Thank you for your service
A glimpse into the life of a veteran
By London Farester
(Yena Kwon / Pexels)
Thank you for your service, as a veteran, you get used to hearing something like that but never really know how to answer. Sometimes people may dive deeper and ask you if you’ve ever served in a combat zone and ask if you had faced any horrors while you were there. “Have you killed anybody?” “Did you ever fear for your life?”
While many veterans who were in active combat zones have faced something terrible, whether that be bullets whizzing past, mortars flying over head or playing “where is the IED buried on the side of the road,” no one seems to realize that the true hardest part comes not when you're in Afghanistan, Iraq, or wherever you may have been, but when you come home. See when you're deployed you know who the enemy is, most of the time you even know where they are, but no one tells you that when you come home, after you've been through all of the turmoil and strife that you will find a new enemy, and this one lives much closer than anything you’ll ever encounter down range.
It’s the reintegration that really gets to you, going from dodging bullets to going out with your friends, flipping that switch back from survival mode to relaxation. No one prepares you for having to be normal again, or tells you how hard it is. Imagine going back to your favorite restaurant and having to ask your waiter to put you at a table that ensures you can see the whole restaurant, including all the entrances and exits. Imagine going to a party with your friends and formulating a plan to deal with every single person at the party if someone decides to pull a weapon, or attack you or someone you care about. These things and more became my new normal when living with PTSD.
The realization that you will never go back to being the same comes at different times. For me it was about a week after I got home. I was at the pool with my wife when something on the street sounded like an explosion. The next thing I knew I was under the deck chair panicking before I felt her shaking my shoulder asking me what the hell that was all about. But from the moment you notice the first sign, every time another one pops up you notice it immediately. The hyper vigilance, not liking crowds, nightmares, not being able to watch fireworks anymore. Those are just some of the signs that I deal with on a day to day basis.
The fear literally eats you alive, consuming every second of every day. Evaluating every room, panicking when there are too many people and wondering not if but who is going to be the one that comes after you. Analyzing literally every single person, seeing who may be wearing clothes baggy enough to conceal a weapon. Being called out constantly for staring, people not aware that you can't help it, because you're actually thinking of a way to fight back if they were to attack you. Finding what you think might be their weak points, a bad knee from how they're walking, literally anything that could give you that leg up that you might need if things go south.
When you're deployed you have one singular mission: survive. For whatever you may have that you choose to survive for — your parents, spouse, kids, even your pets. The only thing that matters to you is you don't want to come home in a box. To have someone that your family has never met knock on their door to hand them a folded flag. So you dedicate every fiber of your being to surviving, whether or not you even realize it because it just blends into your normal day to day and consumes you.
The problem is when you return. Twenty two veterans a day take their lives, 22. I feel like everyone has heard the statistics at this point, maybe seen people doing push ups on social media, or running every day for 22 days. Twenty two of my brothers and sisters every single day. This has to change before it gets even worse.
When you put a bandaid on problems, people will turn to their own coping mechanisms. For me, I ran to drinking and let me tell you, I ruined my goddamned life. I'm not alone in this. One in 10 veterans who were deployed to a combat zone turn to the bottle, some to drugs, some to hurting themselves. Things that when an average person turns to them most people get concerned, but when i would get absolutely trashed every single night people said, “Oh he’s a vet, they all drink like that. It’s completely normal.”
WHY THE FUCK IS THIS THE REACTION?? It's not normal; it's a cry for help. I drank to get rid of my feelings entirely, to stop panicking every second of every single day, to be numb. It didn't matter, and not one person said a thing about it until it got to the point where I would show up to work still drunk from the night before. When people noticed that I would drink an entire handle of whiskey in a night or two. Removing the “bandaid” fix, giving vets readily available access to mental health professionals can change this, can help remove these absolutely horrible coping mechanisms from their lives, and quite literally save countless lives
The stigma of a veteran with mental health issues has been so poorly portrayed by the media. You've heard the stories, the vet with PTSD that killed Chris Kyle, sparking a movie to be made and the media to run rampant about how another vet with PTSD went “postal.” Where are the success stories? What about all the vets who were pushed to that ledge, one foot dangling off the edge, but were pulled back by their wingmen, battles, shipmates, devil dogs, doctors, families, or themselves? THOSE are the stories that should be told about us, not the ones villainizing us. We are human too. Maybe we’re more disciplined than the average person, and we may have seen more in our lives than others, but we are still people.
We can make a difference, all of us. Speak to your congressmen, go to events and fundraisers for vets, support veteran owned and operated companies. Even go the personal route and check in on the veterans you know, do the research for the ones you care about because they may not have done it or may not be willing to do it because they are afraid of what others may think. Be the change that you want to see in the world. Believe me, there are some of us out there that need your help.
This piece was written and shared during the IDONTMIND Writing Workshop. Learn more about our free, nine-week course and be the first to know about the next workshop here. Visit Mental Health Connecticut’s YouTube channel for a video version of London’s story.
London was active duty Air Force from 2013-2019 as a sensor operator. In his free time he enjoys playing disc golf, hockey, and writing.
