Guest Blog: The Disconnect

(This blog is from my good friend and up-and-coming poet, Colin Halloran. Please join the conversation and tell him what you think.)

I have worked as a secondary English teacher in urban districts, and as a substitute teacher in well-off suburban districts, and in both settings my military background has been invaluable in gaining the respect of the students and control of the classroom.  However, in both settings I am consistently faced with the same question: “Did you kill anyone?”  (Sometimes they just assume that the answer is yes and jump straight to an enthusiastic “How many?!”)   No matter what the background of the students, regardless of the age, grade, or class, those are the first words out of at least one student’s mouth when they learn that I served in Afghanistan.

I don’t want to sound like an off-the-deep-end mother and blame it on video games, or the media blitz, but the reality of the situation is that those are a part of it.  For so many people here on the home front, the war is simply a numbers game:  troops deployed, casualties, troops being pulled out, pounds of coffee donated. For those of us who have been a part of it, there are names, faces and stories behind each of those numbers. 

For many kids in this country, the concept of war is perceived through the lens of Call of Duty, where the kill number is more important than making sure that the guy next to you doesn’t bleed out or lose consciousness on the chopper back to base.  Where you can use cheat codes or just start over.  Where if you don’t properly cover your sector the only casualty is the pride of some college kid in Tuscaloosa.

But it’s not just video games and the media that cause me to be asked about my confirmed kills on a near daily basis.  The problem is that the students don’t know any other questions to ask. Unless they have a relative who also served, they don’t realize the sensitive nature of the question.  No kills is weak and shameful to them, the higher the number, the cooler you are. They don’t understand that the higher the number, the heavier the personal toll, the more vivid the nightmares.  They don’t realize that I was more focused on making sure my guys made it out of there safely, whatever the cost, than on picking off the “bad guys”.  But back here, the actual reality seems to be less important, simply because it isn’t as widely known.

There are great programs out there that work to get veterans into classrooms as teachers or guest speakers, but it seems to me that we just aren’t doing enough to teach these kids about a situation that is very much a part of the world they are growing up in.

Tomorrow I will have an eleven-year-old ask me about my kill count, and once more I will explain about respect, and sensitivity. I will explain that there’s much more to the conflict than that; that I think more about the number of hospital beds I’ve sat next to and the number of funerals that I’ve attended.  I’ll explain that I’m used to hearing that question, that I don’t mind explaining these things to him, but someone else, and there are going to be more and more of us in coming years, might not be able to talk or think about it as easily.

I think that doing more to educate our children about the realities of war is essential to helping secure the future of our country. These are our future doctors, counselors, policy makers and soldiers.  With the number of veterans of the Global War on Terror (or whatever we eventually call it in the text books) constantly on the rise, students need to be given more than just a social studies lesson on the subject.  I think every student should have the opportunity to talk to a veteran, to read firsthand accounts, to hear about tomorrow’s history today from the people who are a part of it.

Colin Halloran currently attends The Fairfield University Master of Fine Arts in Poetry Program where he serves on the editorial board for the literary journal, Mason’s Road. His poetry has been featured in The New York Times and other places.  

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Cross Street: A Poem

On Cross Street,

In Perry Hall,

My body hunches

Over the metal frame

And my feet pedal slow.

The horizon blurs like

The space between smoke and fire

And insects clamor in crescendo like

Single-note-delayed, static, acid,

Electric guitars that then

Decrescendo.

The orange sun seems to be smaller in Maryland

Than the white-out sphere over Fallujah

Though, it burns more.

I am glad to be away

From bullets, chai,

Insurgents, kabob,

Snipers and pita bread.

Officer Matasovsky appears on my left.

He doesn’t care what “I am away from.”

He writes me a ticket

For not wearing a helmet

Even though my head is safe.

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Confusion Replaces Order

Under the radioactive sting of the desert sun, we clutched our rifles against our bullet-proof chests and went searching for violent men. Like fighting moles in the arcade, we kept our hammers primed and waited for the enemy to pop up. We knew their tactics but we didn’t know whospecifically they would be.

