No Greater Love

For all the men and women—past, present and future,

who have served or will ever serve this country.

And to the people who love them.

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Combat

Rationalization of War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Brotherhood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Assault of the Senses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Gray Area Guilt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Anger and Revenge Killing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Euphoria and the Stages of Killing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Committing Atrocities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Intimate Killing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

After

Survivor Guilt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Experiencing PTSD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PTSD and Family Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hypervigilance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Traumatic Brain Injury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Societal Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Healing

Three Gifts for Returning Veterans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For Eli by Andrea Gibson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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In the Military, our soldiers and marines are called upon

to stabilize nations around the world with peacekeeping

operations in places many of us have never heard of prior to

the deployment of American troops. This is a reality of the

post-Cold War era.

In the war against terrorism, warriors assault the remaining

threat to democracy: global terrorism sanctioned and

fostered by, and festering in, totalitarian nations. In

Afghanistan, and around the world, warriors have been called

to action to bring terrorists to justice for the murder of

nearly 3,000 American citizens on September 11, 2001.

When they complete this formidable task, and have routed

out terrorism, we will have to rebuild those nations, as

we will not be truly safe until they are democracies. To

accomplish this, we need peace officers and peacekeepers.

Warriors. Warriors to attack. Warriors to defend. Warriors

to build, preserve, and protect. Do not limit, my brothers

and sisters, the role of the warrior.

The stress of combat debilitates far more warriors than are

killed in direct, hostile action. It is in this toxic, corrosive,

destructive domain of the Universal Human Phobia that we

ask our soldiers and police officers to live, and to die. This is

the realm of combat.

Our warriors are the ones who create America’s foundation

of safety. They sre the ones who face down the Universal

Human Phobia, the most toxic, corrosive, destructive element

that can impact our society. They are the foundation of the

building, and if the foundation of the building crumbles, the

building will fall.

Preface

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In honor of Veteran’s day, in November of 2010, Smith

Magazine teamed up with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

of America (IAVA) to collect six-word memoirs from veterans

and families of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars

about the experience of coming home.

The results prove to be more chilling, difficult, and inspiring

than either organization could possibly imagine.

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These stories, however, remain greatly unheard. Without

acknowledgement and support, these veterans are

floundering. This book aims to bring these stories, these

experiences of war to the surface and to encourage you,

the reader, to find respect and support for our troops in a

time when they need it most.

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THEY ARE THE EVIL

Our workplace is not some sterile office or

humming factory. It is a stretch of desolate

highway in a vast and empty land. A guard

tower burns in the background. Shattered

bodies litter the ground around us. Vacant

corpse eyes, bulging and horror-struck, stare

back at us. The stench of burned flesh is thick

in our nostrils. This was once an Iraqi Civil

Defense Corps (ICDC) checkpoint, designed to

regulate traffic in and out of Muqdadiyah, one

of the key cities in the Diyla Province. Thanks

to a surprise attack laughed earlier in the

morning, it is nothing more than a funeral pyre.

We arrived too late to help, and our earnest

but untrained allies died horribly as the

insurgents swept over them. One Iraqi soldier

took a direct hit from a rocket-propelled

grenade (RPG). All that’s left of him are his

boots and soggy piles of bloody meat splattered

around the guard tower.

This is our workplace. We began to acclimate

to such horrors right after arriving in the

country. While on our second patrol in Iraq,

a civilian candy truck tried to merge with a

column of our armored vehicles, only to get

run over and squashed. The occupants were

smashed beyond recognition. Our first sight of

death was a man and his wife ripped open and

dismembered, their intestines strewn across

shattered boxes of candy bars. The entire

platoon hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours. We

stopped, and as we stood guard around the

wreckage, we grew increasingly hungry. Finally,

I stole a few nibbles from one of the cleaner

candy bars. Others wiped away the gore and

fuel from the wrappers and joined me.

That was three weeks ago. We’re veterans now,

proud that we can stomach such sights and still

carry out our job. It is this misery that defines

us, that gives us our identity. It also cleaves

infantrymen apart from everyone else in

uniform. Some call it arrogance. So be it. We

call it pride since we believe fervently in what

we are doing.

In combat, there is often a breakdown

in the psychological distance that is a

key method of removing one’s sense of

empathy and achieving this “emotional

withdrawal.” Again, some of the

mechanisms that facilitate this

process include:

Cultural distance, such as racial and ethnic

differences, which permit the killer to

dehumanize the victim.

Moral distance, which takes into

consideration the kind of intense belief in

moral superiority and vengeful/vigilante

actions associated with many civil wars.

Social distance, which considers the

impact of a lifetime of practice in thinking

of a particular class as less than human in

a socially stratified environment.

Mechanical distance, which includes

the sterile Nintendo-game unreality of

killing through a TV screen, a thermal

sight, a sniper sight, or some other kind of

mechanical buffer that permits the killer to

deny the humanity of his victim.

The primary psychological distance factor

utilized in Afghanistan and Iraq was moral

distance, deriving from moral “crusades”

against terrorism. Moral distance involves

legitimizing oneself and one’s cause. It can

generally be divided into two components.

The first component is the determination

and condemnation of the enemy’s guilt,

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which, of course, must be punished or

avenged. The other is an affirmation of the

legality and legitimacy of one’s own cause.

Moral distance establishes that the

enemy’s cause is clearly wrong, his leaders

are criminal, and his soldiers are either

simply misguided or are sharing in their

leader’s guilt. But the enemy is still a

human and killing him is an act of justice

rather than the extermination that is often

motivated by cultural distance.

COMBAT RATIONALIZATION OF WAR

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Numerous studies have concluded that

men in combat are usually motivated to

fight not by ideology or hate or fear, but by

group pressures and processes involving

[1] regard for their comrades, [2] respect

for their leaders, [3] concern for their own

reputation with both, and [4] an urge to

contribute to the success of the group.

Countless sociological and psychological

studies, the personal narratives of

numerous veterans, and interviews

conducted with veterans clearly indicate

the strength of the soldier’s concern for

failing his buddies. The guilt and trauma

associated with failing to fully support

men who are bonded with friendship

and camaraderie on this magnitude is

profoundly intense.

Among men who are bonded together so

intensely, there is a powerful process of

peer pressure in which the individual cares

so deeply about his comrades and what

they think about him that he would rather

die than let them down. That is the bond

of the men and women who put their lives

on the line every day. Lose one and it is the

same as losing a spouse or a brother, and

when it is a human who causes the loss of a

fellow warrior’s life, it becomes personal.

In addition to creating a sense of

accountability, groups also enable killing

through developing in their members

a sense of anonymity that contributes

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THE BROTHERHOOD

By the end of school, you have learned the

ways of the Brotherhood. When you get the

Crab placed on your chest, you have thousands

of new brothers and a few sisters. They are

unknown but loved. You will travel all over the

world together, work together, drink together,

laugh and cry and bleed and fight together. You

have a new family. They are all that will sustain you.

The Long Walk. Armor on, girded with

breastplate and helm and leggings and collar.

Eighty pounds of mailed Kevlar. No one can

put on the bomb suit alone; your brother has

to dress you, overalls pulled up, massive jacket

tucked, earnest in his careful thoroughness.

One last check, face shield down, and then into

the breach alone.

There is no more direct confrontation of wills

between bomber and EOD technician than the

Long Walk. Donning the suit, leaving behind

rifle and security, to outwit your opponent nose

to nose. The lonely seeking of hidden danger.

To ensure no more hazards lie in wait to snatch

the next soldier to pass that way, the next EOD

brother or sister, the next local shopkeeper or

taxi driver or child playing in a garbage-laden sewer.

No one takes the Long Walk lightly. Only after

every other option is extinguished. Only after

robots fail and recourses dwindle. The last

choice. Always.

But when the choice comes, when the knife’s

edge between folly and reason finally tips,

training affords a decisiveness to guide your

higher purpose. Castleman went so Keener

didn’t have to. So Mengershausen didn’t have

to. So I didn’t have to. You take the Long Walk

for your brother’s wife, your brother’s children,

and their children, and the line unborn.

No greater love does one brother have for

another than to take the Long Walk.

further to violence. Among groups in

combat, this accountability (to one’s

friends) and anonymity (to reduce one’s

sense of personal responsibility for killing)

combine to play a significant role in

enabling killing. Killing another human

being can be an extraordinarily difficult

thing to do. But if a soldier feels he is

letting his friends down if he doesn’t kill,

and if he can get others to share in the

killing process (thus diffusing his personal

responsibility by giving each individual a

slice of the guilt), then killing can be easier.

Pain shared is pain divided, and joy shared

is joy multiplied; that is the essence of the

human condition. There has always been

a time for remembrance, a time to touch

on that which was good and fine about a

fallen comrade. Across the centuries, in

funerals, wakes and around the campfire,

COMBAT THE BROTHERHOOD

warriors would tell of their fallen

comrades: the noble deeds that they

had personally witnessed, the lessons in

life that had been taught, and how their

lives had been shaped by the life which

was departed.

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VISCERAL HORROR

The car bomb went off just outside of our FOB,

in downtown Kirkuk, on the highway that leads

north to Irbil and the peaceful Kurdish lands

untouched by the war. We felt it in the HAS, a

shaking rumble like thunder on a clear hot day.

We had put our gear on and were waiting for

our security escort even before the call came

in to go investigate.

The car had stopped burning by the time

we arrived. A twisted black shell, frame, and

engine block smoldering, hot to the touch. The

Iraqi Police had cordoned off the scene, yelling

at pedestrians to move back. The reverse

dichotomy always struck me. The scene of the

blast, where so much violence had happened

minutes before, was now empty and quiet. The

surrounding neighborhood, peaceful until

the attack, was now a roiling cauldron of

frustration and anger.

Castleman and I started the investigation at the

blast hole. The asphalt punctured, wet with a

mix of fluids, some mechanical, some human.

The car frame was several feet from the crater,

thrown by the force of the explosion. It yielded

no clues; any wires, switches, batteries, or

fingerprints were burned away in the fire. We

could have found traces of explosive residue if

we had had the time. We didn’t have the time.

I looked up from the hulk and surveyed further

out. Chunks of steel frag were buried in a

nearby concrete wall. A fully intact artillery

projectile, a 130 or 155, probably, from the size

and shape, failing to detonate and instead

kicked out by the blast, was caught in a fence

a hundred feet away. We would grab that and

blow it before we left.

“It smells like shit!” I said. And it did.

“Sir, it always smells like shit in this country,”

answered Castleman.

He was right. But this wasn’t the normal smell

of shit: diesel exhaust, burning trash, sweat,

and grime, the body odor of an unwashed

city. We smelled that mix every day. No, this

smelled like actual shit. Human shit.

“Check this out,” called Castleman.

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He had found the target of the car bomb.

Bloody shirts and boots of Iraqi policemen.

A pair of pants, dropped or torn off, with

a month’s wages in frayed and scorched

250-dinar notes poking out from a front pocket.

Hands and feet. Several pools of drying blood.

The smell of shit was stifling, and getting worse.

A quick count of right hands indicated a couple

dead, at least. Who knows how many wounded,

pulled out by their fellow police, now dead or

dying at the overwhelmed hospital. The Iraqi

cops had already picked up the biggest parts,

so any count we made was going to be wrong. It

wasn’t worth the trouble to get the exact right

number anyway. I continued on. The smell of

shit was overwhelming in the afternoon heat. I

looked down.

“Hey, I found it!” I yelled to Castleman, who was

taking pictures of the scene for evidence.

