Continuing Actions Chapter 10

BY THIS POINT IN MY JOURNEY, I figured I had it all under control. My self-aid consisted of spearfishing and free-diving to quiet the physical aftereffects of combat and writing to understand the emotional ones. I had developed my self-awareness to the point where I was able to understand the genesis of my emotions and reactions significantly better than before. I felt I had successfully moved past my combat experiences and had really, finally, come home.

But I hadn’t. Unresolved aspects of my combat experiences lingered deep beneath my well-adjusted exterior. I’d handled the physical and emotional issues pretty well. But now—ten years after coming home from Iraq—I finally realized I needed help with the spiritual ones.

It was a hard step because I took a lot of pride in the idea that I’d been able to handle everything myself. I’d spent three years processing, reconstructing, and recording my emotions and reactions to combat and was confident I’d figured them out. Hell, I’d written a book that other veterans said had helped them. I’d even provided buddy-aid for other veterans at Semper Fi Odyssey— and had been good at it! I took all that as evidence that I was golden, that I had healed myself and was moving forward on my own.

I was so certain that I’d taken care of all the aftereffects of combat that when I began to feel depressed I knew there had to be a different reason. At the time we were living in suburban northern Virginia and, while the area had a certain beauty, I’d never felt truly comfortable there. It was too manicured, too hemmed in by urban sprawl, and the lifestyle there just didn’t work for me. But I told myself it was temporary and that we’d move again soon. Only “soon” kept moving farther into the future. When a couple of years stretched into three, with no end in sight, I tried to stop thinking about moving on. Instead I focused all my attention on raising our two kids.

Raising our kids. That was a worthy place to sink my energy and effort. I learned a lot about parenting from my own parents. Their examples form the baseline for how I do, and do not, want to interact with my own children. As with many facets of my life, my father is my prime role model. He’s a great dad, but he wasn’t perfect. Growing up, Dad set rules that were to be followed to the letter. If they were broken, he could flash to white-hot anger in what seemed like a heartbeat. As a young boy this reaction scared and threatened me and, when my infant son came home from the hospital, I promised myself I wouldn’t act the same way. But I had inherited Dad’s temper, and the challenges of parenting seemed custom-made to test my restraint.

It was my failure to control this temper that brought unease and self-loathing back into my life. Amid the shade of oak trees and scent of jasmine in Virginia, the emotions I thought I had processed out of my system by writing After Action came back to haunt me. Only they seemed a little darker than before, like they could erase any happy thought and make my whole outlook on life change for the worse. I couldn’t put a finger on the exact cause—but there was a pattern to when this darkness hit me the hardest.

It always started with a blowup. The kids would catch me when I was tired, frustrated, or trying to get something accomplished. They’d whine, willfully cross any line I told them not to, and generally exert their two- and four-year-old senses of independence by obstructing every effort I made to complete the day’s tasks.

And then I’d lose my temper.

Red-faced and screaming, I would bowl them over with righteous daddy-anger. My voice would deepen in timber and gain the harshness of threatened violence. Even as I felt this dangerous anger rise, I could do nothing to stop it. When it erupted I could hear my father’s voice echoing in my head—and knew the impact it was having on the scared, immediately penitent, four-year-old boy in front of me. It was a sour victory, a bully’s victory. Worse, I’d failed in my primary goal of killing the anger. It remained as strong as ever.

In the aftermath of these blowups, I’d get depressed. The only solid goal I’d set for myself as a father and I had just failed at it. Again. Not only that, but the growing suspicion that writing After Action hadn’t been the final act in my return, that I hadn’t succeeded in moving on to “happily-ever-after” was making me feel like a charlatan, a faker. Even the book reviews and emails from other veterans thanking me for helping them made me feel like a failure. They were just being nice, I told myself. How could I have helped them when I hadn’t helped myself?

The periods of darkness lasted anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Sometimes they grouped together into longer stretches. It seemed that as soon as I came out of one slump, the kids would get my goat again—and down I’d go. I was stuck in this cycle and dimly aware of my own role in perpetuating it. But I didn’t know how to break it.

THE CONFRONTATION

I’ve always sucked at acting happy when I’m not. Lena, my wife, finally grew tired of my continued professions that everything was “fine” and confronted me one evening after dinner. We were walking through Reston Town Center, a group of high-rises, restaurants, and shops built to look like city blocks—manicured Disney World versions of city blocks—amid the suburban sprawl outside of Washington, DC. The cold December wind raced through the gaps in the buildings and straight through our thin jackets. Hands jammed in our pockets, we kept walking around the block, talking in the carefully considered words of a conversation where everything is on the table.

