combat Army Grunt in 1966-67. This was my father's life for my entire first year on earth.

Having a completely normal, outgoing, generally happy man leave his home, his wife and his family and endure war day after day does not "give" him a mental illness, or even bring one on. Whatever a combat soldier went through for their time served goes so much deeper and stays in their body. Now, 40+ years later, every day, brings on a memory that is buried so far into my father's tissue that there is no way to get it out.... I could list the firefights, the dates, and the men killed. Each one does not go away. Each day that is coming up is met with anxiety and pain. Each time January rolls around we know it is coming. That distant look, the one that still sees his friend getting killed, the one that still hears the screams of the young men who did not make it home. The day is imbedded in his brain, his cells. His body knows it is coming and starts to panic. How do you fix that, how do you change that, how can he possibly "get over it". January 21^st will always be just that, January 21^st and there is no way to get rid of the feeling that something big happened on that day.

Adrenalin is in limited supply in your body. Of course, many things can cause an "Adrenalin Rush" and under normal circumstances it is not dangerous. It has been proven that chronic adrenal stimulation can lead to problems in the body including, but not limited to, stress related diseases. When the body enters that "fight or flight" situation with adrenalin cursing through the body, eventually there is too much and it has to go someplace; the tissue of the human body absorbs it and is there forever. A man who is in the "fight or flight" mode for so long during a firefight or simply expecting every day to be shot at is one such individual where the memories actually imprint in the tissue. There is no "getting over" a memory or timeframe of an event that has been imprinted over and over in the tissue of the body.

Speaking only about my father and the men who served with him that I have gotten to know, their bodies have been through so much as young men but reliving the days and months over and over for the last 40 years has taken its toll on them and their families. These men are not mentally ill. These men have suffered in silence with the physical pain that is, in some cases, debilitating. These men have only now begun to understand why they have thought that they were crazy because they could never shake the feeling that they were 21 years old and still in combat.