There at my feet was a perfectly formed, and

entirely intact, lower intestine. The small

intestine above and anus below were torn off

and scattered, but the colon itself was pristine,

and lay there like I had just removed it from

the organ bag in the gut of a Thanksgiving

turkey. It was beautiful, stuffed with the

digested remains of an unknown last meal.

Castleman walked over and looked down where

I pointed. The intestine smelled like it was

cooking in a pan.

He shrugged. I shrugged back.

We walked off and left that shit-filled colon

to bake on the black asphalt in the hot Iraqi

summer sun.

Beyond fear and exhaustion in war is a sea

of horror that surrounds the soldier and

assails his every sense.

Hear the pitiful screams of the wounded

and dying. Smell the butcher-house smells

of feces, blood, burned flesh, and rotting

decay, which combine into the awful

stench of death. Feel the shudder of the

ground as the very earth groans at the

abuse of artillery and explosives, and feel

the last shiver of life and the flow of warm

blood as friends die in your arms. Taste the

salt of blood and tears as you hold a dear

friend in mutual grieving, and you do not

know or care if it is the salt of your tears or

his. And see what hath been wrought.

Strangely, such horrifying memories seem

to have a much more profound effect

on the combatant—the participant in

battle—than the noncombatant (the

correspondent, civilian, POW, or other

passive observer in the battle zone). The

combat soldier appears to feel a deep sense

of responsibility and accountability for

what he sees around him. It is as though

every enemy dead is a human being he

has killed, and every friendly dead is a

comrade for whom he was responsible.

With every effort to reconcile these two

responsibilities, more guilt is added to the

horror that surrounds the soldier.

And yet, all of this, this horror, is just one

of the many factors among those that

conspire to drive the soldier from the

painful field.

COMBAT ASSAULT OF THE SENSES

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KILLING IN A FOG

We’re surrounded by coffins.

Fresh wooden ones line both sides of the street.

In places they’re piled two and three high.

Nearby, an old man stoops over two boards as

a he swings a hammer. I realize he’s building a

coffin lid. More lids lie scattered on the street

around him, blocking our path ahead.

Cantrell orders us to dismount. Our vehicle’s

ramp flops down and clangs onto the street.

We sprint out into the brutal morning sun.

Buildings still smolder. A battle-damaged

house has already been gutted by men wielding

sledge hammers. All around us, interspersed

among the coffins, women cry and children

stare into space. Old men, survivors of

Saddam’s reign of violence, the war with Iran,

and Gulf War I, regard us with hollowed eyes.

We slowly make our way past the house we

used as our casualty collection point the day

before. Stacked out front are three caskets.

I wonder if one of them houses the teenage

kid I had to shoot.

In the middle of yesterday’s fight, my squad

reached a gated and walled house. Sergeant

Hugh Hall, our platoon’s stocky, door-crushing

bruiser, smashed the gate and led the way

into a courtyard. Just as we got inside, the

face of the house suddenly exploded. A chunk

of spinning concrete slammed into Hall and

sent the rest of us flying for cover. A sudden

barrage followed as three Bradley armored

vehicles opened up with their 25-millimeter

Buschmaster cannons in response to the

explosion of the enemy rocket. As the high-

explosive rounds tore up the area outside of

the house, the din was so intense I could

hardly hear.

Over the radio, I made out Cantrell yelling—

“Bellavia, give me a fucking SITREP.” Cantrell’s

voice is the only thing that can rise above the

cacophony of a firefight. He has a real gift there.

Confused and dazed, I initially failed to

respond. Cantrell didn’t like this. “BELLAVIA,

ARE YOU FUCKING OKAY?”

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I finally found the wherewithal to respond. All

I had heard was the Bradley fire, so I finally

screamed back, “Stop shooting! You’re hitting

our location.”

“Hey asshole, that wasn’t us. That was a fucking

RPG,” Cantrell’s voice booms through the radio.

“And here comes another.”

The top of a large palm tree in the courtyard

suddenly exploded overhead. Cantrell and the

other Bradleys immediately returned fire. Bits

of wood and burned leaves rained down on us.

Hall, already covered with concrete dust, dirt,

and blood, blurted out, “Would they kill that

muthafucka already?”

“Get inside and take the roof,” I holler over our

Bradley’s fire.

The men moved for the door. As they forced

their way inside, I peered around the corner

and caught sight of a gunman on a nearby

rooftop. I studied him for a moment, unsure

whose side he was on. He could be a friendly

local. We’d seen them before shooting at the

black-clad Mahdi militiamen who infiltrated

COMBAT GRAY AREA GUILT

this part of the city earlier in the fight. Not

everyone with a rifle was an enemy.

The gunman on the roof was teenaged boy,

maybe sixteen years old. I could see him

scanning for targets, his back to me. He held

an AK-47 without a stock. Was he just a stupid

kid trying to protect his family? Was he one

of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite fanatics? I kept my

eyes on him and prayed he’d put the AK down

and just get back inside his own house. I didn’t

want to shoot him.

He turned and saw me, and I could see the

terror on his sweat-streaked face. I put him in

my sights just as he adjusted his AK against

his shoulder. I had beaten him on the draw. My

own rifle was snug in my shoulder, the sight

resting on him. The kid stood no chance. My

weapon just needed a flick of the safety and a

butterfly’s kiss of pressure on the trigger.

Please don’t do this. You don’t need to die.

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The AK went to full ready-up. Was he aiming

at me? I couldn’t be sure, but the barrel was

trained at my level. Do I shoot? Do I risk not

shooting? Was he silently trying to save me

from unseen threat? I didn’t know. I had to

make a decision.

Please forgive me for this.

I pulled my trigger. The kid’s chin fell to his

chest, and a guttural moan escaped his lips. I

fired again, missed, then pulled the trigger one

more time. The bullet tore his jaw and ear off.

Sergeant Hall came up alongside me, saw the

AK and the boy, and finished him with four

shots to his chest. He slumped against the low

rooftop wall.

“Thanks, dude. I lose my zero,” I said to Hall,

explaining that my rifle sights were off-line,

though that was the last thing going through

my mind.

Many kills in modern combat are ambushes

and surprise attacks in which the enemy

represents no immediate threat to the

killer, but is killed anyway, without

opportunity to surrender. Such a kill is

by no means considered an atrocity, but

it is also distinctly different from a noble

kill and potentially harder for the killer

to rationalize and deal with. Until the

twentieth century such ambush kills were

extremely rare in combat.

One of the things that could make combat

in Afghanistan and Iraq particularly

traumatic was that due to the nature of

guerrilla warfare, soldiers were often

placed in situations in which the line

between combatant and non-combatant

was blurred. Soldiers are forced to take

these kinds of actions, maybe even make

these kinds of mistakes, and they need,

desperately, to have someone tell them

what they did was right and necessary.

Being able to identify his victim as a

combatant is important to the rationalization,

which occurs after the kill. If a soldier kills

a child, a woman, or anyone who does not

represent a potential threat, then he has

entered the realm of murder (as opposed to

a legitimate sanctioned combat kill), and

the rationalization process becomes quite

difficult. Even if he kills in self-defense,

there is enormous resistance associated

with killing an individual who is not

normally associated with relevance or payoff.

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COMBAT GRAY AREA GUILT

THAT’S MY BROTHER

I’m just about to move when it happens. Fitts

is crouched and shooting into the other side

of the compound when his right forearm snaps

back violently. A spray of blood fills the air. He

doesn’t break stride. He takes two more steps,

switches his rifle to his left hand and braces it

under his armpit. He fires it like a child’s toy

with his one good arm.

Then his left arm jerks and slumps as another

bullet strikes him in the left bicep, right above

the elbow. His rifle tilts to the ground and

he triggers several rounds into the dirt. He

staggers, drops his rifle, and falls down.

Ten feet behind Fitts, specialist Desean Ellis

spins backward and screams. Even from my

distant vantage point, almost a hundred meters

away, I hear a terrible ripping sound, like

denim jeans being torn apart. A bullet has

hit him in the right quadriceps. As he spins

I can see a crimson stain on Ellis’s pants. He

crumples to the ground.

Summoning reserves of strength, Fitts

retrieves his M4 rifle and regains his feet. He

pumps four or five quick shots into the house

as he stumbles forward. Behind him, his men

go “cyclic” with their automatic weapons’ rate

of fire. Properly trained infantry-men don’t

do that in close combat except in desperate

circumstances. Faced with the loss of their

leader, they have no choice but to turn their

weapons into lethal shower heads.

A shape appears in the doorway. Fitts fires at

the insurgent, triggering his weapon now with

his thumb and the ring finger of his opposing

hand. Sergeant Hall unleashes a volley as well.

The enemy collapses in the doorway. Seconds

later, another takes his place. Contreras shoots

him dead with two well-placed rounds.

The abandoned machine gun in the second-

story window suddenly tilts down. I see

the movement and realize what it means.

Somebody is manning the weapon now, and our

men are in the open. I still have no clear shot.

I can’t help. My stomach churns. I rage against

my own helplessness.

The gun barks. Bullets erupts all around the

squad. The men scramble for their lives. Fitts

has no chance. I see him double over as blood

fountains from his right knee, his third hit. He

sags into the dirt, blood pooling around him.

I cannot believe what I’m seeing. Fitts, my

closest friend, has been shot three times, and

I’m powerless to help. Searing heat ripples

down my spine. I lose feeling in my legs. I can’t

move. I can’t think. All I can do is watch in

horror. I think of Fitts’s wife. She’s back home

pregnant with their third child. How am I going

to explain this day to her?

The recent loss of friends and beloved

leaders in combat can enable violence

on the battlefield. The deaths of friends

and comrades can stun, paralyze, and

emotionally defeat soldiers. But in many

circumstances (which is one of the well-

known response stages to death and dying),

the loss of comrades can enable killing.

Revenge killing during a burst of rage has

been a recurring theme throughout history,

and it needs to be considered in the overall

equation of factors that enable killing on

the battlefield. The soldier in combat is a

product of his environment, and violence

can beget violence. This is the nurture side

of the nature-nurture question.

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1 2 Among groups in combat, accountability

(to one’s friends) and anonymity combine

to play a significant role in enabling killing.

I can’t look but I have to.

Fitts is lying facedown in the dirt about ten

meters from the house’s front door. Misa

launches another 40mm grenade into the

machine-gun nest overhead just as two men

charge out the front door.

To my amazement, Fitts grasps his M4 again

and opens fire. He still has plenty of fight left

in him.

I decide I need to move. I get to my feet and

zig down an alleyway, then turn a corner. I

stop short. I ‘ve come right up behind a man

smoking a cigarette. His golden armband

denoting membership in the Mahdi militia has

fallen around his wrist.

He doesn’t notice me. He’s preoccupied with

Mr. Ray-Ban on the roof only a few meters

away. His back is to me. He casually continues

to smoke, with his AK strapped over his right

shoulder. At first I think I’m hallucinating.

Does this jackoff think there are unionized

smoke breaks in battle?

My weapon comes up automatically. I don’t

even think. In the second it takes to set the

rifle on burst-fire, my surprise gives way to

cold fury. The muzzle makes contact with the

back of his head.

Fuck a zero. I can’t miss now.

My finger twitches twice. Six rounds tear

through his skull. His knees collapse together

as if I’d just broken both his legs. As he sinks

down he makes a snorting, piggish sound. I

lower my barrel and trigger another three-

round burst into his chest, just to be sure. He

flops to the ground with a meaty slap.

His head bobbles back and forth. He snorts

again. I convince myself that this is the man

who shot FItts , and I am roused to a full fury.

His face looks like a bloody Halloween mask

and I stomp it with my boot until he finally

dies. While I spike his weapon, bending the

barrel to assure that anyone who uses it again

will only hurt themselves, I notice my entire

boot is bathed in blood and gore.