She knew I was unhappy, really unhappy, but I couldn’t tell her why. I felt silly admitting that my inability to control my anger was causing me such distress. I wanted a solution to the problem but didn’t know what it was. She offered up possibilities I was too chicken to voice.

“Is it me you’re unhappy with? Our marriage?”
“No.”
“Then what—watching the kids? Are you unhappy staying home?”
“No, it’s not that. All I know is that I can’t stay here—in this place. It’s not you, it’s not the kids; I just can’t stay here.” That was it—I grabbed onto that thought like a lifeline.

“I just hate this place.” There, I said it.
Whatever it was that was boiling up inside me had to be Virginia’s fault. If I could just get back to California, back to the escape offered by the Pacific Ocean, then everything would be all right. The cold waters near our house in San Diego had given me the means to quell the unease and irritability before. Maybe that was all I needed to control the anger once and for all. If we could just get back there, I’d beat it. That was it. I needed the ocean, the release it offered, to be happy. Anything less would just not work.

This was not news to Lena. We’d always talked about returning to San Diego someday. She just didn’t realize that my “someday” couldn’t wait until after retirement. She agreed that we should move back but with one caveat. If moving back to California didn’t take care of whatever was bothering me, then I needed to get professional help. I readily agreed. After all, I was sure a change of venue was all I needed. I’d be fine once I could dissipate the energy myself.

It took a little finagling, but six months after our shivering conversation, we moved back to California.

At first it seemed to do the trick. We moved back into our old house, hit our old haunts again, got the kids boogie boards and snorkel kits, and spent hours on the beach. San Diego was everything we remembered and more. It truly felt like we were home.

YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE

But after the dust settled from our move, the darkness came back. I didn’t even have to fully lose my temper with the kids to feel like I was losing my battle to be a good dad. Just feeling the anger rise in me was enough. Even with the outlets of surfing and diving, the tension didn’t go away. One day I found myself staring over the deep blue waters of the Pacific from a bluff, depressed, angry, and out of ideas. The car was loaded in the parking lot with a surfboard and all my spearfishing gear—but I was too distracted and depressed to feel like using them. I’d fired my last round and it hadn’t killed the beast. It was then, when I realized that even amongst the natural beauty I’d pined over for years I remained unhappy, that I knew I had to ask for help.

Right. Help. But where?

My perception of the Veterans Administration was not a good one. I’d only gone to one VA facility when I first left active duty and swore I’d never go back. The entire building reeked of stress and bureaucratic roadblocks. Every office had lines of greying veterans sitting outside it, waiting their turn to have their complaint heard. Just walking in the door made me feel uncomfortable, like I was going to catch something contagious. I’d dropped off my paperwork as quickly as possible and left, vowing never to return.

I really wasn’t interested in going to the VA. I feared that, if I did somehow get an appointment, they’d write me a prescription and send me on my way. Or that I’d spend three hours with some civilian counselor trying to explain what a “Marine” is. How was someone like that supposed to understand me enough to be able to help? And I sure as hell didn’t want to resort to using drugs. Realizing I needed help was one thing. But figuring out who to talk to was another. Then a friend recommended I look into the local Vet Center.

Tentatively, I called the number for the San Marcos Vet Center. On the second ring it was answered by a young voice, crisp and clear, as if answering the battalion duty phone. Within minutes I was speaking with a counselor. He gave me the rundown of what the Vet Center offered and asked if I wanted to come in immediately—or if I could wait until Thursday morning. He explained that was when they did routine orientation interviews for veterans new to the Center.

I went in the next Thursday—and all my fears proved to be groundless. It wasn’t in a huge building designed to house every possible function of the VA under one confusing roof. The Vet Center occupies a suite of offices in the San Marcos City Hall. Want to feel welcome and comfortable walking into a building? Then go to San Marcos City Hall. You walk on shaded paths past babbling fountains to get to the main entrance. Three-story glass windows fill the lobby with light and a smiling receptionist greets you as you come in. The cool air is quiet and calm and you wonder if caffeine is even allowed in the building—or just herbal tea. A display case features the huge painting of a bearded veteran leaning against the Vietnam Memorial Wall, as his fallen comrades press their hands against his from within. The door to the Vet Center is prominently marked and I actually felt proud that I belonged there. This is not a place where veterans slink in quietly. It is a place where pride of service is evident, and respect for our sacrifices is freely given.

Entering the suite you’re immediately greeted by the receptionist. A cheerful welcome, please sign in, and can I get you a cup of coffee? Where were the sullen gate guards I’d feared? Where were the piles of red tape I had to deal with? Shouldn’t I be overhearing someone complaining loudly about something by now? It was too efficient, too welcoming, and too comfortable to be true. There had to be a catch. Maybe I’d find it when—if—I finally got to see a counselor. Probably some psychologist who couldn’t get a job elsewhere, sucking on the government tit. Yup, I figured, that must be it—that’s where this Vet Center charade will fall apart.

