Every veteran suicide just breaks my heart and makes me angry. I’ve been hearing recently that some in the medical and military communities are claiming that those coming home with PTSD must have been damaged in some way beforehand. I don’t agree. I think a lot of our soldiers coming home with PTSD had gentle, kind hearts to begin with that are now heavy with fear and guilt. They can’t help it. In America, for the most part, we all have kind, gentle lives. We aren’t war torn. We really don’t know what it’s like to fear for our lives and those of our children every day.
The military takes these basically kind people and puts them through basic training. They are all treated like dogs regardless of whom they are or where they come from. Once they are all at their lowest, the drill sergeants begin to bring them back up together to make them one cohesive unit, equal on all terms. This is necessary.
Besides learning their military skills, this is the purpose of basic training, boot camp or whatever it’s called. It breaks everyone down to their lowest level and then teaches everyone the same skills and thought patterns so they can work together. However, the one crucial skill or thought pattern that isn’t taught is how to take the life of another human being. Oh, they’re taught marksmanship with the rifle, they’re taught how to use a land mine, throw a grenade, and destroy a tank with a rocket launcher. They’re even taught how to maim using only their bodies. That’s great. That’s good training. They can “kill” the black silhouette of a person at 300 meters or even up close at 25.
I have never taken a human life, and I pray that I never have to. Thanks to training that with continuous repetition becomes instinctual, I believe that I could do so with little thought in the heat of a battle, but I believe it would devastate my soul at the end of the day. I would think over and over that I had killed someone’s son or daughter, mother or father, or someone who was simply a soldier serving their country the same as I. Without some kind of therapy, I imagine these thoughts would go on forever
The other side of PTSD is the constant fear that follows you even after you return home. Again, in our day-to-day American lives, we rarely have real fear for our lives or those of our family. Imagine with me for a moment that every minute and every hour of every day, someone is waiting around the corner to kill you. You must prevent it every time or die. This is what it is like to be deployed to a war zone; always on guard and always ready. I know this feeling, as do hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have been there, done that or are still there. You don’t just turn that off. Once you return, it can follow you for a few months, years or maybe for a lifetime. It may come and go. It may even affect your family.
My daughter and I often laugh about how we are always “scanning our sector” and looking for threats everywhere we go. It’s a sad kind of humor. This is what I’ve done to her. She trusts no one that approaches her and, as a result, it is very hard for her to make friends. She also swerves away from anything in the road or next to it, accelerating as she goes. It hurts me that her innocence and trust in the world around her was destroyed at such a young age. She was only five when I returned from deployment.
When I have discussions about PTSD and its treatment with people who have no experience with the military, the first thing they ask is why they, as taxpayers, should they have to pay for the cost of PTSD treatment for veterans when the veteran volunteered for military service and knew what the cost could be. Yes, we knew what the cost could be. We knew and accepted the fact that we could lose our life. It’s a sacrifice that nearly every soldier is willing to make. In basic training no other words can fill you with more pride than “Duty, Honor, Country”. These words help make us more than prepared to risk our life.
Being willing to risk your life versus taking the life of another human being are two very different things. We were well-trained to kill black silhouettes, stuffed dummies and empty tanks. How can anyone or any institution prepare a person for the mental reality of taking a human life though? When a soldier can do that without feeling some kind of remorse, then it is time for that soldier to go. That soldier is an “incident” waiting to happen and it’s these veterans that make the news after going on some kind of rampage.
Every day I see a story of another veteran who has taken his or her own life. I see these every day because I look for them. Mostly, these events only make the local news, and yet these are the veterans who should be making the national headlines. These are the veterans who still had a soul, but their struggle with their demons destroyed it until they just couldn’t live with it anymore. They might have been helped and rehabilitated with the proper care. Care that many veterans can’t get because the VA system is overloaded and the federal government won’t support it with the funds they need.
So back to the original question, “Why should American taxpayers cover the cost of treatment for veterans with PTSD”? Because they were willing to die for your freedom. They were willing to die to protect you and your family from oppression. They were willing to die so you don’t have to live in fear for your life every day like they did. They were willing to kill and take that stain onto their own soul for your sake. Most importantly, they served their country so you didn’t have to take the risk. How much is all that worth to you?