Woman, children, men; many of them had a vendetta against us, who they saw as intruders -- they had an agenda against us warriors who had affronted ourselves against their faith. It’s been said that an AK47 rifle is easy enough for a child to use, and sometimes they do. Just like how a woman can strap a suicide vest to herself because she’s unlikely to be searched. Just like how an old man can creep to the street and dig a hole for burying a bomb.

But we marched on anyway, weary of ambushes or indirect fire. We rode in humvees just waiting for a roadside bomb to explode. We flew with helicopters, fearing rocket propelled grenades. Or we commandeered tanks with gut-worry about the cone-shaped charges that might shape steel into magma-spears and slice through our limbs.

This is modern war, and we did it, and we came home.

We felt numb though, after returning; unsure if this is where we really should be. Combat might sound scary but you learn the threats and you keep yourself alive. At the end of the day that’s all you could do. And if your buddies died? Well, f*** it -- pull yourself together because you’re needed with the rest of the team. Don’t get killed: that was our only mission.

And suddenly you’re in the U.S. and you feel alone. Confusion replaces order when you drive around without a pistol on your lap or a helmet on your skull. Uneasy worry takes the place of controlled calm when you enter crowded restaurants. Loneliness exchanges camaraderie when you’re around a bunch of distant friends and family who scratch their heads about the man or woman you’ve become. Rage switches with the rational mind when someone dares to speak poorly about what you’ve done and where you’ve been. Depression overcomes peace when, upon seeing your loved ones, you become guilty about your brothers and sisters who didn’t return too.

Welcome home, those that care about you will say at barbeques, graduations or the dive bar down the street. They’ll toss back a shot and smile and amicably smack your back when you sit beside them. It’s good to see you again, they’ll add.

But they don’t know that your journey is just beginning.

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Introduction to Coming Home: A Field Guide

It’s a romantic idea. It is. Defend your country. Through intense training, reshape your body as a machine. Study and master the skills of the combat arms. Carry your rifle to the worst hotspots all over the world, spreading freedom and protecting democratic values.

Or maybe you were someone who just came from a bad neighborhood and needed a way out.

Maybe you just needed a job or money for college.

Maybe you were just looking for discipline and adventure.

Whether you’re a dreamer or a pragmatist, we’ve all joined and served our time at war for different, personal reasons. At the end of the day, we did simply what was asked of us.

And so, here we are.

The difference between the combat experience and so many others experiences of the typical human condition is that the outcome of our war experiences isn’t a personal matter. It’s an indictment of the very values that we send our young men and women out to defend. The health of our veterans reflects the health of our nation. Each distressed veteran disrupts dozens of lives of their family and friends.

And if those lives were multiplied by the two million veterans who’ve already served in the Global War on Terror, if we didn’t take care of them, those numbers would literally break down the well-being of our country. Who would defend the states if we chose not to take care of our warriors? Who would rise up to defend to the constitution?

This is why I think taking care of veterans is one of the most important moral responsibilities that America should have. That care should come in three facets, I think: help from the government, help from the community and help from within (the last one being the most important, and complicated).

This field guide (which I will be posting over the next several weeks) is my attempt at giving clarity for our veterans and their families to meet the moral mandate of treating the wounded warrior’s soul.

In crafting this field guide, I intend to use a blend of academic and empiric sources to illuminate what I think are the many solutions to the challenges of helping our soldiers come home.

In the end though, we’ll all need each other’s help to make my field guide as comprehensive and complete as possible. Please participate. Please show our veterans that they are not alone.

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Are You an Unemployed Veteran? No Problem.

A recent AP News article that quoted me explains how veterans are returning home to higher unemployment rates than their civilian counterparts.

According to the article, “The unemployment rate last year for young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans hit 21.1 percent … reflecting a tough obstacle combat veterans face as they make the transition home from war. The number was well above the 16.6 percent jobless rate for non-veterans of the same ages, 18 to 24.”