By all rights, Colin Fitts shouldn’t even be in

Iraq. Three bullet wounds is usually a ticket

to a medical retirement and a disability check.

Not for Fitts. He flowed through the casualty

pipeline from Diyala and Baghdad through

Germany before landing at Walter Reed

Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. He

stuck around stateside long enough to see his

third child born, then bullied his way back to

Germany where a friendly sergeant gave him a

pass on his PT test.

One summer day, he showed up again. There

was no fanfare, but I’ll never forget him

limping back into the company area. My

morale soared. Lieutenant Colonel Newell even

decorated him with the Bronze Star for valor.

The truth is Fitts should not be back with us.

His body has not healed completely. He walks

with a limp. His arms ache. His leg is always

stiff, and there are times I find him in great pain.

It is hard not to love a guy who will sacrifice

this much for you.

COMBAT ANGER AND REVENGE KILLING

2

19

THE THRILL

I take another look down the street.

Never hit a man when he’s down? Bullshit.

Show me a better time.

Combat distilled to its purest human form is

a test of manhood. Who is the better soldier?

Who is the better man? Which warrior will

emerge triumphant and which will lie in a heap

in the street? In modern warfare, that man-

to-man challenge is often hidden by modern

technology—the splash of artillery fire can

be random, a rocket or bomb or IED can be

anonymous. Those things make combat a roll

of the dice. Either you die or you don’t; your

own skill doesn’t have a lot to do with it. But

on this street and in these houses, it can be

man-to-man. My skills against his. I caught him

napping and he died. That is how the game is

played. Tomorrow I might be the corpse in a

heap on the street. But tonight I am alive, and I

rejoice in that fact.

I scream at the top of my lungs. It is a victory

cry. I am euphoric. I have killed the enemy and

survived. Infantrymen live on the edge. We are

hyper alert, hyper aware of our own mortality.

It makes us feel more alive, more powerful.

Death is ever-present, our constant companion.

We can use it or be victimized by it. We either

let the violence swallow us whole or it will

drive us insane.

As infantrymen, our entire existence is a series

of tests: Are you man enough? Are you tough

enough? Can you pull the trigger? Can you

kill? Can you survive?

Yes.

I feel loose inside, like my vital organs

have been rearranged by the euphoria that

consumes me. I scream again. Battle madness

grips me. Combat is a descent into the darkest

parts of the human soul. A place where the

most exalted nobility and the most wretched

baseness reside naturally together. What a man

finds there defines how he measures himself

for the rest of his life. Do we release our grip

on our basic humanity to be better soldiers?

Do we surrender to the insanity around us and

ride its wave wherever it may take us?

Yes.

I embrace the battle. I welcome it into my soul.

Damn the consequences later, I am committed,

and there’s no road back.

When soldiers do kill the enemy, they

appear to go through a series of

emotional stages.

The actual kill is usually described as being

reflexive or automatic. Usually killing in

combat is completed in the heat of the

moment, and for the modern, properly

conditioned soldier, killing in such a

circumstance is most often completed

reflexively, without conscious thought. It

is as though the human being is a weapon.

1

1

Cocking and taking the safety catch off of

this weapon is a complex process, but once

it is off the actual pulling of the trigger is

fast and simple.

The stage immediately following reflexive

killing is the exhilaration stage of euphoria.

The adrenaline of combat can be greatly

increased by another high: the high of

killing. What hunter or marksman has not

felt a thrill of pleasure and satisfaction

upon dropping his target? In combat this

thrill can be greatly magnified. For some

combatants, the lure of exhilaration may

become more than a passing occurrence.

A few may become fixated in this stage and

never truly feel remorse. Those who are

truly fixated with the exhilaration of killing

either are extremely rare or simply don’t

talk about it much. There is a strong social

stigma against saying that one enjoyed

killing in combat.

20

I cup my hands to my mouth and take a long

breath. “You can’t kill me!” I rage into the

night, “You hear me fuckers? You can’t kill me!

You will never kill me!”

I am the madness.

COMBAT EUPHORIA AND THE STAGES OF KILLING

If the demands from authority and the

threatening enemy are intense enough

to overcome a soldier’s resistance, it is

only understandable that he feels some

sense of satisfaction. He has hit his

target, he has saved his friends, and he

has saved his own life. He has resolved

the conflict successfully. He won. He is

alive! Subsequent kills are always easier,

and there is much more of a tendency to

feel satisfaction or exhilaration after the

second killing experience, and less tendency

to feel remorse.

2

21

2

THINGS I DON’T TALK ABOUT

I am a Christian, but my time in Iraq has

convinced me that God doesn’t want to hear

from me anymore. I’ve done things that

even He can never forgive. I’ve done them

consciously; I’ve made decisions I must live

with for years to come. I am not a victim. In

each instance, I heard my conscience call for

restraint. I told it to shut the fuck up and let

me handle my business.

All the sins I’ve committed, I’ve done

them with one objective: to keep my men

alive. Those kids in my squad, those kids of

mine, they are everything. My wife doesn’t

understand this job or why I do it. My son is

too young. My dad wouldn’t get it if I tried

to explain. My mom would have a heart

attack. The need to keep my men alive makes

everything else negotiable, and everyone and

everything a potential threat.

My mind flashes to April 9 again, when we

burst into a house full of men, women, and

children. I separated the men. The children

screamed. The women sobbed hysterically. My

squad found AKs and an RPK machine gun

in closets around the house. They were still

warm, and the men reeked of gunpowder. They

laughed at our situation as our Bradleys fired

and rockets boomed outside.

One man waved his finger and mockingly

lectured me.

“Geneva Conventions. You must do good,

Amreekee. You good Amreekee.”

In reality, the problem of distinguishing

murder from killing in combat is extremely

complex. If we examine atrocity as a

spectrum of occurrences rather than a

precisely defined type of occurrence, then

perhaps we can better understand the

nature of this phenomenon.

Anchoring one end of the spectrum of

atrocity is the act of killing an armed

enemy who is trying to kill you. This end

of the spectrum is not atrocity at all, but

serves as a standard against which other

kinds of killing can be measured. The

enemy who fights to a “noble” death

validates and affirms the killer’s belief in

his own nobility and the glory of the cause.

In the heat of the battle, however, it is not

really all that simple. In order to fight at

close range one must deny the humanity of

one’s enemy. Surrender requires quite the

opposite—that one recognize and take pity

on the humanity of the enemy. A surrender

in the heat of battle requires a complete,

and very difficult, emotional turnaround

by both parties. The enemy who opts to

posture or fight and then dies in battle

becomes a noble enemy. But if at the last

minute he tries to surrender he runs a great

risk of being killed immediately.

Execution is defined here as the close-range

killing of an individual that represents

no significant or immediate military or

personal threat to the killer. The close

range of the kill severely hampers the killer

in his attempts to deny the humanity of

the victim and severely hampers denial of

personal responsibility for the kill.

1

I couldn’t leave them in the house with one

of my soldiers as a guard, as we were already

short of men. I couldn’t leave them alone

either, They would have shot us in the back

as we left. I decided to flex-cuff them to their

front gate, and return for them after the fight

ended. But as we left the house and advanced

up the street, a wave of machine-gun fire

ripped over us. I looked back. The four men

had somehow broken loose from the gate and

were running for it in all directions. A Bradley

cut one down and as the 25mm shells hit him,

he exploded. His flex-cuffed arms spun across

the street and smacked to the pavement.

One bound insurgent started to crawl back to

his compound. A bearded man from another

house ran out to cut his flex-cuffs loose with

large pruning shears. I moved into the open

danger area and shot the rescuer repeatedly.

My rounds sparked off his shears as they

shattered into pieces.

Machine-gun fire raked the ground around us.

The flex-cuffed insurgent doubled over, hit by

an errant enemy bullet. Writhing in pain, he

began to scream only feet away from his own

house. His family heard him, and two sobbing

children came out to see what had become

of their father. I tossed a smoke grenade that

scattered the children back to the safety of

their home. I did it to keep the kids from

getting harmed, but also to deny their father

a chance to say good-bye. My brothers who

died in the field got no such opportunity to say

good-bye to those they loved, and I will afford

none to this man. I wanted him to die alone,

shrouded in smoke, choking on his own blood.

Their father, utterly despondent, stared at me

with pleading eyes as the white smoke filled

the air around him. He died without another

chance to see his children. I robbed him of his

final earthly joy. I delighted as I watched his

life ebb away. It felt just.

There are many benefits reaped by those

who tap the dark power of atrocity. One

of the most obvious and blatant benefits

of atrocity is that it quite simply scares

the hell out of people. The raw horror and

savagery of those who murder and abuse

cause people to flee, hide, and defend

themselves feebly. The term “terrorist”

simply means “one who uses terror,” and

we don’t have to look very far—around the

world or back in history—to find instances

of individuals and nations who have

succeeded in achieving power through the

ruthless and effective use of terror.

Murder and execution can be sources of

mass empowerment. It is as if a pact with

the devil has been made. In these execution

situations strong forces of moral distance,

social distance, cultural distance, group

absolution, close proximity, and obedience-

demanding authority all join to compel the

soldier to execute, overcoming the forlorn

forces of his natural and learned decency

and his natural resistance of killing.

The soldier who does kill must overcome

that part of him that says that he is a foul

beast who has done the unforgivable.

He must deny the guilt within him, and he

must assure himself that the world is not

mad, that his victims are less than animals,

that they are evil vermin, and that what

his nation and his leaders have told him to

do is right.

He must believe that not only is this

atrocity right, but it is proof that he is

morally, socially, and culturally superior

to those whom he has killed. It is the

definitive act of denial of their humanity.

It is the ultimate act of affirmation of

his superiority.

2

1

2

2

COMBAT COMMITTING ATROCITIES

23

2

2

24

COMBAT COMMITTING ATROCITIES

What have I become?

I am a killer now. I want to kill. I yearn to kill

my enemies. Am I beyond redemption?

I think about my soldiers again. I see their

faces and think about when I was their age.

They are ten times the men I was. Not at that age.

I once was a meek boy with a coward’s heart.

Not here. Not anymore.

Now I am a lost soul with hell on his shoulders.

And I am coming.

3

And the killer must violently suppress

any dissonant thought that he has done

anything wrong. Further he must violently

attack anyone or anything that would

threaten his beliefs. His mental health is

totally invested in believing that what he

has done is good and right. It is the blood

of his victims that binds and empowers

him to even greater heights of killing and

slaughter. Those who choose the path of

atrocity have burned their bridges behind

them. There is no turning back.

Human life is profoundly cheapened by

these acts, and the soldier realizes that

one of the lives that has been cheapened

is his own.

The sheer horror of atrocity serves not only

to terrify those who must face it, but also

to generate disbelief in distant observers.

Whether it is ritual cult killings in our

society or mass murders by established

governments in the world at large, the

common response is often one of total

disbelief. And the nearer it hits to home,

the harder we want to disbelieve it.

But we must not deny it. If we look around

the world carefully we will find somebody

somewhere wielding the dark power of

atrocity to support a cause that we believe

in. It is a simple tenet of human nature

that is difficult to believe and accept that

anyone we like and identify with is capable

of these acts against our fellow human

beings. And this simple, naïve tendency to

disbelieve or look the other way is, possibly

more than any other factor, responsible for

the perpetuation of atrocity and horror in

our world today.

3

25

The Kill

The wounded Boogeyman stirs. He’s flat on his

back, but he still holds his AK in one hand.

I step forward and slam the barrel of my rifle

down on his head. He grunts and suddenly

swings his AK up. Its barrel slams into my jaw

and I feel a tooth break. I reel from the blow,

but before I can do anything he backhands me

with the AK. This time, the wooden hand grip

glances off the bridge of my nose. I taste blood.

