Love After War: A Narrative (Part 2)

PART II.
I never worked a sloppy shift in the eight years that I waited tables. No matter what personal angst I had raging inside me, I always somehow smiled and worked my ass of for every table that ever sat in my section. It was the one thing in my life I could actually control.

Despite this, when I began at the new location, too many of the senior employees simply decided that I was a newbie, and got on my ass about my actions. I’ve worked all over the world in more different roles and jobs than I possibly could list. I’ve learned that the ones who make the most noise in a workplace are often the worst employees.

My new Chili’s was no exception. I didn’t appreciate young girls, college drop-outs and likely cokeheads, who could never fathom or understand where I had just returned from, calling me out in front of everyone about meaningless stuff like how I carried my trays.

“Dario, don’t carry that tray (with the sizzling fajita skillet) over your head with one hand! You’re going to drop it on a customer.”

Wrong, dumbass, that’s not going to happen.  I used to command a vehicle on the Syrian Border of Iraq. I got this.

“Dario, don’t put the pilsner glasses on the drink tray. They’re going to fall!”

F*** you. Idiot. I used to plan combat missions for up to thirty men. Don’t get on me about this stupid s***.

“Why don’t you grab ice, Dario? The bin is getting low.”

Because I already grabbed ice for the fifteenth time this shift you lazy whore. I don’t even want to be here and I’m working harder than everyone else.

Sometimes I couldn’t keep my filter. I’m embarrassed that I had these thoughts but I did. Sometimes they emerged from my mouth as vitriolic arguments I couldn’t control or temper. I would wing up in the office, being counseled with managers acting as arbitrators, often.

One particular young woman, Lisa*, incurred a special rage in me. When she showed up at my store in Timonium, Maryland, a transfer from Virginia Beach, we’d have screaming sessions on the backline within earshot of a filled restaurant of customers. She was as stubborn and wild as me.

Lisa loved to abuse the small authority she earned as a “shift closer” to order me into re-buffing my already shiny tabletops. She’d force me to sweep again over some mark on the cement floor that wouldn’t ever come up with a broom – I’d scrape the gunk up with a knife. She’d make me empty the dishroom – returning hundreds of pounds of large plates, iron fajita skillets, silverware, green baskets, ramekins, side plates, and tortilla servers – over and over again, delaying my exit from the restaurant after a ten hour day.

Technically, even though I left for two deployments since I began at Chili’s in 2002, I had worked longer than her in the corporation, and her pettiness elicited an uncontrollable anger within me. How dare she treat me in the manner she did! I saw her as my enemy; and she saw me the same.

Things continued like this for a month. On most nights after work, our tight community of crazy young college-aged kids who made a lot of discretionary income would go out after the second shift ended, to a local dive bar called The Treehouse.

Usually, I’d just stay separated from the group, talking to the girls who reminded me of or looked like my ex-lover. On most nights, I loved lowering my back against the bar stool, clutching my cocktail, and leaning towards the bartender at Chili’s and chatting with her because she was Polish and beautiful, too. Lisa overheard one of our conversations as she came up to order a shot.

We had been talking about the military I guess. I had been lamenting about Iraq and coming home. Lisa stared at me, her wide brown eyes becoming soft.

“What the hell are you looking at?” I asked.

“I didn’t know you were in the military,” Lisa replied. “My ex was in the military. He went through a lot of s*** when he came home, too.”

“Well that sucks,” I said returning my attention to the bartender.

Like most bars in America, at 2 am we were all kicked out. Lisa came up to me as I stumbled out the door.

“I’m sorry I’ve been treating you so poorly, Dario. I had no idea where you were coming from.”

And just like that we were an item – just like that I couldn’t be mad at her anymore. We hugged for a while, a teary eye leaking into her shoulder, before I left for home alone.

She observed in me, the same characteristics of a man she once loved; and she saw a second chance to create that passion. I saw in her an understanding and care I hadn’t felt from a mostly disinterested society. Finally, I had found someone who could relate and care.

To be continued.

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Love After War: A Narrative (Part 1)

This is a story I never thought I would tell. I’ve never wanted to share the events of the first half of 2005, because I’ve never desired to give credit to the woman who warped my mental health and fractured my recovery (not withstanding my own obvious part in my self-destruction) from the trauma of war. I will change* the names as I relate this tale. I’ve moved on, but I can’t deny that the pain still lingers.


When I returned from combat a few months before that year, I was still seeking battles as the daily order of my life. After serving in Fallujah and on the Syrian Border of Iraq (and another tour a year before), there wasn’t much else that I knew – there wasn’t much else that felt normal.