A large part of the coming home experience for veterans that are ending their contracts with the service is finding a new identity in the civilian world. Some of the skills that service members learn in the military don’t necessarily translate into the civilian world, or still mandate an extensive civilian education. I knew a former Navy Corpsmen at my old community college who, despite his years of medical care taking for Sailors and Marines, had to start at the first step – associate’s degree with a medical concentration – towards becoming a nurse (the same step some 17 year-old recent high school graduate would have started at). At the same time, if someone received PTSD from their MOS (Military Occupational Specialty – or their job in the service) like combat medicine, they probably wouldn’t want to make that their vocation as a civilian.

In the military, service members build their identities around their jobs. It’s the first question another service member will ask their brothers or sisters in arms. It becomes their purpose and meaning for life during their terms. Given the oft repeated scenario above however (substitute corpsmen for any number of combat arms MOS’ or other job skills like infantry, mechanic, administration, etc), returning veterans should make the preparations for possibly starting over completely.

Maybe that sounds scary. Maybe you think that sucks. It’s a good thing, I think. Just like how in the military, you figured out your identity and role through your training at boot camp and then job school, starting over entirely would allow you to do the same thing in the civilian world (and it might be the best thing for your mental health).

Yeah, it would be hard to humble yourself and go take classes at school with a bunch of young, immature teenagers who have not experienced the same personal growth and experiences you’ve had, but you better get used to them. For the rest of your life you’ll be with bona fide civilians. They make up 90% of the entire population (that’s a real statistic by the way – there’s only about 30 million living veterans in the U.S. currently).

It’s a scary prospect, but with the lobbying of veterans organizations on your behalf in D.C., you’ve got more opportunity than ever to create a happy, healthy life for yourself with veteran’s benefits like the New GI Bill. You can use your college years to figure out just who you’ll be after retiring your stripes and colors.

I will always cherish my time as a Marine. But ultimately, even if you do stay in, like me, your time in service is going to end. Whether that’s at age 22 or age 48, what are you going to do then? If you’re out now or getting out soon, despite the rampant unemployment, you can use your benefits to do some really great and maybe, even better things with your life as a civilian.

What do you think? Why are veterans’ unemployment rates higher? Is college the best idea?

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Hey, You!

(Just for a reference point for you older vets, no this blog is not about a track on Pink Floyd's epic 1970s concept album "The Wall.")

Hey, you! Be happy. That almost sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Of course if you could be happy you would be. Someone can't just order you into bliss and contentment. I'm embarrassed to admit this story because it makes me sound like a self-centered jerk, but this really did happen: 

Maybe about five months after I came home from my second tour, when I was at my most depressed, some old man stopped me in a parking lot as I walked to my car.

"Hey, you!"

"What do you want?" I replied, pausing my steps.

"You look like you're older than me. You should smile. Life can't possibly be that hard."

In my head I said, F*** you old man. What were you, a World War II veteran or something? I bet you never had to worry about going to war over and over and over again after you came back from your tour.

I just kept walking.

Years later I can appreciate the sentiment of the elderly man (and I can feel like a moron for trying to argue whose war was tougher. Yeah, I've seen Band of Brothers and read a few books. I'll give it to him).

But, in a way, the old man’s intent in stopping me really wasn’t that ridiculous. As been said a million times, coming home from war is a really difficult thing. There’s such a concentrated confluence of so many intense feelings: decompressing and digesting your combat experiences; trying to readapt to the much different civilian world; attempting to control your physical and mental reactions to all these changes. It’s tough. Point blank.

But, finding a little thing in your life that makes you feel just a bit better? (Alcohol doesn’t count.)

That’s really not that hard.

For me it’s the drums. When I get stressed or angry about things I can’t control, I just place my ass on a stool and beat my drums – literally just slap the crap out of them. Maybe that says something negative about me, but when I’m finished with one of these therapy jam sessions, I don’t want to fight anyone and become more docile. As a personal mental health bonus, I’ll have friends come over with their guitars and keyboards to play too, and that usually winds up in a cool, low key night with friends -- no craziness or self destruction.

Obviously, the path to getting well again is going to be a difficult road. But if you can find small things in your life to latch onto that make you feel better, why not start building your life around those things now?

What makes you feel better?

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The Third Phase

Think back to boot camp for a moment. Were you scared the first time that you met your instructors? Were you intimidated, being awakened by clanging trash can lids as cymbals and intense screaming? Were you worried to jump in the water with 50lbs of gear and a rifle? Did the gas chamber instill considerable fear in you?

