My name's Justin.
I'm still in the Marine Corps Reserve.
And I'm a Major in the Reserves.
I deployed to Iraq in the summer and fall of 2006.
And I was injured on October 18, 2006.
I was shot by a sniper.
We had been in a convey, and we got out.
We were on just a routine combat patrol and trying to--
we knew there was a sniper in the area.
And we were just surveying the area.
And he shot me behind my left ear.
I went down immediately.
In fact, other Marines around me thought I was dead.
I'm only here because a young Navy Corpsman showed amazing
courage under fire and saved my life.
I woke up a couple weeks later in the hospital in Bethesda.
Once I realized where I was, I had incredible survivor's
guilt because I was a team leader.
I was responsible for eight Marines.
So it was a small team.
And I felt terrible I was back in America, and they were
there in Iraq.
I know it's odd.
Survivor's guilt is a weird phenomenon.
And frankly, of course, my Marines did just
fine without me there.
They were able to do everything they needed to do.
They probably felt worse about me being injured than I did.
I just wanted to get back there and be with
them back in Iraq.
The recovery's been a long-time effort.
I've had somewhere between 20 and 25 surgeries.
Although we were very fortunate in my recovery and
all that, still it's not like I didn't have dark days and
didn't have issues.
And so I would overreact to things.
Like many other Veterans, I still don't
like being in crowds.
I still don't like loud noises.
Fourth of July is out of the question, stuff like that.
But on a more personal level, I had a much shorter temper.
I would get angry quicker and say a lot of things that
normally I wouldn't say and don't say anymore, but act
pretty mean.
So the signs were definitely there.
If I was just driving in the car and something would
trigger a memory, maybe I would start
crying or I'd feel emotional.
And I just didn't understand why that was going on.
I thought, that was five years ago.
That was four years ago.
Why am I still feeling this way?
I consider myself well-educated.
I have plenty of education.
But still, I didn't understand why my body was doing this.
And so I wanted to get an understanding of what was
going on just so on a daily basis, if I encountered that,
I would know how to deal with it.
So I was also looking to identify the triggers and then
what some techniques I could use when I could feel that
happening inside me as well as I needed a good outlet for
these things so my body could deal with them in a healthy
manner instead of keeping them bottled up inside.
I do have a rating of
post-traumatic stress disorder.
I was diagnosed pretty early on when I first had my VA
compensation analysis.
That was probably within a year of being injured, really,
we knew it, maybe even within six months.
Since then, I've gone through a fair amount counseling, and
I'm currently in counseling now.
Even though it's been over five years, it's very helpful.
I thought, this is crazy not to take advantage and get free
counseling and help fix myself.
So right now I go every two weeks.
Frankly, I truly believe that asking for help is a sign of
strength, not weakness.
Because it's easy not to ask for help.
It's easy to self-medicate.
But it's hard in our society, which kind of teaches us--
especially the military--
to keep quiet about your weaknesses.
You don't want to [INAUDIBLE] yourself.
So I consider it a sign of strength.
And I was proud of myself for doing that.
I'm proud of every returning Veteran or service member who
goes and asks for that help.
I know it's a tough first step, but you owe it to
yourself and your family to do that.