I did my time, finished my second year long orders to active duty honorably, and then went back to the odd world of the modern day Reservist: the impossible shift from combat to the real world. Or, in my case, the incomprehensible change of going from Fallujah to Chili’s. I can’t honestly say what my issues were back then because I was too stubborn to ever get checked out or seek mental care from the government or anyone else.


But I knew I wasn’t happy. I knew that for some reason I just couldn’t cope with the life I had dreamed of so many months ago in the desert. I knew nothing of the way I felt made any sense. I felt numb, depressed, and prone to explosive anger; I welcomed anything that would make my adrenaline race again, like the way my pulse had raced when I operated a gunner’s turret in enemy territory. I know now, these were all classic symptoms of PTSD and survivor’s guilt.


Capping my anxiety – or whatever else psychologists would say about my wild mind back then – was the cold reality of an unmanageable debt, incurred upon me by the overwhelmed Defense and Finance Accounting Service. They only staffed four people to deal with the tens of thousands of final travel claims of the activated Reservists who served all throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, and always kept returning to be deactivated. They owed me thousands. I never saw that money. (In fact, at some point they decided I was overpaid, which, when working for the government, is an undisputable claim. I received no compensation for my last year and a half in the Marine Corps Reserve. Uncle Sam kept that money.)


I was aware enough to know that I needed some time off after surviving war. But I wasn’t granted that peace.


So, I went back to my restaurant; same corporation, different location. I had already ruined a relationship with the love of my life at the other store (a hostess at that location, after she wrote me every day in Iraq and supported me fervently, my self destruction and anger upon returning home scared her away). I just couldn’t face her anymore.


After serendipitously encountering a former manger who coaxed me into actually starting up at work again (I would have rather been drinking and destroying everything I owned – no possessions, no bills) I began to show up for six or seven days a week. One time, I worked 20 days in a row just to be able to manage my finances. 1,000 dollars of rent is especially hard to pay off when you spend all you made all day at the bar. Red Bull and vodkas were my favorite. Just five or six would induce anxiety attacks in between periods of rest after blacking out. I thought if I consumed enough one night, those drinks might eventually kill me. I’d wake up in my bed with a combusting chest and hopeless despair. I’d clutch my hands over my heart and cry. But, when they brought me to the edge, I at least felt alive...

To be continued. 

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From Fallujah to Philanthropy

You can see him behind his laptop at the Washington, D.C. Dupont Circle Starbucks at end of an eight hour day, crafting the framework for his entrepreneurship. Six years ago, in Fallujah, as a corporal in the D.C.-based Marine Reserve unit, Mortuary Affairs, you could see him in rubber-gloved hands, collecting the corpses of his dead comrades. “You just hoped the body you found wasn’t the one of someone you knew,” Xi Xiang tells me.


“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?” I ask.


“I don’t even know how to answer that question,” he replies, his deadpan gaze hinting at a deep trauma that belies his smile and congenial manner.


It really must have been bad. Xiang and his Marines developed a dark humor to cope with their job. In a photo of his group at the time, an image titled “We’re Dead,” you can see all the mortuary Marines laying on top of each other in a row with large, beaming smiles, in one of the mass graves they prepared for the dead insurgents.


As a protocol for their job, they had to have weekly sit-ins with Navy chaplains acting as counselors. After one week of his counseling responsibilities, a new ensign had to leave the room to cry at the stories Xiang was relating to him.


The muscular, dark-crème-skinned 28-year-old’s life has never been the same since Fallujah. Days after the battle ended, his team was sent into the abandoned city to collect the remaining enemy corpses. 

Amongst the rubble – blasted out homes with rebar-spiked chunks, downed power lines, and mortar crushed streets – Xiang observed a toddler standing alone in the carnage. He reasoned the child’s parents were dead. He believed the boy had no future, and would probably perish, too.


“If I ever get out of this f***er,” Xiang told one of his buddies under the scarlet sunset of Mesopotamian evening, mortars cracking in the distance, “I want to do something big.”


He thought for a long time about what exactly he was going to do. He knew that he wanted to make difference, he just couldn’t decide on how. But a seven month tour gives a man a lot of time to think.

“I really believe in education,” Xiang says, “it’s all you can give to someone to help them improve their own circumstances, which in turn creates better civic responsibilities, lower crime rates, more wealth – the benefits are exponential.” His idea to help give better education to new generations is broken down in three main ways. Xiang pumps his fist and raises a new finger as he lists them, “Scholarships, incentive programs, funding scholastic programs.”