I back off and wield my M16 like a baseball

bat. Then I step back toward him and swing

with everything I’ve got. The front sight post

catches him in the side of the head. I wind up

to hit him again, thinking that at the very least

I’ve stunned him. As I get ready to swing, his

leg flies up from the floor and slams into my crotch.

I stagger backward, pain radiating from my

groin The pain drives me into a fury. I realize

I’ve dropped my rifle. I can’t see where it fell;

the smoke is getting thicker, and it is so acrid

my eyes start to water and burn.

I leap at my enemy. Before he can respond I

land right on top of his chest. A rush of air

bursts from his mouth. I’ve knocked the wind

out of him. I tear at my body armor and get it

opened. With my right hand on the sleeve that

holds my five-pound front armor plate, I grab

the insurgent’s hair and ram his head forward,

jamming his chin into his chest. He’s pinned in

place now. All I have to do is finish him.

I beat him with the inside of my armor plate. I

smash it against his face again and again until

blood flows all over the inside of my shirt. He

kicks and flails and screams. Every scream

gets cut of by another blow from the plate. He

struggles under me. An arm lashes out. Fingers

scratch my face. I ram the plate harder into

him. He keens and howls, yet he refuses to

submit.

Somebody answers him in Arabic. The voice

comes from the roof above us.

Oh my God. My back is to the door, I don’t

know where my weapon is, and there’s more

coming down.

“Shut the fuck up!” I bash his face again. Blood

flows over my left hand and I lose my grip on

his hair. His head snaps back against the floor.

In an instant, his fists are pummeling me. I

rock from his counterblows. He lands one on

my injured jaw and the pain nearly blinds me.

He connects with my nose and blood and snot

pour down my throat. I spit blood between

The link between distance and ease of

aggression is not a new discovery. It has

long been understood that there is a

direct relationship between the empathic

and physical proximity of the victim, and

the resultant difficult and trauma of the

kill. This concept has fascinated and

concerned soldiers, poets, philosophers

and psychologists alike.

At the far end of the spectrum are bombing

and artillery, which are often used to

illustrate the relative ease of long-range

killing. As we draw toward the near end of

the spectrum, we begin to realize that the

resistance to killing becomes increasingly

more intense. This process culminates

at the close end of the spectrum, when

the resistance to stabbing becomes

tremendously intense, and killing with

bare hands becomes almost unthinkable.

The spectrum of the killing process begins

at maximum range. “Maximum range” is

defined as a range at which the killer is

unable to perceive his individual victims

without using some form of mechanical

assistance—binoculars, radar, periscope,

or remote TV camera. Killing done at this

range is less resisted by soldiers and rarely to

never results in instance of psychiatric trauma.

“Long range” is defined as the range

at which the average soldier may be

able to see the enemy, but is unable to

kill him without some form of special

my teeth and scream with him. The two of us

sound like caged dogs locked in a death match.

We are.

He hits me again and I nearly fall off him.

Somehow I hold on. I’ve got to slow him down

or he’ll get the upper hand. I punch him in the

face; my fist meets gristle. Then I remember

my helmet. I’ve still got my helmet on.

I yank my Kevlar off my head. My night-vision

goggles go flying into the room. I don’t need

them anyway. With both hands I invert the

helmet and crack his face with it. He shrieks

with pain. I bring it up again, but he’s swinging

his head from side to side and I don’t aim my

next blow well. The helmet glances off his

shoulder and hits the floor. I can see that he’s

older than the others in the house. His hair

is flecked with gray and he’s got age lines

creasing his face.

“Esqut! Esqut! Esqut!” I am hysterical now as I

try to tell him to shut up in Arabic.

He screams on. I hear footsteps on the roof. I

do not have long.

The Kevlar comes down again. This time I

connect. It’s a crushing blow to his face. Blood

splashes both of us. We’re slick with it. He

grabs my hair and tries to punch me again. I

bash his face yet again with the Kevlar.

“Terra era me!” That’s my broken Arabic for

“stop or I’ll shoot”

I’m not sure what I expected to accomplish

with that. He claws and scratches at me. My

elbow burns. My jaw, mouth, and nose spew

blood.

My voice isn’t human anymore.

Neither is his. We’ve become our base, animal

selves, with only survival instincts to keep us going.

I slap one bloodied hand over his mouth and

jam all my weight down on it. For the moment,

it muffles his calls for help.

“Es teslem! Es teslem! Es teslem!” I’m almost

crying now as I tell him in Arabic to surrender.

He thrashes and kicks.

“La ta quiome!” My voice is just about gone.

He lashes out at me. He lands some blows, but

my left hand never leaves his mouth. My right

hand comes up. I see his eyes grow wide. He

tries to shake his head, but I’ve pinned it in

place. Like a claw, my right hand clutches his

throat. I feel his Adam’s apple in my grasp. I

squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

weaponry—sniper weapons, anti-armor

missiles, or tank fire. Here we begin to

see some disturbance at the act of killing,

but snipers doctrinally operate as teams,

and like maximum-range killers they are

protected by the same potent combination

of group absolution, mechanical distance,

and physical distance. Yet for all its

effectiveness, there is a strange revulsion

and resistance toward this very personal,

one-on-one killing by snipers.

COMBAT INTIMATE KILLING

1

1

27

A choked scream—or was it a plea? I can’t tell.

He kicks and bucks. His hands beat against

me. I can’t get enough pressure on him.

He’s still strong, still in the fight despite

everything I’ve done.

I cannot break his throat. I don’t have the

strength. But I can’t take my left hand off

his mouth. If I do, he’ll call for his buddy

on the roof again.

“Esqut, esqut.” I whisper. Shut up.

“Midrange” is the range at which the soldier

can see and engage the enemy with rifle

fire while still unable to perceive the extent

of the wounds inflicted or the sounds and

facial expressions of the victim when he

is hit. In fact, at this range, the soldier can

still deny that it was he who killed the

enemy. At midrange we see much of the

euphoria stage. Even at midrange, the

remorse stage can hit hard. If a soldier

goes up and looks at his kill—a common

occurrence when the tactical situation

permits—the trauma grows even worse,

since some of the psychological buffer

created by a midrange kill disappears upon

seeing the victim at close range.

“Hand-grenade range” can be anywhere

from a few yards to as many as thirty-five

or forty yards and refers to the specific kill

in which a hand grenade is used. A hand-

grenade kill is distinguished from a close

kill in that the killer does not have to see

his victims as they die. Not having to look

at one’s victim should make this killing

method that is largely free of trauma, if

the soldier does not have to look at his

handiwork, and if it were not for those

screams. The emotional trauma associated

with a grenade kill can be less than that

of a close-range kill, especially if the killer

does not have to look at his victims or hear

them die.

28

He opens his mouth under my hand. For

a second I think this is over. He’s going to

surrender. Then a ripping pain sears through

my arm.

He clamped his teeth on the side of my thumb

near the knuckle, and now he tears at it, trying

to pull meat from bone. As he rages against

my right hand, his Adam’s apple still in my

clutch, I feel one of his hands move under me.

Suddenly, a pistol cracks in the room. A puff

of gun smoke rolls over us. The bullet hits the

wall in front of me.

Where did that come from?

Does he have a sidearm?

I cuff him across the face with my torn left

hand. He rides the blow and somehow breaks

my choke hold on him. I bludgeon his face. He

tears at mine.

We share a single question of survival: Which

one of us has the stronger will to live?

I pounce on him. My body splays over his and

I drive the knife right under his collarbone.

My first thrust hits solid meat. The blade stops,

and my hand slips off the handle and slides

down the blade, slicing my pinkie finger.

I grab the handle again and squeeze it hard.

The blade sinks into him, and he wails with

terror and pain.

The blade finally sinks all the way to the handle.

I push and thrust it, hoping to get it under the

collarbone and sever an artery in his neck. He

fights, but I can feel he’s weakening by the second.

I lunge at him, putting all my weight behind

the blade. We’re chin to chin now, and his sour

breath is hot on my face. His eyes swim with

hate and terror. They’re wide and dark and

rimmed with blood. His face is covered with

cuts and gouges. His mouth is curled into a

grimace. His teeth are bared. It reminds me of

the dogs I’d seen the day before.

The knife finally nicks an artery. We both hear

a soft liquidy spurting sound. He tries to look

down, but I’ve pinned him with the weight of

my own body. My torn left hand has a killer’s

grip on his forehead. He can’t move.

I’m bathed in warmth from neck to chest. I

can’t see it, but I know it is his blood. His eyes

lose their luster. The hate evaporates. His

right hand grabs a tuft of my hair. He pulls and

yanks at it and tries to get his other hand up,

but he is feeble.

“Just stop! Stop…Just stop! Rajahan hudna,” I

plead. Please truce. We both know it is just a

matter of time.

“Close range” involves any kill with a

projectile weapon from a point-blank

range, extending to midrange. The key

factor in close range is the undeniable

certainty of responsibility on the part of

the killer. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the term

“personal kill” was used to distinguish the

act of killing a specific individual with a

direct-fire weapon and being absolutely

sure of having done it oneself. The vast

majority of personal kills and the resultant

trauma occur at this range. “Where you

can hear ‘em scream and see ‘em die, it’s

a bitch.”

Oftentimes the death inflicted on the

enemy during a close-range kill is not

instant, and the killer finds himself in the

positions of comforting his victim in his

last moments.

As we bring the physical distance spectrum

down to its culmination point we must

recognize that killing with a knife is

significantly more difficult than killing

with the bayonet affixed to the end of a

rifle. Many knife kills appear to be of the

commando nature, in which someone slips

up on a victim and kills him from behind.

These kills, like all kills from behind, are

less traumatic than a kill from the front,

since the face and all its messages and

contortions are not seen.

COMBAT INTIMATE KILLING

2

1

2

29

2

He gurgles a response drowned in blood.

His left hand grabs my open body armor.

He pulls at the nothing inside my vest. His

fingers scratch weakly against my ribs. It

won’t be long.

I keep my weight on the knife and push down

around the wound in staccato waves, like

Satan’s version of CPR.

His eyes show nothing but fear now. He knows

he’s going to die. His face is inches from mine,

and I see him regard me for a split second. At

the end, he says, “Please.”

“Surrender!” I cry. I’m almost in tears.

“No…” He manages weakly.

His face goes slack. His right hand slips from

my hair. It hangs in the air for a moment, then

with one last spasm of strength, he brings it to

my cheek. It lingers there, and as I look into

his dying eyes, he caresses the side of my face.

His hand runs gently from my cheek to my jaw,

then falls to the floor.

He takes a last ragged breath, and his eyes go

dim, still staring into mine.

Tears blur my vision. I can hardly see him now,

but he looks peaceful.

Why did he touch me like that at the end?

He was forgiving me.

At hand-to-hand range the instinctive

resistance to killing becomes strongest.

While some who have studied the subject

claim that man is the only higher-order

species that does not have an instinctive

resistance to killing his own species, these

hand-to-hand combat situations bring this

belief into question. Man has a tremendous

resistance to killing effectively with his

bare hands. When man first picked up a

club or a rock and killed his fellow man,

he gained more than mechanical energy

and mechanical leverage. He also gained

psychological energy and psychological

leverage that was every bit as necessary in

the killing process. In some distant part of

man’s past he acquired this ability.

As men draw this near it becomes

extremely difficult to deny their humanity.

Looking in a man’s face, seeing his eyes and

his fear, eliminate denial. At this range

the interpersonal nature of the killing has

shifted. Instead of shooting at a uniform

and killing a generalized enemy, now the

killer must shoot at a person and kill a

specific individual. Most simply cannot or

will not do it.

