My name is Father Bob, former United States Marine Corps.
I served in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, part of '67.
I ended up at First Recon Battalion in the beautiful
area called Chu Lai.
And we experienced some very, very difficult things.
Everything was taught to so that you can be a protector of
the personnel underneath you.
And sometimes that's possible to be done.
And other times, it just isn't.
My first experience with combat fatigue--
whatever it was, because it was ill-defined.
In fact, it was not defined--
was going to my parents' place and visiting them.
And it was over the Fourth of July weekend.
And firecrackers went off.
And I happened to be resting.
And the first thought when I gained consciousness, frankly,
I was screaming "incoming, incoming" and having my hands
over my neck, face down.
And that trauma type, those triggers, stayed
with me for 35 years.
Nothing was understood.
So you had to suck up and just cope with what you had,
thinking there's something wrong with you personally.
I sought ways to obliterate or mask this angst, the sweats,
the screaming, to the point that my wife had to sleep in
another room.
I tried to mask it with drink.
And in retrospect, I'll say that I was
a functioning alcoholic.
My first contact and serious contact with reaching out was
with the Vet Center.
My, oh my!
There was a counselor there.
And he took me under his wing.
We chatted for a number of sessions, a number of
sessions, as I was progressing.
So part of the process in going through this was, of
course, an evaluation,
physically as well as mentally.
And it was determined that I did, indeed, suffer from this
thing called PTSD.
And for the longest time, I had trouble with that acronym,
because I just didn't, I guess, want to accept it.
It took some years for things to start coming out.
A few sessions, my wife attended, and she vocalized
her problem with my drinking.
That's when it really struck me that, hey, wait a minute.
Look who you're hurting.
We've had a better marriage since that reality struck home
than we've had since the week after we were married.
So it's been a very humbling experience.
And over the course of time, I was able to
dissipate the sweats.
I was able to dissipate the screaming nightmares.
I was able to dissipate, to some degree, the shock that
comes with loud triggers.
So the counseling helped in a very, very major way.
But it was a combination of the counseling and the
medications.
The counseling gave me a better strength of character
for myself.
It made me feel better about myself, and in many respects,
engaged me to reach out to others.
People are starting to realize they're not alone.
And I don't mean not alone alone, but not alone in this
phenomenon happening to them.
There are others that are just in the same situation as they.
There are organizations that are there to help.
There are people there that want to help.