Of course you were scared, but you kicked ass and made it through. You didn’t have a choice.

Now think forward a bit to the time you were at war: did the nightmare of falling mortars keep you awake at night, ready to snap alert at the sound of any blast? Did you watch roof tops and windows, waiting for the sniper bullet that might slice through your head? Did you fear the piles of trash and the bombs that hid beneath them? Did your training save you?

Maybe you experienced all those things. They’re common experiences of the contemporary wars. And unlike at basic training, the result of those very real situations damaged us -- some mentally, some physically, some with death. But we made it through. The skills we learned before the fighting allowed us to implement our training to be proficient in war.

Maybe you called in an air strike. Maybe you charged room to room. Maybe you consoled a dying man. Maybe you wore his blood.

But what about after the war?

There are thousands of circumstances we’ve been through, and unlimited reactions to these challenges.

There’s no predicting the permutations concerning our psychology and spirit that no one’s trained us for after the fighting.

You’ve learned the skills of combat. You’ve survived the war. You’d be mistaken to think that your education is over.

You’ve got to learn how to be a healthy person again. No one else can do that for you, but there are millions of us – fellow veterans, proud Americans, family members and friends --who want to help your achieve this personal growth. For that purpose, this is why this website exists. I don’t want this to become a cliché but it’s true. Here, you are not alone.

As always, please join the conversation. What have you learned after the war?

Next week I will be posting a practical field guide for coming home. I’m not a master of anything, but I’ve learned a lot in my life, especially after returning from Iraq. I would be honored if you would listen.

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Freedom Bird: A Scene from Coming Home

(Hello all, this is a scene from my memoir. For many, the challenges of returning begin at day one, moment one. What was your first day home from combat like? What was it like seeing your friend, lover or family member for that first time after them being away for so long?)

This plane ride, like any other, is cramped and slow. 20 hours leak by and the same group of music videos appears on projector screen. For the umpteenth time I hear the singer from 311 repeat, “When I am alone with you, it makes me feel like I am home again,” and I cannot help from dwelling on feelings for Lauren.

On the next song of the music video rotation, Allison Krauss sings, “There's a restless feeling knocking at my door today, there's a shadow hanging 'round my garden gate, I read between the lines of words you can't disguise, love has gone away and put these tears in my eyes,” and it is one of those moments where I feel life is providing a well-conceived soundtrack for me.

Everyone on this flight is tired. Tired to our marrow and fatigued in our minds. When the pilot announced five minutes ago that we would be landing in the U.S. soon, everyone cheered, but only because it felt appropriate. And even then our cheers were like golf claps.

The Navy Corpsman next to me – who I spoke to at beginning of the flight -- suddenly looks more vacant and lost than what his stories revealed to me. Seven months in the combat trauma center in Fallujah does that to a man; and returning home, for most of us, is an even scarier thing. I wonder how his wife will react to his lost stares. Will his child see him and cry? Will Lauren be able to see inside me? Will she understand what she sees? 

The plane descends in finality, and it is fitting that the first sound that greets my return to America is the “reverse thrust” of the large airplane. This is the second time I have came and gone, and now that I am back I have no clue what I am supposed to do. I wonder if this time my life will really change. Can I really step off this plane a new man? I will try.

Behind my desire for different things, I know, the war was bad when we stepped on this plane for home. Three years remain on my enlistment; it is very possible I will go back yet again and my life will be comatose because of this. Coming and going; fighting an eternal war; not knowing when it ends; never truly returning home. This is my life. How can I commit to anything when my life is defined by consistent, challenging changes?

Now that plane has landed and stopped, I step near the exit and the heat of Southern California feels the same as Al Qa’im. The San Bernardino Mountains prevent me from seeing too far eastward and I try to remember what home looks like. I wonder how Baltimore feels today.

I am shocked by the small turnout of well-wishers greeting our return. Not that I feel like we deserve a grand welcoming, but a year ago we came home off our planes like a Super Bowl winning team.

Iraq has changed.