3

3

3

COMBAT INTIMATE KILLING

32

33

At first I felt cheated.

When I got home, I knew the signs to look

for, the indicators that one is having trouble

readjusting to American life. I even sought out

those signs, secretly hoped for at least a few of

them. Instead, the bulk of the horrors initially

faded, and it was with a drop of regret that I

saw them go. I had always heard combat was

a life-altering event, and my pride wanted my

experience to qualify. If a little jumpiness came

with the mark, so be it.

I had needed to go back, and now I needed it

to count.

Instead, as the homecoming parties ended,

and the hangover faded, and I cut back on the

cigarettes, life returned to a surprising normal

relatively quickly. After a couple of months

home, the slam of a car door no longer made

me jump, and I didn’t look for IEDs on the side

of the road while driving. I left the military,

got my civilian job as a trainer, taught EOD

technicians without flashbacks or distraction.

The vigilance lapsed, comfort returned, and a

sigh of relief eventually came unbidden.

Perhaps I don’t measure up with those that

came before after all, I thought. Perhaps it was

only delusion or adrenaline in the moment

that led me to believe so. You aren’t so special,

Brian. This won’t be the defining episode you

had hoped for.

Time to move on with life. I guess I made it

back in one piece.

But I didn’t. I had a blown-up brain, a foot in a

box, and Crazy lurking around the corner. I just

didn’t know it yet.

34

My Crazy was waiting for me, stalking, hiding

in the shadows and on the edge of my vision. I

see it now, in retrospect. Some old habits that

never did go away. Some memories that stayed

fresh. Until one day, seemingly out of the blue,

it surprised me walking down the street.

I stepped off a curb normal. I landed Crazy.

There is no explanation for why I went Crazy

when I did. I don’t know why that was my day.

Nothing had happened. I had been out of the

military for over two years. I had been home

for even longer. The wars continued without

me: brothers deployed, came home, died,

survived. Shouldn’t I have gone Crazy when

Kermit died? When Jeff died? But I didn’t. My

day was February 6th, in the Pearl District, in

Portland, Oregon. The day my chest swelled

and never released and my overactive mind

eradicated all sensible thought and temperance.

The day I went Crazy.

The strangeness of the feeling struck me first,

then the discomfort, the unease. I continued

up the street, among the trendy shops and bars.

My eye was twitching by the time I sat down

for dinner in a McMenamins restaurant. Three

beers and dinner and the Crazy feeling didn’t

subside. It followed me to bed in my hotel

room, kept me awake past midnight, and then

greeted me before dawn. Beyond unsettled,

beyond distracted. I took it to work teaching

each day for the rest of the week, packed it in

my carry-on bag on the airplane, and brought it

home. Still the Crazy didn’t subside. I twitched

and gurgled all the way to the emergency room

when I could stand no more.

I don’t deserve to be Crazy. Not that I’m too

good for it, but rather not good enough. Not

enough tours. Not enough missions. Not

enough bodies. Not enough IEDs. Not enough

near misses. No friend dead in my arms. No

lost limbs. No face exploding in my rifle scope.

Plenty of other guys did more, endured more,

and came home in worse shape. They deserved

it, not me.

I’m still scared of the soft sand. I didn’t

earn Crazy.

What did I assume it would be like, once I

came home?

A Goldilocks state of solemn pride.

Remembering those that came before, telling

the story of their valor, a satisfaction in having

done my part, and a successful life to follow. A

single tear at the Veterans Day parade once a

year, and otherwise, dignity and bearing and

no more.

AFTERMATH SURVIVOR GUILT

The first response of most people upon

seeing sudden, violent death is relief;

they are relieved that it did not happen to

them. Say a soldier’s partner or buddy is

killed and his first thought is, “Thank God

it wasn’t me.” Later, when he reflects on

his first response, how do you think that

will make him feel? Guilty. He is consumed

with guilt because no one ever told him

that the normal response of most people

upon seeing violent death is to focus on

themselves, and to feel relief. His midbrain

is in charge—the part concerned about his

survival—and it sends out a message, “Hey,

that could have been me.”

The combat soldier appears to feel a deep

sense of responsibility and accountability

for what he sees around him. It is as though

every friend dead is a comrade for whom

he was responsible. It is not unusual for the

survivor to think that he was spared at the

expense of another and feel a heavy sense

of debt to the one who is gone.

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AFTERMATH SURVIVOR GUILT

That thought leaves me stricken with grief. I

know now is not the time to mourn. We have a

battle to win, and I must repress the pain to be

able to do my job. My mind torments me with

images of Faulkenburg in that street. At times

like these, a good imagination becomes your

worst enemy.

If they can kill Sergeant Major Faulkenburg,

how have I survived? He was so much more

skilled than I, so much more experienced

than almost every other soldier out here. Is

this more about luck than skill? If it is, we’re

all only one bullet away from Faulkenburg’s

undeserved fate.

I dwell on that for a while, and ache with

vulnerability. Life seems so perilous, so fragile

now—I just don’t understand how he can die

while I survive. For the first time since we

entered the city, I am forced to recognize

my own mortality. In doing so I get a glimpse

of what Fitts must have been going through

all along.

Does Fitts face these thoughts every night?

April 9 must still prey on him in the darkness.

I’m sorry I ever ragged him about it.

The mortars fall. The man-eating dogs bay. The

night never ends.

Some survivors make every effort to stay

in the shadows to avoid drawing attention

to the fact that they survived. Some may

feel some distorted sense of not being

worthy, and that their daily concerns are of

little matter; they may even feel guilty for

having needs at all. Survivor guilt can be

extraordinarily toxic.

If a soldier is a survivor and does not

proceed carefully, there is two ways

he can spin out of control: through

inappropriate aggression towards other

and inappropriate aggression towards

himself. Soldiers must guard themselves

against both.

I managed no such balance. Instead, I vacillated

from breezy inattention to the inescapable

rush of Crazy. What I would give for the initial

flippancy again.

Emerson was right. Life does consist of what

you spend your whole day thinking of. I think

of the Crazy all day now, either in the forefront

of my mind, or as a shadow that follows me,

always there if looked for. The life of the

mind used to be a joy but now it is a cursed

downward spiral, the Crazy feeding on itself,

growing and amplifying unless I run it into the

ground or meditate it away. I can’t exercise or

practice yoga all day, and so the Crazy creeps

back, first one intrusive thought, then another,

until it writhes again at full boil.

If life is what I think about all day and I’m

Crazy all day then my life is now Crazy.

Faulkenburg was our first Angel, the first

American to die by enemy fire in the Second

battle of Fallujah.

Was Faulkenburg’s body the one I saw in the

street last night at the breach? Was he among

the dead I saw the Iraqis cover up and carry

away? Did I witness his last moments and not

even realize it?

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What is the Crazy like? How does it actually

feel? Do you remember the last week of school

before summer vacation? How it felt as a kid to

be almost done for the year, but not quite?

You are sitting at a small desk, bathed in

sunlight, by a wall of windows, one open to let

in the waning cool breeze. Your armpits begin

to moisten in the still classroom air, and a

single drop of sweat forms on your forehead

as the school starts to heat. Lawn mowers buzz

in the distance, and you get the first smell of

summer: cut grass on a warm day. It smells like

soccer games, catching crawfish in the creek,

and dreaming of sneaking off to kiss your

middle-school crush behind the big oak tree in

the neighborhood park. It smells like playing

street hockey with your best friend all day

long until his mom calls you inside to stay for

dinner. It smells like girls in short shorts and

bikini tops. It smells like you’ve waited nine

long months to smell that smell. It smells perfect.

The only thing standing between you and

summer is this exam, and there are only three

of you left in the classroom. Everyone else is

finished and gone, completed their tests for the

summer, but you remain as time runs out. The

American history exam swims before your eyes.

The gulfs of Mexico and Tonkin blend together.

How can you take this exam when every atom

in your body screams to escape outside into

the sunshine? You long to run and play, though

you haven’t played in years. You take the exam

as quickly as possible; the goal becomes to

simply finish, and the grade is secondary. Your

heart pines for the fresh air, and your chest

fills until ready to burst. You have to finish.. .

this…exam …now.

My Crazy is just like that. Except, when you

do finally finish the test, hand it in, sprint

from the exam room, grab your book bag and

run outside…there is no relief. There is no

relaxation. You feel no different. You’re just

Crazy in the god damn sunshine. Every day. All

the time.

AFTERMATH EXPERIENCING PTSD

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

Mental Disorders defines Post-Traumatic

Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a reaction to a

psychologically traumatic event outside

the range of normal experience. The

disorder may be especially severe or longer

lasting when the stressor is of human design.

To be at risk for PTSD, one must be exposed

to a traumatic incident in which two

things occur. First, the incident must be a

life and death event that involves actual

or threatened death or serious injury to

themselves or others. The second element

is for one to respond to the exposure with

intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

Another characteristic of a veteran with

PTSD as established by the Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

is that the veteran experiences the

symptoms of the disorder over a period of

at least one month, no matter how long

after the incident has occurred.

Although Castner’s symptoms surfaced

a substantial amount of time after his

return from Iraq, he still experienced them

consistently for months, which indicates

that they were severe enough to classify

as PTSD.

Difficulty falling asleep is one of the

persistent symptoms of increased arousal

that wasn’t present before the trauma as

defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of the American Psychiatric

Association, that can be an indicator of

PTSD in a patient.

Victims of PTSD have been known to treat

persistent symptoms of increased arousal

by self-medicating, through alcohol or

drugs, often leading to severe depression.

Depression also occurs when a

combatant’s well of fortitude dries up.

Reactions to a host of stressors suck the

will and life out of a man and leave him

clinically depressed. The opposite of

courage is cowardice, but the opposite of

fortitude is exhaustion. When the soldier’s

well is dry, his very soul is dry.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

of Mental Disorders, to be diagnosed with

PTSD, one must persistently re-experience

a traumatic event. This can happen

through recurrent, intrusive, distressing

recollections of the event or intense

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I am sitting in my Old Counselor’s tiny office at the VA hospital in Buffalo. She looks sad.

And concerned. She always looks concerned.

I’ve just related how the Crazy feeling expands

when I stand in line at McDonald’s. And in

airports. Definitely alone in airports. In an

unknown crowd, the need to move away…

The Crazy feeling hasn’t stopped since that

day, the day I went Crazy. It’s been four months

now. It never gets better; it never goes away.

But it does get worse.

My Old Counselor is scribbling on her pad as

I am telling the story of trying to get some

lunch while out on the road on a job in Texas.

“Triggers,” she writes on the off-green top-

bound spiral legal pad. What does “triggers”

mean? I doubt she is talking about the one on

the rifle I have strapped to my chest, snugged

up tight to my right shoulder.

“I wasn’t sure before,” she says, “but I am now.”

“What are you sure of?” I ask. I fidget with

my flip-flops. I have a bad feeling I know

the answer.

“You have PTSD,” she says.

Fuck. I am Crazy.

I lie in bed blown up like a balloon, my chest

distended and full. The Crazy feeling has filled

me to the brim in the darkness of my bedroom,

alone next to my sleeping wife. My left arm

has gone numb again, left eye twitching as I

attempt to close it. The gurgling in my back is

growing, first low, then on my upper left side.

My heart beats loud, hard, sporadic. I miss a

beat. Speed up, catch up. Miss two. A catch-

up again. The more I miss the more the Crazy

feeling grows.

High, full, boiling sea.

I sit up, turn my feet over the side of the bed,

and just try to breathe. My lips tingle and my

head spins. My wife has found me on the floor

before, face to the pine, a divot on my forehead

where I hit the dresser corner on the way

down. I lie back down to avoid a repeat.

