coming home to friendly fire by victor ... a standing member of the National Guard, so he lost the job. ... trouble-makers unfit for service in a process I call âpunitive.
The U.S. Military offers veterans and active personnel a variety of mental health support services. Yet many of those who would most benefit from help choose to suffer in silence.
coming home to friendly fire by victor ray
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!SHLEY 'ILBERTSON6))#ORBIS
This poem, titled “Two Tours in Iraq,” was written shortly before a soldier with severe PTSD killed himself.
Andre and Kenny hit it off the night they met. They swapped stories for hours, shared dinner together, and even learned they had attended neighboring high schools. Andre wasn’t on the patrol the next day when Kenny was killed—but he watched as Kenny’s tank was towed back to base with the tarp-covered body inside. (E RECALLED h4HE TANK COMPLETELY BLEW TO PIECES 7HEN IT hit the landmine… all of the ammunition stuff started going off inside, and a couple of the guys got caught inside the tank… THE SEAT HAD EMBEDDED INTO ;THE DRIVERS= SPINAL CORD AND THEY TRIED TO PULL HIM OUT (E WAS SCREAMING THEY COULDNT PULL HIM OUT (E WASx HE BURNT ON lREv Today, Andre is haunted by the image of his friend’s burned corpse, which he glimpsed as the wind lifted the tarp. Before the war, he was jovial, known to clown around and deescalate neighborhood conflicts. But his wartime experiences transformed HIM (IS EX WIFETHEY DIVORCED AFTER HIS DEPLOYMENTNOTICED he’d changed too. When he returned home, Andre attended a mental healthscreening program designed to identify Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among combat veterans. During the screening, he recalled, “the flood-gates just opened up. I didn’t know it was bothering me that much until, you know, they had me really talking about it. And I just started crying and I couldn’t stop.”