Xiang wants to use his business dream – a patent-pending software platform that selects and distributes advertisements for out-of-home digital display networks – to finance his desired philanthropy. He spends every free second on this project, when he’s not doing IT consulting for major military contractors. With a large portion of the projected profits for his venture (he hopes to have a demo ready by the end of this year), he plans to start a nonprofit organization, a “dot org” as he refers to it. “I have an insane compulsion,” Xiang says almost bouncing out of his seat. “I just want to impact the world.”

He’ll be there, clacking away at his keyboard, until he can make his dream a reality. If you’re on the Circle for a late-night latte, maybe you should shake his hand. He’s working the hardest he can to create real change for this insane world.

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Coming Home: A Field Guide (Part 10: Community Support for the Veteran)

As an individual, the desire to help a veteran is truly a commendable and magnanimous goal. Friends, family, well-wishers, and millions of patriotic or supportive Americans want to help. But the question is how? It’s this fundamental question that causes anyone who is goodhearted to scratch their head. Should I give to the USO? Donate to veteran support organizations like Not Alone? Send off care packages or visit the troops at Walter Reed?


All of those actions can have an impact on helping our veterans, and of course, Not Alone is a non-profit organization that can only exist with your support – please donate! But I think, sometimes, one of the best things you can do, is prepare yourself to take advantage of every opportunity you have to impact a veteran’s life. You might think that you can’t relate or understand their circumstances; so how can you really assist them as a civilian individual?


I’d like to share with you three examples of simply concerned Americans who – despite their personal beliefs on the wars and the politics of it all – helped me get where I needed to be.


I’d really like to thank my friend Chris Ryan first and foremost. He never served like me, and only knew about the military and war through an intense interest in history, but he took what general understanding he did have and patiently asked me about my experiences. In retrospect, that was by far the healthiest of all the activities I was doing at that time. He never forced me to talk about anything that made me uncomfortable, but with his gentle pushes for my personal knowledge, intuitively, he was helping me process my experiences. He was also the one who gave me the book All Quiet on the Western Front, which still remains my favorite book to this day. The reading of that book, I think, has galvanized my interest and pursuit towards becoming a successful writer. I cannot thank him enough for all the late nights and over the top conversations – and the patience and love he offered in return to my insanity.


Cathy Alter, a successful book author and one of my professors at Hopkins, is another person who I would really like to thank. By my read she’s a very liberal woman, who opposes the wars (and as a D.C. socialite she probably doesn’t know many who’ve served or know much about the military) but she only saw in me a young man trying his hardest, who she wanted to help.


I’m not complaining or whining, but when I first started blogging here, being forced to confront the worst experiences of my life three times a week kind of messed me up a little bit. (And there were other things going wrong, like my frustration with my lack of success, bills getting out of hand, and other personal issues.) I’m embarrassed to admit that for her class, it was the first time since returning to school in 2007 I just couldn’t bring myself to do one of the assignments. I was just too frustrated and temporarily depressed.


I think most other teachers would have punished me accordingly – and I actually asked her to – but instead, she was sympathetic to everything I’ve done and intend to do, and gave me all the time, love, and consideration I needed to get where I wanted to be. She counseled me then, and to my amazement, even though I’m not one of her students anymore, she still continues to.


Another man I’d like to thank is Dr. Seth Brown. Frustrated by the care from the VA bureaucracy, I sought him out when I attended school in Connecticut. Dr. Brown and I, would have long discussions about Iraq and politics and war, and I came to see him as a friend.


He wrote off every cent of my medical expenses, which have caused me to be in debt to age 40. All he observed, again, was a nice young man struggling to get well, who probably didn’t have the kind of care he could give. He knew I couldn’t afford it. But he wanted to help anyway. As northeast liberal, I know he hated President Bush and the war. And to his great credit, in his interactions with me, he didn’t care about all that. He leaped at the chance to assist me in any way he could.   


It is likely that every one of these people never planned to be in the circumstance they found themselves in: directly confronted with helping a veteran. It would have been very easy for them to just say “sucks for you,” and then continued on their way. No one asked them to reach out to me. But they did.


You may meet a veteran sometime. You might see them in school or encounter them in the workplace. You might see them at the bar. They might be the quiet one, drinking alone in the corner. A simple hello and “hey, dude, I’m here for you if you need it,” is all you need to offer up if you really want to help a veteran. It might mean more to them than you can ever know.