The first counselor I spoke with had been a Marine amtrac driver. He’d spent two deployments in Iraq in an infantry role, and my fears of having to do hours of elementary explanations evaporated. After we shared basic histories, he explained what the Vet Center does, who can use its services, and what the normal flow of counseling looks like. The Vet Center program began in the 1970s and has grown to over 300 locations across the United States. Technically part of the Veterans Administration, Vet Centers are specially designed and staffed to focus on the needs of combat veterans, their families, and victims of military sexual trauma.

GOING IN

The next Thursday I met with the counselor assigned to me. Appropriately enough, he’d been a corpsman in his earlier career. A retired Senior Chief, Michael had spent most of his naval service on the “green side,” tending to wounded Marines. He is a soft-spoken bear of a man with a slight Jamaican accent, and he immediately made me feel at home. I saw him once a week for a month or so, then once a month after that. In a very short period of time, Michael was able to help me identify what was bothering me, figure out a way to mitigate it, and erase the depressive cycle that had followed me from Virginia to California.

Nothing magical took place in Michael’s office. He didn’t lift any curses from my soul or prescribe drugs that would rewire my brain. All he did was listen—and apply his clinical knowledge of combat trauma to the specifics of my experiences. I played a role in the positive outcome as well. The extensive program of self-aid I’d undertaken had set me up well for quick, effective counseling.

He didn’t have to sift through years of memories to get to the root cause of what was bothering me. Neither did I try and hide anything or stubbornly refuse to share difficult emotions or memories. I basically dumped the entirety of my experiences on his desk and said, “Here it is—help me figure it out.”

And he did.

GETTING TO THE ROOT

What was it that was bothering me? What was upsetting me so much that it could erase all the positive aspects of my life and leave me depressed and angry? It all boiled down to one thing— one simple statement that formed what I’d thought was a healthy perspective on my combat experiences. It was supposed to free me from the guilt I’d brought home from combat. Instead, it just gave the guilt a sheltered room in which to grow.

In the final stages of writing After Action, I’d uncovered the root cause of my unease. It had been the killing of other human beings that bothered me most about Iraq. The act of killing called into question my very self-identity as a good person and, as a result, made me question whether I was worthy of any- thing happy or good in life. Sure, they’d been enemy soldiers and I was just doing my job, but they’d still been people. What’s done is done, however, and I couldn’t bring them back to life. I decided that this was my burden to bear, the fact that I’d killed people, and I just had to figure out a way to move forward in life carrying it.

I did that by wrapping it all up in one succinct phrase—the phrase that was supposed to shrink my burden but ended up engorging it.

Good people don’t kill. I killed. What does that make me?

I meant it as a way to remind myself to always do good. But this phrase, and the burden it describes, became my “stuck point.” In PTSD, a stuck point is a place where rational thought breaks down. The mind ceases to process information or reach conclusions based on solid, rational thinking. Instead, it leaps ahead to a manufactured, foregone conclusion that is usually not supported by the facts. That’s what this phrase was doing to me. Let me explain.

By concretely separating what a “good” person does from what a “bad” person does, I’d created a division in my own spiritual landscape. I’d set up a big “compartment,” if you will, into which I sent all the memories and feelings about what I’d done that was “bad.” This had nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the morals and ethics I brought with me into the service. That they resonated perfectly with the core values espoused by the Marine Corps reinforced them to the point where they became nearly impenetrable.

And the problem with this “good/bad” spiritual landscape was that it left no room for phrases like “Good people don’t kill,” to be interpreted in any other way than simple black and white. It left no room for the gray areas that always, naturally arise in the theater of war.

As a result, there was no way to answer the hanging statement and question—I killed. What does that make me?—without self-identifying as a bad person. The guiding force in my life, therefore, became atoning for the fact that I had killed other human beings. But I felt like my balance sheet was so far in the negative that each small failure weighed much more than any good thing I could possibly do. My own self-image became that of a fundamentally bad person.

How does this factor into the depression that followed me from Virginia? The answer is, the same way the young sergeant’s guilt at deciding to kill the Iraqi boy poisoned his relationship with his own son.

Every time I failed to control my temper, my mind raced ahead to my stuck point. I didn’t allow reality with all its gray areas to factor in. It didn’t matter that sometimes kids need to see an angry response when they misbehave, or that getting mad is a normal human reaction that needs to be expressed. Instead, I took every loss of composure—even small ones that the kids didn’t even notice—as reinforcement of my self-image as a fundamentally bad person.