I have changed.

Now that I am home, I am going to do things different. But, admittedly, I have no idea what that means. After all, I only learned a few weeks ago how fallible I really am and as the saying goes, “knowing is only half of the battle.”

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Six Years Ago, Today

This time of year is always a particularly introspective one for me. Both of my deployments started in February (2003 and 2004) and it was around this time in March or April several years ago that I experienced the majority of the combat I did. Usually those memories lie dormant in my brain like a volcano that seldom smolders.

Sometimes I have dreams of experiences so vivid I don’t know how they can’t possibly be true. They’re not bad dreams, luckily, just lucid echoes of fuzzy memories – the manifestation of combat stress in my subconscious. Confused, I’ll thumb through my journal (a distinctly Marine Corps lime green-colored journal) to uncover where I was, and what I was doing to see if these things actually did occur:

Fallujah, Iraq
Day 68
April 9, 2004

Slept in till 0800. Went into work and became very busy with random tasks. Off at usual time. Rested for night mission. Before crossing of wire, two separate mortar attacks came f***ing close. Posted as OP for our CA mission from last night that was canceled. Two minutes after we reentered the gate, witnessed a huge firefight across the wire. Seriously close s*** again. Thank God for his protection.

I dreamed that I was walking that night on a patrol (which was not the case), where something bad happened, but I couldn’t remember what. It’s just a flash of an image that I remember from that dream. I’m marching with my weapons and I’m feeling the foreboding of death…

My absolute last day in the Marines, I drove to the Henderson Hall post exchange (military department store) at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps in D.C. I knew I wouldn’t have access to these facilities as a civilian, so I wanted to purchase some parting gifts for myself: a brand new bumper sticker; extra ribbons and medals; a gray t-shirt that reads “USMC” in black letters. A captain was there. He felt familiar for some reason. I broke traditional protocol (a corporal wouldn’t usually approach a captain) and walked towards him.

“Good afternoon, Sir. I’m sorry to bother you, but do I know you?”

He stared back. “Yeah, maybe.”

We flipped through our collective consciousnesses. Were you in Iraq? Yes. In April 2004? Yeah, that’s right. Fallujah? Yes, that’s correct, who are you Corporal?

The captain, it turns out, had come with us on this civil affairs mission of ours that occurred on this day six years ago. We went to resupply a Jordanian hospital during the First Battle of Fallujah. I had been posted as an observation post slash machine gun position at the south side of the hospital. I watched the evening horizons all around me illuminate with dozens of flashes through my night vision goggles. Violent explosions thumped the ground. Apparently, according to the captain, an enemy element was observed at the north side of the hospital and he had called in artillery to eliminate them. “That night was the biggest fire mission I ever called,” the captain boasted.

I don’t think I ever knew that. But maybe I did. I’ve never killed anyone but I know, in part, that the captain only successfully accomplished his mission because I was watching his rear. Six years later, I still don’t know how I feel about what I learned. Maybe I couldn’t accept what happened then so I had hidden those realizations away.

It’s amazing what the brain can do automatically on its own accord. It’s hard to understand the past when trauma has beat up our minds. I’m writing this today for clarity. It’s part of my healing process.

Feel free to offer up whatever you have to say.

You are not alone.

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Who Among Us Is Well?

I wonder who among the thousands of men and women I’ve served with as brothers and sisters in combat is doing well today.

Did the PFC I served with in Kuwait, who used to have manic anxiety in our underground bunker during SCUD attacks, return home as a happy woman? Does she think about the time where we sang “Lean on Me” in our bunker after the surprise missile attack that started the war? Does she have kids and a job? Can her significant other understand why she sometimes can’t sleep (the missiles always came at night)?

Has my red-headed brother (I call him that because we looked so alike back then that this is how people referred to us, as “brothers”) had his hearing repaired from the explosion? Is there a ringing still that tortures him? I wonder if he can have his brain scraped of the images of the dead bodies he processed during his second tour as mortuary affairs.

I saw my senior drill instructor from boot camp on the Syrian border area of Iraq. He was in charge of a logistics convoy where two Marines had just died. Have you ever seen the broken face of the man who taught you how to be hard? Does this gunnery sergeant still wear that vacant look in dark rooms at the end of the day? Does he wear it over an open bottle in a bar?