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Rest In Peace, My Friend

Almost a year ago I lost a dear friend in Afghanistan. After his passing, his wife asked that those who knew him write a letter to their unborn twins, so they could learn as they grew older about what kind of man their daddy was. This is one of the most personal things I’ve ever written. I’m sharing it here to bring awareness to Sergeant Bill Cahir and his Memorial Fund; and to also spread awareness about the very real and human cost of life after war.


*   *   *

Dear Cahir children,

My experiences with your father were brief and fleeting. Despite this, he became a man I admired more than I might be able to say. I know many people will have similar reflections of your dad. This is who he was. You will learn as you age: most people are content to just go through the motions of life; to only focus on themselves and their things. Your father loved your mother, he cherished his Marines, and he treasured this country and the people of the world. This is what brought about his death. I will not refer to his passing as a tragedy – it is only a tragedy that more people do not have the same kind of heart as him.

I first met your father shortly after he returned from his first deployment in helping consolidate the freedom of the people of Iraq. His duties there included making the the Iraqi government, education, healthcare, and security systems strong, so that the Iraqi children might be able to enjoy the same hopes, dreams, and freedoms that you will. Perhaps you will learn that the Iraq War was controversial, or even a waste of time, or a misdirection of our Global War on Terror. However the conflict will be remembered, your dad helped give thousands of strangers – some hostile to him – better lives and futures. I can think of no greater love, no greater sacrifice.

Your dad was a corporal and I was a lance corporal, one rank below him. Bill did not abuse his authority or take advantage of his status. We were assigned to serve in the same detachment of our Marine Reserve unit, Detachment 1 of the 4th Civil Affairs Group, and your father took his responsibility for my wellbeing most seriously. We connected quickly as we both shared an interest in writing and politics. In fact, in no small way, I have evolved into a writer myself due to your father's inspiration and practical guidance.

Your father maintained a professionalism and fervor in our unit. He enjoyed managing the welfare and training of his Marines. He was a legend in our unit and respected by all. To put that in context for you, the Marine Corps is a place for large egos and dominating personalities. To be well respected by all in such a hardcore and selective organization is certainly an impressive achievement.


I was assigned to serve with your father for his second deployment – which was supposed to be my third – and during our pre-deployment training, I learned more from him about Iraq and our mission than I had ever known, even despite already serving two tours. He took to intelligence gathering and cultural reporting about the situation on the ground and our role as Civil Affairs Marines with such dedication, I have no doubt that his wisdom and guidance helped preserve the lives of many of the Marines in our unit when they did deploy.

For a short time, your dad's life and my life were bound to similar fates. We were going to go to war together. We were responsible for each other's lives, and that is a sacred bond most people will never understand or experience. Thank God most people will not understand this terror, anxiety, and fear. They will not have to understand because of the voluntary service of people like your dad. Hero is a word that is tossed around and blurred through overuse. It shames me as a writer that I have no better word or expression to use for the greatness that was your father.

I did not wind up traveling to Iraq with your dad. After a diagnosis of mono (an ailment that causes significant long-term fatigue), it was decided by my unit and myself that I was not fit for combat and deployment. Your father was sad that I could not serve with him, and it upset me that I couldn’t go, too.
I am a sliver of darkness in the shadow that was your dad – a legendary man whose example I am sure will ring in annals of history, courage, and Marine Corps lore.

I am ashamed that I have nothing more to say.

Even though it is likely I will never see you or meet you, I want you to know if you ever need anything from me, look me up and you will have it. If it was I to die in the same circumstances as your father, I have no doubt that he would do the same for me. And I will always cherish his memory for it.

Much love and respect,

Dario Steven DiBattista Jr. (USMCR Corporal, 4th Civil Affairs Group 2001 - 2007)

~ Semper Fidelis ~

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Coming Home: A Field Guide (Part 9: Assistance for Traumatic Brain Injury)

Now that we’ve discussed in the previous post what exactly Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is, let’s talk about getting a diagnosis and receiving care. First comes screening – which you should have gotten already, but everyone who’s ever served knows that everything the military is supposed to do, well, they don’t do.

A positive response to any of these questions should prompt you to consider seeking treatment. This information is taken from the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, which “has been designated as the primary TBI subject matter experts (SMEs) for the DoD and VA.”

