Tactman,

Welcome to the forum. I am not military, but I pray for all our troops overseas and will pray for you personally. It takes alot of courage to serve our country as you do.

Take care,

vst

I'm sorry you're in that situation. If you decide it's just too much for you. The National Center for PTSD, VA in Palo Alto, CA Takes active duty. It's a great program and soldiers get priority right now.
I say this to you because I know you are not safe right now and I want you to know that there is a safe place that you can go. Don't be ashamed of your feelings. They are natural.
Thanks for serving, Morgan

Tactman

You and I have VERY similar backgrounds. Please e-mail me at
Not that I can be of much help as I am processing my own issues. But it will be nice to speak with someone familiar with life inside the "colors of the rainbow."

Tactman, I wish I could help you this way. I wish very much. That is what makes me feel the best: helping other people, making them feel better. (Hence why I am an EMT)

Unfortunately I know that to hear the detail of what you are witnessing, would rip me up. It would just rip me to shreds emotionally. To try to help you, would hurt me terribly, because of my PTSD.

And since everyone else here suffers from PTSD, we have "direct circuits" to our horror/fear centers, it is abnormally easy for us to envision the bad things we hear about, as well as to take the actual pain of those events upon ourselves... it's that "caring too much" thing... we are too sensitive, too empathetic.

So please don't be offended if people aren't jumping up to talk with you about certain things in detail. I agree that you do need to get it off your chest, we just need to find you an outlet where you can do so without accidentally hurting the other person. The people here are fragile and wrangling their own issues themselves.

I am sorry I can't help you with this. I really want to. I just know that it will send me backsliding into flashbacks and nightmares and that God-awful suffocating morasse, and I don't want to go back there again........

Still praying for you and sending positive vibes your way, though.

Bailey

Tactman, I am glad you found this forum. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
There is a lot of useful information here. Here I have also found hope.

This past summer I was temporarily and voluntarily re-assigned away from "the face of death". It did help. It did get depressing though. I felt useless and bored and a burden to my team. I returned to regular duty and it has been challenging. Learning and practicing healthy coping skills has helped. Not beating myself up and being gentle with myself has helped a great deal. As a civilian now, "Honor, Courage, and Commitment," still have meaning.

Honor- my actions are congruent with my belief in recovery

Courage- to be vulnerable, take risks, be honest about how I feel,

Commitment- committed to myself, my well-being, and spiritual progress

Take care of yourself Tactman. No one else can.

Semper Fi,
tude

I really appreciatte everyone's help. I had hoped that my team was going to be assigned to another part of the world but it turns out (you can read CNN and figure this out) were being put right in the middle of it again. I've come to a cross road and feel that in this cross road I am going to have to turn off every human emotion I have and just focus on "completing my op".

I hope to one day be able to regain these human emotions. I am curious if anyone has ever actually been able to recover from voluntarily killing your concious and then being able to eventually move back into society as a normal citizen. It's a paradox when you are awarded a Purple Heart and realize you would have rather just become another KIA statistic.

This battle in my mind is the hardest battle I have ever fought in my life, this coming from someone who was one of the first American soldiers to ever enter Fallujah.

I thank everyone for all of your advice and help. As an American soldier I have one thing to ask of each and every one of you. Please vote in this up-coming presidential election. Don't fall for the smoke and mirrors, vote for someone whom you feel will do what is best for OUR country. The country that as I am writing this young men and woman from every corner of our great country is spilling their blood. Think of the parents, the brothers, sisters, grandparents, friends and neighbors who are losing their lives here.

Any candidate that says they will pull EVERY soldier out by a certain date is a fool. It is impossible to do. While they may do a mass troop withdrawal there will be a select few of us left behind and when this happens it will be a blood bath for those of us left. Use your head, vote with your heart, do what YOU as an American citizen feel is the right thing. Not only will a sudden withdraw literally slaughter thousands of our soldiers, the murder on the innocent Iraqi people will be on a genocide level. I have been lucky enough to have made friends with quite a few of these famalies. These people want the same thing we do. They want to live in peace, worship in their own way, watch their children grow and prosper, and live.

Bailey, I can understand some of the things you have witnessed and why speaking of them would open up wounds that are hard to close. The medics in my units are some of the most brave men and woman I have ever met. In the middle of a firefight you will hear someone scream "Medic Up" and guess what happens. A medic is on their way there to a downed soldier, a fellow soldier.

I salute you as a civilian medic and I appreciatte the job you do. Believe it or not I actually think of the medics and emt's in the states quite a bit. My family is trusted to people of your calibers skill. All you hear about it law enforcement and the fire service, very few people recognize Emergency Medical Services. I want you to know that I do recognize you and your sacrifices. I salute you maam.

Tactman,

While I cannot personally speak to your level of suffering as my PTSD is from another source, I did want to thank for the sacrifice you are making for all of us on such a deep level. I will be voting in the presidential election and I understand fairly well what you are saying and I agree. I just wish there was an easy way out where we would be safe from terrorism, the Iraqi public would be safe, and you could safely come home. No easy answers, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for fighting for us.

Grace

Hi Tactman and welcome to the Forum. I hope you will find it helpful.
Take care,
Linda

The past day has been horrible. I'm not sure how this forum works. Can I share events that are affecting me or in doing this might I make others relive events in their life.

I wish there was a military forum available which was designed in a way so they could not trace who the person posting is.

When I do sleep the nightmares are horrendous. Things replay sometimes in slow motion and the smallest details that I didn't percieve at the time of the event become a part of the dream.

Flashbacks. I always thought flashbacks were something that happened in later life, not while you are living the stressors.

We meet with pschologists on occasion to make sure we are handling the extreme amount of stress we are presented with. Not once has any of these guys seemed to really become involved in a conversation with me.

I do want to stress that when it comes to my operational status I am 100%. I do my ops as ordered and will not fail them.

I just need someone to talk to I guess, someone who won't judge me for the things I have done.