My heart bumps, skips, and gurgles. My jaw

aches and I check again for loose teeth. My

eye twitches. And again. The Crazy feeling

builds and builds. It never stops, it never ends,

there is no relief. My helium chest is light as

a feather. The weight of the ceiling is a granite

block pushing my chest into the bed.

What the fuck is happening to me?

psychological distress at exposure to

internal or external cues that symbolize or

resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

In this case, Castner relives only memories

from his experiences in the war and

responds largely to external cues, such as

his boots or his gun.

Manifestations of

Psychiatric Casualties

Fatigue Cases

This state of physical and mental

exhaustion is one of the earliest symptoms.

Increasingly unsociable and overly irritable,

the soldier loses interest in all activities

with comrades and seeks to avoid any

responsibility or activity involving physical

or mental effort. He becomes prone to

crying fits or fits of extreme anxiety or

terror. There will also be such somatic

symptoms as hypersensitivity to sound,

increased sweating, and palpitations. Such

fatigue cases set the stage for further and

more complete collapse. If the soldier is

forced to remain in combat, such collapse

becomes inevitable; the only real cure is

evacuation and rest.

Confusional States

Fatigue can quickly shift into the psychotic

dissociation from reality that marks

confusional states. Usually, the soldier

no longer knows who he is or where he

is. Unable to deal with his environment,

he has mentally removed himself from

it. Symptoms include delirium, psychotic

dissociation, and manic-depressive mood

swings. One often noted response is Ganzer

syndrome, in which the soldier will begin

to make jokes, act silly, and otherwise try

to ward off the horror with humor and

the ridiculous.

Conversion Hysteria

Conversion hysteria can occur

traumatically during combat or post-

traumatically, years later. Conversion

hysteria can manifest itself as an inability

to know where one is or to function at all,

often accompanied by aimless wandering

around the battlefield with complete

disregard for evident dangers. Upon

occasion the soldier becomes amnesiatic,

blocking out large parts of his memory.

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AFTERMATH EXPERIENCING PTSD

I sit on the couch at home, dark night filling

the picture window behind me, Crazy sloshing

in my chest. I stare at the bottles in front of

me. Twitch. The left eye has been bad today.

My relief is spread across the tabletop.

I start drinking as early as I can now, as

early as I can justify it. Not every day, but

more and more. On the days when the left

eye is twitching at its worst, it consumes

all thoughts beyond the boiling Crazy. And

today is the worst yet. Fluttering and jerking,

a pounding pulse under the eyebrow and

swish of the lower lid. I’m an animal driven

mad by relentless distraction, not of buzzing

insects but of my own body betraying me.

Uncontrollable. Intolerable.

Just like the Crazy feeling.

A couple after lunch. Two bottles of beer

before dinner. Twitching through my spaghetti.

Two more during dishes. I start to help with

the children’s baths, then give up as my eye

distracts me from differentiating between the

soap and the shampoo. Twitch. Another bottle

before the hockey game. Twitch. To the couch

and more beer. Twitch. Twitch.

I don’t notice that my wife has already gone

to bed. I sit now, alone, and open another. The

number of empty beer bottles on the coffee

table is growing.

Twitch.

Twitch.

Please let it stop.

Twitch.

I quickly finish and stumble slightly as I put

the glass down. The spinning room slows my

eye and pounding heart both.

Twitch. Crazy. Twitch.

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Often, hysteria degenerates into convulsive

attacks in which the soldier rolls into fetal

position and shakes violently. A soldier

may become hysterical after being knocked

out by a concussion, after receiving a near

miss, Hysteria can also show up after a

wounded soldier has been evacuated to

a hospital or rear area. Once he is there,

hysteria can begin to emerge, most

often as a defense mechanism against

returning to fight. Whatever the physical

manifestation, it is always the mind that

produces the symptoms, in order to escape

or avoid the horror of combat.

Anxiety States

These states are characterized by

feelings of total weariness and tenseness

that cannot be relieved by sleep or

rest, degenerating into an inability to

concentrate. When he can sleep or rest,

the soldier is often awakened by terrible

nightmares. Ultimately the soldier

becomes obsessed with death and the

fear that we will fail or that the men in

his unit will discover that he is a coward.

Generalized anxiety can easily slip into

complete hysteria. Frequently anxiety

is accompanied by shortness of breath,

weakness, pain, blurred vision, giddiness,

vasomotor abnormalities, and fainting.

Obsessional and Compulsive States

These states are similar to conversion

hysteria, except that here the soldier

realizes the morbid nature of his symptoms

and that his fears are at their root. Even so,

his tremors, palpitations, stammers, tics,

and so on cannot be controlled. Eventually

the soldier is likely to take refuge in some

type of hysterical reaction that allows him

to escape psychic responsibility for his

physical symptoms.

Character Disorders

Character disorders include obsessional

traits in which the soldier becomes fixated

on certain actions or things; paranoid

trends accompanied by irascibility,

depression, and anxiety, often taking on

the tone of threats to his safety; schizoid

trends leading to hypersensitivity and

isolation; epileptic character reactions

accompanied by periodic rages; the

development of extreme dramatic

religiosity; and finally degeneration

into a psychotic personality. What has

The last beer in the carton. How pathetic

would I look to my brothers now? How would

I explain it? Drinking to keep my eye from

vibrating out of my skull. Alone in the dark.

And scared.

Twitch.

Stillness. A fall.

And then nothing.

My brain has been torn and ripped by

explosions, memories of my children stolen

or faded, blown apart in each blast. So how do

I remember every inch, every second of the

move to a call? I am surrounded by reminders.

They come unbidden, springing to mind. Every

pair of boots I own are sandy. My rifle is always

waiting for me. My children’s first steps are my

walk to the truck.

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happened to the soldier is an altering of his

fundamental personality.

The key understanding to take way from

this litany of mental illness is that within

a few months of sustained combat some

symptoms of stress will develop in almost

all participating soldiers.

A nation must care for its psychiatric

casualties, since they are of no value on

the battlefield—indeed, their presence in

combat can have a negative impact on the

morale of other soldiers—and they can

still be used again as valuable seasoned

replacements once they’ve recovered from

combat stress.

AFTERMATH EXPERIENCING PTSD

43

The Crazy oneThe Crazy one

The Crazy one

The Crazy one

The Crazy oneThe Crazy one

The Crazy one

The Crazy one

The Crazy one

The Crazy one

The Crazy one

There are two of me now. The logical one

watches the Crazy one.

The Crazy one is living the life. The Crazy one

wakes up, and wonders if today I will be Crazy.

And the answer is always yes.

The Crazy one dresses the kids, packs lunches,

drives them to school. The Crazy one showers,

eats, cleans. The Crazy one flies to work, trains

soldiers, flies home. The Crazy one sleeps next

to my wife, goes to hockey practice, checks

math homework. The Crazy one runs and runs

and runs. The Crazy one is always Crazy.

But the logical one can step back and observe.

The logical one watches, waits, comments. The

logical one knows there is another way. Knows

that this life is not a life. Knows I used to

enjoy things, even some of the things I’m doing

now. Knows that there must be a cure for the

Crazy. Knows that the Crazy must not always be,

simply because it is right now, at this moment.

There was a time before the Crazy. The logical

one knows there must be a time after.

But the logical one is powerless, trapped, a

shade looking over the shoulder of the Crazy

one frantically whirling. It can only watch, as

my chest fills, and my stomach boils, and my

head comes off, and I simply endure from

minute to minute.

In the darkness of my bedroom, at night, when

I try to fall asleep, the top of my head comes

off. My chest fills and floats, the ceiling

crushes down, and my head cracks open. In

a clear line, from temple to temple, around

the back of my skull, it lifts free. I can feel it

release and open. The spider crawls off the

back of my head and runs to the ceiling. I feel

every leg detach, as the body forms from the

rear cranial knob, and the massive gray hairy

spider runs across space and walls and over the

foot sitting in a box in a corner.

Living with the Crazy feeling is intolerable.

When I awake in the morning, I open my eyes

and try not to move. It is the only time all day

that the Crazy feeling is not overwhelming

and all powerful. It hasn’t had time to build

throughout the day, and for a brief second, it

lies still. I wish my whole day could be that

first split second.

44

Will I be Crazy today?

Instead, my first thought is always the same.

Will I be Crazy today?

And the answer is always “yes” before my

feet hit the floor, children screaming, wife

rushing to dress for work, my day an agonizing

marathon of eye twitches, rib aches, heart

gurgles, and chest fullness until I can struggle

back to oblivion again, in that bed, eighteen

hours later.

When I make breakfast for the children,

I feel Crazy.

When I drive them to school, I feel Crazy.

When I sit in front of the computer, fixing

PowerPoint slides, I feel Crazy.

When I wait for dinner to finish cooking,

I feel Crazy.

When I get on a plane, I feel Crazy.

When the foot sits in the box, I feel Crazy.

When I read my children a book before bed,

I feel Crazy.

When I lie next to my wife at night, I feel Crazy.

And then I fall asleep and do it all over again.

Why?

The Crazy feeling distracts from every action,

poisons every moment of the day. It demands

full attention. It bubbles, and boils, and rattles,

and fills my chest with an overwhelming

unknown swelling. My misery compounds.

I wake every morning hoping not to be Crazy.

Every morning I am. I grind through. Month

follows month.

This is my new life. And it’s intolerable.

I can’t do this.

I am alone in my full bed. Alone with the Crazy,

in the bed where the spiders crawl out of my

head and the ceiling presses down to crush

me. Always bubbling, always boiling, always

intolerable, the Crazy feeling swells me to

bursting again. I’m crawling out of my skin. It’s

been three and a half months now. The Crazy

hasn’t let up yet.

My wife rolls over and pretends to be asleep.

We have gone to bed without speaking. Again.

She is wearing a yellow T-shirt as a nightgown,

the words “Kirkuk, Iraq” emblazoned across

the front in bold black letters. You get a T-shirt

AFTERMATH PTSD AND FAMILY LIFE

Will I be Crazy today?

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

I feel crazy.I feel crazy.

Will I be Crazy today?Will I be Crazy today?Will I be Crazy today?

Will I be Crazy today?Will I be Crazy today?

45

for everything now. Running a race. Opening

a bank account. Giving blood. Elbowing your

neighbor to catch a shot from a pop-gun at a

minor-league baseball game. I even have one

for fighting the Battle Creek forest fire in

South Dakota. A T-shirt for a forest fire. Why

not one for fighting a war?

My wife is alone in our full bed too. Her

husband, the father of her children, never came

back from Iraq.

I died in Iraq. The old me left for Iraq and

never came home. The man my wife married

never came home. The father of my oldest

three children never came home. If I didn’t die,

I don’t know what else to call it.

I liked the old me, the one who played guitar,

and laughed at dumb movies, and loved to read

for days on end. That me died from a thousand

blasts. Died covered in children’s blood. Died

staring down my rifle barrel, a helpless woman

in the cross hairs and my finger on the trigger.

That me is gone.

The new me is frantic and can’t sit still. The

new me didn’t laugh for a year. The new me

cries while reading bedtime stories to my

Not only is the soldier impacted by post

traumatic stress disorder, but so are the

soldier’s spouse and children as the soldier

begins to lose interest in the things he

used to enjoy. In an effort to control his

bubbling and boiling emotions, the soldier

shuts them off, or at least believes he does.

The reality is that the soldier builds a wall

around these feelings. The fear and anxiety

still bubbles and boils, but they are now

walled in. The soldier cannot shut down

just the bad emotions, so instead they

are all shut down. This means the veteran

can no longer experience joy or happiness

because he has become controlled.