The logic loop went like this: I swore to not shout at my kids—I shouted at my kids—I killed people and I’m a bad person—I swore to not shout at my kids—I shouted at my kids—I killed people and I’m a bad . . . And it would continue, unbroken. It sounds silly now, but at the time that loop made me believe I deserved no happiness in my life, that because of my actions in combat, suffering was the only future I deserved. But I couldn’t see it myself. It wasn’t until Michael showed me the loop that I recognized its existence.

When I explained to Michael what bothered me most about Iraq, he immediately zeroed in on the phrase, “Good people don’t kill. I killed. What does that make me?” He explained what a stuck point is and asked me if I thought that phrase was mine. It obviously was, but he let me mull it over for a few minutes in silence.

That small application of good listening skills, coupled with his clinical knowledge, exposed the ultimate reason why I’d been feeling depressed. I consider myself a pretty self-aware individual, and I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating my experiences and reactions to them, but I still needed someone else to help me understand the spiritual impact of my experiences.

Michael didn’t stop there. Identifying the stuck point is one thing, but in order to remove its ability to shortcut rational thought it needed to be removed from the loop. Again, there were no magic words spoken, no incense or chanting filling the air. Sitting in his quiet office, Michael simply asked me if there was any other way to word that phrase—maybe a way that didn’t presuppose the answer.

I balked at the suggestion. Actually, when Michael opened his mouth to speak I immediately got angry. It welled up from somewhere deep inside and I just barely kept it hidden. The memory of the last time I had engaged in a conversation on this subject, in a chapel tent in the Kuwaiti desert, had popped unexpectedly into my head.

THE CHAPLAIN

It was about a week after the invasion of Iraq and I’d stopped into the chapel after my mission for that night had been cancelled. Something had been bothering me and I finally decided to ask the chaplain a question. I wanted to know how God felt about us killing other human beings. Truth be told, I just wanted the chaplain to magically make me feel better about whacking Iraqi soldiers with rockets and missiles.

He didn’t. Instead, the chaplain responded with a recital of how badly Saddam Hussein treated his own people, how he killed and imprisoned them indiscriminately, and how his actions made him an evil man. Guess he missed “how to avoid making bad comparisons” day in chaplain school. Then he asked if I thought we were doing the right thing by removing Saddam from power, as if I’d just been too simple-minded to see how two wrongs obviously make a right.

I left that tent angrier than I’d ever been in my life. That man, and probably my own naive expectations of what he could do, had made me feel stupid, ashamed, and weak—pretty much the trifecta of shitty feelings for any warrior. Stumbling into the blackness of the Kuwaiti night, I swore to bury those thoughts and questions deeply. They were never going to come out again; I’d see to that.

Yet there I was, sitting in Michael’s quiet office, asking essentially the same question ten years later, “Am I a bad person?” When I realized the parallels between my failed attempt to get spiritual guidance from the chaplain and my current attempt to get secular spiritual help from my counselor, I braced myself for another disappointment.

I didn’t think something so simple as muttering a few words would make any difference. I didn’t know what would erase my stuck point, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be quick or easy. This thing was so deeply entrenched it was messing with the core of my being. I knew I would have to work hard and long to dig it out.

I was wrong.

In his quiet Jamaican accent, Michael simply asked, “When do good people kill?”

His words shot straight into my soul. Because of the years of self-assessment and dedicated attempts to truly understand the impact of my experiences, I could see the value of those words as soon as he spoke them. They replaced the shaming, damning, self-hating phrase that had derailed my healing process. They correctly described my situation by allowing that sometimes good people must do bad things. No longer was I to be forever reminded that I was a bad person because I killed. Those words did not erase the fact that I’d killed—nothing could do that— but they gave me a healthy way to look at myself in light of my actions in combat.

The phrase is still the burden I bear—it remains my personal burden of peace—and I want to remember it. It is the essence of my warrior experience and will forever remind me of the sacri- fices I, and millions of others, made in service of our country. But the burden is now a productive thing, a reminder to do good whenever possible without automatic condemnation for the actions of my past.

MORE GOOD TO COME

I’ve figured out a lot about my reactions to combat on my own. But it took a calm, quiet professional to help me defuse the spiritual reactions that threatened to roll back all my advances. I was unable to apply self- and buddy-aid to the spiritual aftereffects of combat because I didn’t understand that they existed. Luckily, I found a corpsman at the right time and place.

It took moving to California and an ultimatum from my wife for me to finally seek, and accept, professional help. In other words, it took a lot. Unfortunately, many veterans wait until something catastrophic happens before talking to someone. We recoil from anything remotely selfish and, to a warrior’s way of thinking, devoting time to one’s personal issues at the perceived expense of others is a selfish act.

But as you’ll see in the next section, facing these internal challenges is about as unselfish as you can get.