Army veteran still thinks about Iraq War 'every single day'

[unhappycamper]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/18/186250/army-veteran-still-thinks-about.html


Army veteran still thinks about Iraq War 'every single day'
Michelle Dupler | Tri-City Herald
Posted on Monday, March 18, 2013

It’s taken Joel Robertson of West Richland five years to reconcile himself to the permanent ways his life was changed by serving in Iraq.

The former Army infantryman came home from two tours, totaling 28 months of combat, with injuries to his brain, back, shoulder and knees, and post-traumatic stress that gave him nightmares.

He came home to a divorce and non-military friends who didn’t want to hear about the horrors he had seen, even though he needed to tell someone — needed for someone to understand.

A decade after it started on March 19, 2003, the Iraq War likely isn’t on the minds of many people not directly touched by it. Troops have been withdrawn, news coverage has dropped off, life has moved on.



unhappycamper comment: Veterans who have been in wars tend to be changed by what they have seen and felt.

[southernyankeebelle]

1. I don't know a soldier who doesn't think of a war he/she has been in. My dad was a WWII vet

wounded. He slept with a baseball bat next to his bed til the day he died. Some people think you come home and your suppose to forget about the hell but it isn't easy. That is why it's good for guys like him to get together with other vets and they can talk to each. At least they can talk about the hell. Civilians don't get it.

[Victor_c3]

2. My wife doesn't get it

I stopped talking about it probably 7 or 8 years ago. I just mostly go on pretending that all is well until she catches me screaming or crying in my sleep or something like that.

The rest of my family doesn't want to hear anything about it. My parents quickly change the subject and my brother, who is also a veteran, wasn't really in the same situation I was so he just doesn't get it and won't let me talk about it either. I don't have any of what I would call "real" friends as I'm distant and don't really want friendships with anyone.

I hardly even talk about anything when I go to the VA. They don't ask me and they only focus on my symptoms. How am I sleeping? How is my relationship with my wife? How is work going?

The only time and place I really actually say anything about the war and my memories is on this forum.

Like probably many veterans, I just keep on keeping on stuck with my head in the past and bumbling dazed and confused through the present.