With his emotions walled in, he feels

detached and even estranged from

others. Although he has loving feelings

for his family and close friends, he cannot

communicate with them. He cannot say

“love” because it cannot climb over the

height of his walls.

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children. The new me plans to die tomorrow.

The new me runs almost every day, runs till

knees buckle and fail. The new me takes his

rifle everywhere. The new me is on fast-

forward. The new me is Crazy.

The new me has a blown-up Swiss-cheese brain,

and doesn’t remember all of the old me. But

he remembers enough. Enough to be ashamed.

Enough to miss the old me. Enough to resent

the old me. Resent the way everyone mourns

him, while I am standing right in front of them.

Do you remember when Daddy used to? That

daddy is gone. He doesn’t do those things

anymore. Do you remember when we used to

be happy? Husband isn’t happy anymore.

Maybe my wife should pull out the letter I

left for my sons and read it to them. Maybe it

would explain why Daddy didn’t come home.

When you go to war, and die, and come home

Crazy and with a ragged brain, you get to watch

your family carry on without you.

Everyone longs for the old me. No one

particularly wants to be with the new me.

Especially me.

AFTERMATH PTSD AND FAMILY LIFE

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I am at home, sitting on the landing on the

second floor, staring down the narrow, quiet

flight of stairs below me. My new son is

sleeping in his crib in his blue room behind

me. He is three days old. Tiny and pink

and perfect. And helpless. Totally helpless.

Someone could wring him like a rag and pull

him limb from limb. Someone could pinch a

little skin on his fat belly, twist and tear, and

gut him like a shot duck. They could shake him

until his head tore from his neck.

The Crazy stirs, and shows its spidery head.

That can’t happen. I won’t let it happen. No one

will kill my son.

So I sit at the top of the stairs, with my rifle,

and wait. I have picked a good spot. The narrow

staircase has created a funnel, a choke point,

where I can kill anyone coming up to the

second floor.

My son is defenseless so I will defend him. I sit,

and wait, and finger my rifle, and watch, all night.

In a veteran, the midbrain, or the

unconscious mind, has learned to

bypass logical thought process and

has established conditioned reflexes,

or sympathetic nervous system (SNS)

responses, instantly, without having to

be told to do it. This is a powerful survival

mechanism in combat. However, Castner’s

reflexes have carried over into his personal

life and relationship with his child.

A warrior should be vigilant and alert—he

should be the one who sits with his back

against the wall. However, this unabated

tension, which begins as a psychological

issue, can cause long-term physical health

problems as his endocrine system pours

out a steady stream of hormones and other

chemicals, attacking the body over a period

of years.

AFTERMATH HYPERVIGILANCE

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The medical doctors and researchers first

noticed the phenomenon in Serbia and Bosnia,

following the war in the early 1990s, the first

conflict in which modern western armies with

modern armor and equipment met modern

western medicine. Soldiers on both sides

survived explosive detonations that would have

killed in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam.

Body armor and helmets caught frag, armored

vehicles survived blasts, and soldiers walked

away seemingly unhurt from what would have

been death sentences two decades before.

But they were not unhurt. The symptoms of

their injuries only appeared later. Doctors in

Serbia noticed odd combinations of complaints

from veterans of the Balkan War in the old

Yugoslavia. Headaches that wouldn’t go away.

Lost memories, or challenges forming new

ones. Personality changes. The inability to

make a decision or solve problems. Sleeping

disorders, insomnia, or nightmares. Some had

mild complaints that merely hindered daily life.

Some could barely function at all.

The soldiers had a new kind of wound, a kind

not previously recognized because no victim

that had ever received one survived long

enough to tell about it. The name for this new

condition? Blast-induced Traumatic Brain Injury.

Traumatic Brain Injury has been called

the signature injury of the Iraq War. Many

troops return from service suffering from

PTSD from the incident that lead to this

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Blast waves tear up memories and

functions. They leave holes where a

soldier’s identity used to be. He loses parts

of his past and has trouble retaining the

present or remaking a future. The strong,

capable soldier loses the ability to sleep,

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TBI had previously been known to aging

football players, boxers, or victims of car

accidents and falls from high places. In

each of those cases a concussion occurred, a

condition familiar to doctors and lay people

alike. During a concussion the brain slams into

the interior of the skull, either because a hard

object struck the skull directly, or because

the skull was moving very quickly and then

came to a sudden stop. The initial symptoms

of concussions are well known: headaches,

vomiting, disorientation. The long term effect,

concussion-induced TBI, is less understood,

but sustaining multiple damaging incidents

increases the risk for permanent debilitating

brain damage and Parkinson’s-like effects.

But the skull and brain are built to survive

injuries of this type. There is an evolutionary

need for our tree-dwelling ancestors to still

find food after an accidental fall to the ground

on their heads. Concussions are natural events

that our body is prepared for. Blast waves from

a detonation, on the other hand, are not naturally

occurring. We have no intrinsic defenses.

A blast wave is a glorified sound wave, and

obeys all the same basic laws of physics. It

can bounce and reflect. It dissipates rapidly

over distance. And it can travel through

objects, like the human body. When a blast

wave vibrates through a substance—walls, cars,

can’t discern or differentiate among voices

and noises, becomes easily distracted, gets

tired, cries randomly in public, and doesn’t

know what to order for dinner.

Those with blast-induced TBI can

experience fatigue of many varieties and

intensities. This fatigue isn’t like being

tired after a long workout—instead,

this fatigue is being so tired the soldier

cannot get out of bed, into the shower,

cannot make breakfast or summon

human tissue—it moves at a speed related to

the density of the material through which it

is traveling. Air is not dense, and so the blast

wave moves relatively slowly, though still

several thousand feet per second, depending on

the type of explosive used to produce the blast

wave initially. Concrete walls and fluid filled

organs are dense, however, and the blast wave

speeds up in these materials. The damage to

the material, and thus the body, comes at the

barrier between dense and airy substances.

Imagine you are standing too near a car bomb

detonating on a city street. When the blast

wave enters your gut, it speeds up through

the outer skin of the human body, through the

fluid-packed muscle of the abdominal wall, and

into the colon. But there it finds open air, and

slows down, causing shearing, ripping, and

tearing. The same trauma occurs when the

wave reenters the opposing colon wall, and

so on throughout the body. At each density

junction, sheer force and rapid expansion

and contraction cause devastating injuries.

Small and large intestines hemorrhage and

bleed internally. Kidneys disconnect from

fragile connecting tissue and fail. Delicate

alveoli rupture and fill the lungs with blood,

suffocating the victim. And in the brain, even

small blast waves can have large consequences.

Scientists and doctors once considered the

brain a big fluid-filled organ, no different in

this respect than your liver, and relatively

resistant to blast damage. Then Bosnia

happened, and injured veterans presented

never-before seen symptoms of brain trauma.

When a blast wave enters the head, it speeds

up at each threshold, through the skin and

the skull and the bag of cushioning fluid that

surrounds the two main lobes of the brain.

Then the wave encounters tiny nerve endings,

neurological fibers, and slight synapses. Faced

with a couple of billion density junctions, it

shears, strains, rips, and tears its way to the

back of the skull and out the other side.

AFTERMATH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY

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The soldier who experiences this trauma is

often unaware of it. If he is caught close to a

large detonation then fragmentation damage

to the rest of his body is the first concern—he

may be bleeding from amputated stumps or

body puncture wounds. If he is in an armored

truck, he may be thrown about inside the steel

box, slamming his helmeted head into the

ceiling and suffering a standard concussion

in addition to any blast-induced damage. In

both cases, it is only after the immediate acute

injuries are treated and survived that the long-

term TBI nightmare becomes apparent.

The most insidious damage, however, occurs

during missions where you think you’re fine.

Where you see the pavement erupt in front of

your vehicle as you scream down a lonely Iraqi

highway. The driver notes the danger too late,

tries to stop and swerve, but the windshield

suddenly fills with smoke and debris as the

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the energy to dial a phone. Some have

difficulty completing the most basic tasks

of daily living. Some just have trouble

concentrating, doing a complicated task

for long periods of time. Their brains

literally hurt because they are tired.

They have had to work much harder, fire

neurons over a much greater distance than

before the injury. Their minds and bodies

are exhausted from the process. They

hurt in a way that overwhelms the ability

to communicate.

AFTERMATH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY

blast wave overwhelms the front of the truck.

Your chest thumps, your ears ring, and your

head splits under the weight of the crack.

Chunks of asphalt embed themselves in the

armored glass, and pieces of bumper and grille

and headlight are torn and scattered. Your

front tire thuds into and out of the newly

created crater as your vehicle finally grinds to

a halt. You pat yourself down; all fingers and

toes accounted for. No blood or missing pieces.

Your harness kept you locked to your seat. The

radio jumps to life. Are you all right, the convoy

commander wants to know. Is everyone fine?

You look at the driver, he looks at you. You

both laugh, as the adrenaline takes over and

you start to shake. Fuck yeah, you’re fine.

Luckiest sons of bitches on the planet.

But you are not fine. Inside your head, nerve

connections that used to exist have been torn

and broken. If the blast was close and more

damage done, you may have lost parts of high

school geometry, the coordination needed to

tie flies for your fishing reel, or the ability to

make decisions at the supermarket about what

meat to buy. If you are lucky, you only lost your

son’s first steps or the night you asked your

wife to marry you.

And if you are a bomb technician, one of my

brothers, chances are you don’t have only

one lucky scrape, only one detonation where

you were a little too close. You have dozens.

Or hundreds. Spray-foam-encased EFPs that

detonate while you are trying to disrupt them.

Daisychained 130-millimeter artillery rounds

that hit your vehicle on the way to a call. Truck

bombs you choose to detonate, but must be

unnervingly close to, watching and guarding

and keeping children from drawing too near

in a dense city center. Large-scale demolition

to destroy hundreds of tons of stockpiled arms

found in caches. Detonations in training when

you are preparing to deploy in the first place.

Every day, something is blowing up. Every day,

your brain rips just a little bit more.

I’m not just Crazy. I have a broken brain

exhausted from fixing itself.

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As with veterans of the Vietnam War,

veterans of the Iraq War are often

condemned by contemporary society.

Many of the dead veterans go unnamed,

unrecognized by the very same society

in which the media have done much to

perpetuate the myth of easy killing and

have thereby become part of society’s

unspoken conspiracy of deception that

glorifies killing and war. Although the

media has tried to justify the cause of the

war in Iraq, it masks the war’s true horror.

Those who sacrificed are being ignored by

the World War II and Vietnam generations

that are now holding seats of power in

American government.

Most Americans had no idea what was

really going on in Iraq in 2004. Some didn’t

want to know. For years America has been

spoiled by one-sided, sterile air wars. That

kind of warfare has more in common with

PlayStation games than with Hue City or

Seoul in 1950. Or Fallujah in 2004.

Even those who read the paper or watched

the evening news didn’t get it. The reason

for that was clear: the type of reporting in

Iraq left much to be desired. The majority

of the journalists covering Iraq stayed in

the Baghdad hotels, where Arab stringers

with dubious motives fed them their

raw material.

The warrior class, bleeding in Iraq, has

been painted with two brushes: that of

the victim and that of the felon. They

appreciate neither.

As displayed by the huge amount of

affected veterans from the war in Vietnam,

rationalization of the war participated

I read in my hometown newspaper that a local

art gallery, the big one at the college, has a new

exhibit. It’s an antiwar piece, a mix of media

that demonstrates how terrible conflict is.

The paper says it’s earnest and powerful and

contains Truth. I decide to go.

