How you choose to see me is your business. It doesn’t change anything at all for me.
You know (from firsthand experience) and you do it anyway. I know (without going through the experience) and refuse to do it.
I’ve counseled a few combat veterans. They’ve all had PTSD to varying degrees. They’ve all told me that they wouldn’t want anyone to go through what they went through. None of them viewed me as you do. (Maybe they’re in the minority.)
One of my best friends served in Afghanistan. Before he went overseas, he asked me to pray for him, for his wife and son, and to comfort his family if something happened to him over there. Something did happen to him over there. He made it home. He wished that he hadn’t.
He told me a few brief stories, and they were horrific. He had killed men, women and children. The children were the hardest on him. He saw one of his best friends blown up by a child who came running up to him - to give him a hug, they thought.
He told me that he hated those people with a burning passion. He spoke about them using language that was very uncharacteristic for him. He killed combatants and he killed non-combatants. And he said he would do it again in a heartbeat. No remorse. No compassion. No mercy.
One day not long after he came back to work, I was in a break room in the building where we worked together. The door was closed. My friend walked through the door to get a cup of coffee; I was standing at the sink, getting a cup of water. Without thinking anything about it, I thrust my hand into the air and said, “Hey, Ron! How …” I didn’t get any further than that. My friend turned into a monster. He was on me so fast that I didn’t have time to finish my greeting. Just as he was about to put his hands around my tnroat, he stopped. He was sweating profusely. He was breathing rapidly. He was terrified and terrifying.
I was shocked. He recovered pretty quickly, but it felt like forever to me. I didn’t know what to say or do. He apologized and told me never to do that again. He said that I didn’t realize just how close he had come to killing me. He added that he didn’t even see me initially; he saw a mujahideen. He said he sees them everywhere. In every shadow, in every loud noise, in every creaking floorboard or rustling curtain. His wife and son live in constant fear of what he might do. He knows he’s dangerous and is taking prescribed medication.
He told me that he was going to have to go back in the hospital for treatment. He was admitted (actually readmitted) to a psychiatric unit a day later and I‘ve never seen or spoken with him since. I don’t know where he is now or what he’s doing.
He told me some things that he said were important, so I’ll share a few of them with you: 1. Don’t ever join the military. 2. Don’t ever ask a combat veteran to tell stories about the war. 3. He would rather be dead than to have his son, or anyone else’s son or daughter, go through what he had gone through. 4. He was a changed man; not the same man I had known before, and never would be that man again. 5. He was a Christian went he left; he came back an agnostic (not atheist) killing machine. 6. Don’t do what he did. Learn from his tragedy.
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