Invisible Wounds

Apr 17

“I don’t feel good about it. It will bother me for the rest of my life and honestly I’m happy about that. I’m embarrassed by how little I knew. I was a kid from Texas. I flew on a plane for the first time when I went to boot camp. I had this visceral desire to seek vengeance for 9/11, and I believed our government when they told me that there was a connection to Iraq. So I fully supported the war. I thought we were bringing bad people to justice. I didn’t understand the nuances. I didn’t know anything about the people of Iraq, or the culture, or the country. And I feel ashamed about that. I’m getting my graduate degree in Middle Eastern history right now. And the more I learn, the worse I feel. I got so much personal benefit from being in the military. In many ways it was the greatest thing I’ve ever done. But I could have gotten those personal benefits from other means. I was in Iraq for one year. And the trauma of that year will impact me for the rest of my life. But for the people of Iraq, it’s been ten years. And they’re still being traumatized on a daily basis.”

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“I understand that it’s not sexy to talk about treatment. But the maddening thing about PTSD is that it’s completely fucking fixable.”

“The military is mostly filled with people who genuinely desire to do the right thing.”

“We met in college. Mark had long hair and a beard. He was class president so there were posters of him hanging up around campus.”

“I don’t feel good about it. It will bother me for the rest of my life and honestly I’m happy about that.”

“I have professors at Columbia who view me as a terrorist for fighting in Iraq.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to be a medic in a conflict zone and not have something stay with you.”

“I was inside an armored carrier with my platoon commander. He tried to open a pressurized fuel container and it sprayed across the vehicle and hit a camping stove that he was using to make hot chocolate.”

“Everyone who comes back from deployment fills out a form. It’s a standard psychological evaluation.”

“I was in charge of 250 Marines during my second deployment. We were assigned to a district called Sangin.”

“We got called out one day to assist a fuel convoy that was being pinned down by gunfire.”

“My brother went to Harvard. He’s ‘Good Will Hunting’ smart.”

“I didn’t fit in too well in training. I came back from drinking one night and I was three minutes after curfew.”

“My father was a platoon sergeant in the Pennsylvania National Guard. But nobody ever thought I’d join the military.”

Adam Parks https://apollocreativeco.com