I served with one of my best friends from youth in Iraq. I have a photo of the first time we encountered each other overseas: a polaroid of him chewing dip and half-smiling on a guard tower. That tower is destroyed now; three vehicle-borne suicide bombers made sure of that one year after our tour had ended. I have not seen my friend in over five years. When we saw each other then, all he saw was Iraq. I don’t like to think about him anymore. It’s easier for me to just think he’s gone.

Who among us is well?

How can we get back to the place before?

People tell me that they think I’m fine. But how can they really tell?

There are secret burdens that you will never see.

Who among us is well?

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Processing a Healthy Mind

(Warning: This blog deals with specifically described combat scenes)

This weekend I spent some time with one the former Staff NCOs of my first unit, who I served with upon entering the Marine Corps Reserve in 2001. His wife, it turns out, is one of my peers in my creative writing program at Hopkins who I’ve become good friends with (she also used to be my neighbor in Baltimore when I was a one-year-old, coincidentally enough).

As veterans always do, we recounted for one another our individual combat tales (veterans always talk about these things when they get together because they have no one else to share these topics with): the crazy incidents where some lucky fool escaped death; the politics of the hierarchy of the military order; what it was like to not shower or eat well for days; the unlucky men who did not survive. We talked a lot about PTSD. My peer in the program is writing a story about a mortuary affairs Marine (someone we all knew) who came home in a bad way. Collecting bodies up and shipping them home never caused him any mental issues until, after a particularly deadly IED went off in Ramadi, he had to ride back to base in the rear of a Bradley Vehicle with the exploded remains of seven soldiers.

I have to admit that I felt very fortunate after hearing this tale. Several of my friends died in operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I never had to see their severely damaged bodies; instead, I had saluted their flag-draped coffins and headstones on U.S. soil, oblivious to their mutilated bodies (from snipers, IEDs or helicopter crashes).

For some, it’s not the graphic images of war that causes them combat stress or PTSD upon returning home. I don’t buy into the notion that the only people who have the right to complain about their experiences were ones who fought daily in, say, Fallujah or a really bad neighborhood in Baghdad (or any number of places that the media won’t cover because it’s too dangerous). That being said, I know warriors who have seen significant combat and killed other men, who have returned to the U.S. and become emotionally healthy, contributing members of society.

I don’t think there’s ever one specific trigger to the stress that happens to everyone who serves. In a combat zone, your adrenaline pumps fully for the entire time you are overseas, and that intense bodily reaction has to affect your body’s chemistry. At the same time, research has shown that PTSD is exacerbated for some because they can’t process their experiences. For instance, there was a significant up-tick in the numbers of WWII veterans who were seeking treatment for PTSD shortly after the movie “Saving Private Ryan” came out. Even fifty years after their wars, they had never sought to truly process their experiences, because that’s not what the military teaches you. The military doesn’t teach you action, they teach you reaction. You train over and over again until an unconditional response controls your motions when the bullets fly. A sound, a sight or smell – even fifty years later – can incite the memory of a traumatic time. This is why so much of the proper treatment of PTSD (like many other emotional conditions) involves talking about your experiences to effectively treat and process the symptoms that occur because of what you’ve experienced.

Sometimes, just getting the opportunity to relieve your experiences with someone who can really empathize and care – like the Gunny and I at a outdoor table of a cafe bar on the streets of affluent northwest D.C., far removed from the battle – can go a long way in helping the underlying stress and anxiety we all feel about our experiences. Don’t let those things build up as a tumor. You might think that you can control it, but sometimes you really can’t. To some degree it’s never really going to go away. You just need to process it; and the more times you actually talk about it, the easier it is to say.

Maybe you can share your story here. Be as anonymous as you like. 

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20 Something Magazine (Editor-in-Chief, Creator)

JMWW Literary Journal (Senior Nonfiction Editor)

The Veterans Writing Project (Instructor, Nonfiction Editor)

LinkedIn (Professional Stuff)

Facebook (Be my friend?)