1. Did you have any injury(ies) during your deployment from any of the following?

(Check all that apply):

A. Fragment

B. Bullet

C. Vehicular (any type of vehicle, including airplane)

D. Fall

E. Blast (Improvised Explosive Device, RPG, Land mine, Grenade, etc.)

F: Other (specify): _________________

2. Did any injury you received while you were deployed result in any of the following?

(Check all that apply):

(Answering yes to any of these first five confirms that you need a TBI screening)

A. Being dazed, confused, or “seeing stars”

B. Not remembering the injury

C. Losing consciousness (knocked out) for less than a minute

D. Losing consciousness for 1 – 20 minutes

E. Losing consciousness for more than 20 minutes

(The following two questions would need to result in a clinical review)

F. Having any symptoms of concussion afterward (such as headache, dizziness, irritability, etc.)

G. Head injury

H. None of the above

3. Are you currently experiencing any of the following problems that you think might be related to a possible head injury or concussion?

(Check all that apply):

A. Headaches

B. Dizziness

C. Memory problems

D. Balance problems

E. Ringing in the ears

F. Irritability

G. Sleep problems

H. Other (specify): _____________

If you’ve read the above questionnaire and think that you might need to be screened for TBI, unfortunately, your only course is to check in with Veterans Healthcare Administration, which can oftentimes be a bureaucratic nightmare to deal with. Unless of course, you're uber rich and can afford a private clinician. 

Either way, go get looked at! If you don’t attempt to get help for your head, your brain’s health could get even more exacerbated, complicating or hindering a recovery.

For more information you should definitely check out www.traumaticbraininjury.com. You would hope that such a website with such a directly worded URL would be the go to source for everything you’re looking for, and this site definitely is. The website has all the information you would need about how the diagnosis would be determined, and what treatment would take place.

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Coming Home: A Field Guide (Part 8: Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury)

As mentioned before in my field guide series, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is one of the three most prevalent "unseen wounds" of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – so much so, it’s often referred to as the “signature wound” of those wars. There's been a lot of discussion on what exactly TBI is and how it affects people. Even just diagnosing the issue has caused some argument in the medical community.

Traumatic Brain Injury is the result of any external force impacting someone’s skull. The injury is usually divided into three categories of intensity: mild, moderate, and severe. It is such a common of wound in the current wars because most of the combat casualties occur as a result of roadside bombs, rockets, mortars, and other improvised weapons. Generally speaking, the reason the insurgency is so deadly and hard to eliminate, and the reason they use these weapons so much, is because they don’t frequently engage our forces in traditional maneuver warfare. The majority of the deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan have come from roadside bombs specifically, because these can be hidden and sneakily activated for when our troops come upon them. Oftentimes, the IED triggerman can walk away from the blast without being noticed or observed, since they can use any electronic device to activate these bombs (or sometimes they’ll use motion sensors or pressure plates to fire them). It’s the toughest of the enemies’ weapons to counter, which is why they are so lethal and why they are still used as the main arsenal of the insurgencies today, almost ten years after the Global War on Terror began.

Revolutionary armor usage – both personal and vehicle-related – and the implementation of top-notch battlefield operating rooms and hospitals have resulted in higher incidences of TBI because, in the past, the same type of injuries would kill the soldier but now they survive. In fact, the ratio of wounded to dead for the Global War on Terror is the highest ever in the history of warfare, which is laudable, but new problems arise. These defenses protect the individual warrior’s life but, as you can imagine, the injuries resulting from a crippling concussive blast that knock someone down or against a wall cannot be protected against.

And, as you can also imagine, the psychological repercussions of a blow to the brain can be particularly harmful to the surviving veteran. Here’s a list of symptoms for mild TBI: headache, changes in sleep patterns, confusion, blurred vision or tired eyes, ringing in the ears, lack of motor coordination, dizziness, difficulty balancing, vomiting, nausea, lightheadedness, bad taste in the mouth, fatigue or lethargy, and trouble with memory and focus.

Moderate to severe TBI can result in the following symptoms: repeated vomiting or nausea, convulsions, an inability to awaken, slurred speech, dilation of one or both pupils, headache that does not go away, dysarthria (muscle weakness that causes disordered speech), weakness or numbness in the limbs, aphasia (word-finding difficulties), loss of coordination, confusion, restlessness, or agitation, deficits in social judgment, and cognitive changes.

Treatment and diagnosis is somewhat difficult, especially in veterans, because many of these symptoms overlap with combat stress and PTSD. Fortunately, this issue has earned a lot of attention and a new sense of urgency in the last few years, and there are many resources at your disposal. I will be discussing those in the next blog.

If you’ve ever come close to an explosion, vehicle accident, fall or other accident while in the military, it is your interest to at least get yourself checked. The only person responsible for your health is you. No one else is going to accept accountability.

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