The room is small. A video plays on the far wall,

continuously scrolling a list of names. Names

of our dead. Black bags hang on strings from

the ceiling, like giant popcorn necklaces, filling

half the room. Each bag is supposed to hold

the name of a soldier. More names of our dead.

There are a lot of bags.

The artist has a narrative posted on the wall,

an explanation of the piece. It talks about the

moral choice of being a soldier in war. It says

soldiers, when confronted with the horrors of

war, have to make a choice: To fight or not. To

participate or not. Suicide, it says, is the only

moral choice.

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in was extremely important to help the

veterans normalize and re-enter society.

This can be done through traditional

processes that were ignored following

Vietnam, when soldier instead came back

to a hostile environment.

These processes involve:

• Constant praise and assurance to the

soldier from peers and superiors that

he “did the right thing” (One of the most

important physical manifestations of

this affirmation is the awarding of medals

and decorations)

• The constant presence of mature, older

comrades (that is, in their twenties and

thirties) who serve as role models and

stabilizing personality factors in the

combat environment

• A careful adherence to codes and

conventions of warfare by both sides,

thereby limiting civilian casualties

and atrocities

• Rear lines or clearly defined safe areas

where the soldier can go to relax and

depressurize during a combat tour

• The presence of close, trusted friends and

confidants who have been present during

training and are present throughout the

combat experience.

• A cool down period as the soldier and his

comrades sail or march back from the wars

• Knowledge of the ultimate victory of their

side and of the gain and accomplishments

made possible by their sacrifices

• Parades and monuments

• Reunions and continued communication

(via visits, mail, and so on) with the

individuals whom the soldier bonded

with in combat

• An unconditionally warm and admiring

welcome by friends, family, communities,

and society, constantly reassuring the

soldier that the war and his personal

acts were for a necessary, just, and

righteous cause

• The proud display of medals.

There is nothing worse than a soldier

returning from the war, having done only

what society had trained and ordered

him to do, only to be greeted by a hostile

environment in which he was ashamed to

even wear the uniform and decorations

that became such a vital part of who he was.

AFTERMATH SOCIETAL SUPPORTThe Crazy feeling explodes in my chest and

makes my head spin. I start to shake.

Maybe it’s right. Maybe I’ve made the wrong

choice all along. I know what I did. I know what

I wanted to do.

And now it’s caught up with me. I can’t live

like this.

Not my whole life. Not the rest of my life like

this. With the Crazy.

Something has to change.

It has to end.

After I returned home, I witnessed another

battle raging on the television over Iraq. From

Washington, the rancor and defeatism over

the war shocked me. As other veterans of the

Global War on Terror started to trickle home,

we shared the feelings of the disenfranchised.

We who sacrificed were being ignored by the

World War II and Vietnam generations now

holding seats of power in our government.

I joined Wade Zirkle in forming Vets for

Freedom, a nonpartisan political action

committee dedicated to supporting our troops

in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to

believe the war is a noble effort, but I fear it

may end ignobly.

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Three gifts that you can give returning

veterans that will last them a lifetime

Colonel Timothy Hanifen, USMC

The combat phase of the campaign in Iraq

is winding down and now the hardest job

of all begins—winning the peace. Soon

many of our fellow citizen-Soldiers, Airmen,

Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsman,

both active and reserve, will return home

with their units or as individuals. All have

served and participated in an extraordinary

campaign of liberation, fought in a manner

that reflected not only the determination

of the American people to do what was

necessary but also reflective of our value to

spare life whenever and wherever possible.

As these veterans begin returning home,

people are asking themselves what they

can do to celebrate their return, honor

their service, and remember those who

have fallen in the performance of their duty.

After every war or major conflict, there

are always concerns about the emotional

state of returning veterans, their ability

to readjust to peaceful pursuits and their

reintegration into American society. People

naturally ask themselves, “What can we

do or what should we do?” The purpose of

this message is to offer that there are three

very important gifts that we personally,

and collectively as a society, can give

to these returning veterans. They are

“understanding, affirmation, and support.”

With “understanding,” I am not speaking

of sympathy, empathy, consoling or

emotional analysis. Rather, I offer that

we, to the best of our ability, need to

comprehend some of the combat truths

learned and experienced by these

returning servicemen and women.

Their perspectives and their personal

experiences will shape each of them and

our society in large and small ways for

years to come. Though we were not there,

our comprehension and respect for their

“truisms” will be part of the gift that will

truly last them and us for a lifetime.

The truth every combat veteran knows,

regardless of conflict, is that war is about

combat, combat is about fighting, fighting

is about killing and killing is a traumatic

personal experience for those who fight.

Killing another person, even in combat,

is difficult as it is fundamentally against

our nature and the innate guiding moral

compass within most human beings.

The frequency of direct combat and the

relative distance between combatants is

also directly proportional to the level of

combat stress experienced by the surviving

veteran. Whether the serviceman or

woman actually pulled the trigger, dropped

a bomb or simply supported those who

have, I’ve yet to meet any veteran who has

found and found their contribution to or

the personal act of killing another human

being particularly glorious. Necessary—Yes.

Glorious or pleasurable—No.

In combat, warriors must psychologically

distance themselves from the humanity

of their opponent during the fight. The

adversary becomes a target or an objective

or any number of derogatory epithets

that separates “them from us.” Combat

becomes merely business—a job that

has to be done, part of your duty, and

killing—a necessary result. It’s a team job

that needs to be done quickly, efficiently,

unemotionally and at the least cost in lives

to your unit, to innocents and with the

most damage inflicted in the least time to

your adversaries. Then you and the team

move forward again to the next danger

area and fight. The only sure way home

is by fighting through your opponents as

quickly and efficiently as possible. Along

the way you quietly hope or pray that your

actions will: be successful; not cause the

loss of a comrade; not cause the death of

an innocent; and that you won’t become

one of the unlucky casualties yourself. You

stay despite your fears because the team,

your new family of brothers or sisters, truly

needs you and you’d rather die than let

them down. You live in the moment, slowly

realize your own mortality and also your

steadily rising desire to cling to and fight

hard for every second of it. You keep your

focus, your “game face” on, and you don’t

allow yourself the luxury of “too much

reflection” or a moment’s “day dreaming”

about home, loved ones, the future or

your return. You privately fear that such a

moment of inattention may be your last, or

worse because of you, a comrade’s last.

So if I may caution, please don’t walk up

to a combat veteran and ask him or her

if they “killed” anyone or attempt well

meaning “pop” psychoanalysis. These

often-made communication attempts are

awkward and show a lack of understanding

and comprehension of the veteran. They

also reveal much about the person who

attempts either one. Instead, please

accept there is a deep contextual gap

between you both because you were not

there. This chasm is very difficult to bridge

when veterans attempt to relate their

personal war experiences. Actual combat

veterans are the ones least likely to answer

the question or discuss the details of

their experiences with relative strangers.

Most likely they will ignore you and feel

as though they were truly “pilgrims” in

a strange land instead of honored and

appreciated members of our Republic. So

accept and don’t press…

Don’t ignore them or the subject. Please

feel free to express your “gladness at their

safe return” and ask them “how it went

or what was it like?” These questions are

open-ended and show both your interest

and concern. They also allow the veteran

to share what they can or want. In most

cases, the open door will enable them to

share stories of close friends, teammates

or some humorous moments of which they

recall. Again, just ask, accept—but don’t

dig or press.

The second gift is “affirmation.” Whether

you were personally in favor of the war or

against it no longer matters at this point.

As a Republic and a people we debated, we

decided and then we mustered the political

and societal willpower to send these brave

young men and women into combat in

hopes of eventually creating a better peace

for ourselves, for the Iraqi people and for

an entire region of the world. More than

anything else, the greatest gift you can

personally give a returning veteran is a

sincere handshake and words from you

that “they did the right thing, they did

what we asked them to do and that you

are proud of them.” We need to say these

words often and the returning combat

veteran truly needs these reassurances.

Also please fly your flag and consider

attending one or more public events

with your families as a visible sign of

your support and thanks. Nothing speaks

louder to a returning veteran than the

physical presence of entire families. Those

Americans attending these events give one

of their most precious gifts—their personal

time. Numbers matter. Personal and

family presence silently speaks volumes of

affirmation to those you wish to honor.

The third gift is “support.” Immediately

upon return there will be weeks of

ceremonies and public praise applauding

the achievements of returning units and

their veterans. But the pace of life in

America is fast and it will necessarily move

rapidly onward towards the next event.

Here is where your support is most needed

to sustain the returning veteran and you

can make the most difference in their lives

for years to come. Continue to fly your

flag. If you are an employer, then simply do

your best to hire a veteran who is leaving

service or if he or she was a guardsman or

Reservist, welcome them back to a new job

within the company. All reserve personnel

know that the economic life of the

company has continued in their absence.

It has to do so in order for the company

to survive and prosper. They also know it

is likely their jobs have since been filled.

Returning veterans are always unsure

whether or not they will find or have

employment upon return. As an employer

if you can’t give them an equivalent job

because of downsizing then extend them

with your company for three to four

months so they can properly job hunt.

Please take a personal interest in them and

their families and use your extensive list of

personal and professional contacts to help

them land a better job—even if it is with

one of your competitors. The gratitude

they will feel for you, your personal actions

and your company is beyond words.

For everyone else, the greatest gift you

can give to continue support will take 10

seconds of your time. In the years to come,

if ever your paths cross with one of the

hundreds of thousands of veterans of this

or any other conflict, then simply shake

their hand and tell them “thanks” and that

“they did a great job!” Your words show you

understand, you affirm their service and

you continue to support them. Teach your

children to do the same by your strong

example. Though veterans may not express

it, every one of them will be grateful. If

this message rings true with you, then

let us each give these returning veterans

these three gifts that will truly last them

a lifetime.

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Literature Cited

Bellavia, David. House to House: A Soldier’s Memoir. New York City: Free Press, 2007. Print.

Castner, Brian. The Long Walk: A story of war and the life that follows. New York City:

Doubleday, 2012. Print.

Grossman, Dave, and Loren Christenson. On combat: the Psychology and Physiology of

Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace. 3rd ed. America: Warrior Science Group Inc,

2008. Print.

Grossman, D. On Killing, the Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in war and society.

3. New York City: Back Bay Books, 2010. Print.

Imagery Cited

Photo found on “Introduction:” Oliva, Mark. Marines hold tight the flag that draped

over the casket of Major Douglas A. Zembiec. 2007.

Photo on “Combat:” Palu, Louie. Garmsir Marines. 2008

Pg 9: Fuentes–Contreras, Grover. Sergeant Bregel. 2011.

Pg 14-15: Palu, Louie. The Void of War. 2009.

Pg 24: Baxter, Jonathan. Scratch and Sniff. 2005

Pg 31: Leeson, David. Untitled. 2003.

Photo on “After:” Turnley, David. In Times of War and Peace. 1991.

Pg 34. Thompson, Richard. Brain Drawings. 2012.

Pg 36. Ryan, Elizabeth.

Pg 38. Saunders, Brian Lewis. Self Portrait on Bath Salts. 2012.

Pg 48. Found on American Women Veterans. Untitled.

Pg 52. Prinsler, Roland. Madness. 2012.

Photo on “Healing:” Getty Images. 2011.

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This book was designed by Erin McLear in the spring of 2013 at

Washington University in St. Louis with the help of Sarah Birdsall and

Scott Gericke. Erin compiled, combined and edited the text, gathered

the imagery, and letterpressed the large scale type. The typefaces

used are Arvo and Strada Sans, as well as a variety of handset

letterpressed type. It is printed on Mohawk Ultrawhite Superfine

Eggshell Finish 80lb Text.