Circle of Trust

I wasn’t exactly sure how to start this COT, its no secret I was gone from F3 for a long time, September was the last time I was posting consistently, and even then, it was one or two days a week, really you have to go back about 18 months or so, around the same time I noticed my mental health start to circle the drain.  That’s when I started to notice…… in reality I have been broken mentally for longer than that.  I’m going to do my best to keep this short, many of you know, I was in the Army, served as a combat medic, and was deployed to Iraq twice for a total of 36 months. There I saw shit that I don’t really care to talk about, I was the medic, first person to treat casualties in the field, I was blown up, I was shot, I had both soldiers and civilians die in my arms. What most of you don’t know, is I was also locked up for almost 7 years in a military prison.  During my second tour in Iraq, in March of 2007, we were on patrol in Baghdad, when we were attacked. As we maneuvered where the enemy fire originated, the shooting stopped.  We dismounted and tore through the houses and stores looking for the insurgents.  Eventually we came across a store that had a cache of weapons, night vision goggles, maps with locations marked and bomb making materials.  In the upstairs apartment we found 4 military aged males, we questioned them as well as other people whom lived in surrounding houses.  In short summary these guys were foreign to this region, the original Iraqis who lived in that apartment, were kicked out by these guys and were gone.  A common occurrence in Iraq.  We then took these guys to our combat outpost where they were questioned further, when asked if they had killed Americans they laughed and indicated they would do it again.  Leadership called this in, and we requested to take them to the detainee detention facility.  In a time when our mission was to “win the hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people, our request was denied.  We were told we didn’t find them with the weapons on them or even in the same room, so we were ordered to let them go.  Our company decided, we had already lost 7 members from our company alone, and many more across the battalion, these guys wouldn’t kill any more Americans, and we ended their lives.  I know you may ask, how as a medic could I do that…. I can’t explain to you what it was like as a 26 year old in a war time situation, but I can tell you my number one priority in life was getting my boys home alive, at any cost I would do whatever I had to.

In January of 2009 at a Military Court Martial, I was found guilty of premeditated murder, and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.  I was sent to Fort Leavenworth Military prison in KS.  6 months after my court martial, the convening authority reduced my sentence to 20 years.  From February 2009 until October 2015, I was incarcerated, and I am still on parole today.  In prison I quickly became one of the “Heavies” or “Shot Callers”.  I am not going to go into details right now about my experience there, but I did have to make decisions I’m not particularly proud of.  Before you all think I am this bad egg, I did a lot of good in that prison as well, but that’s a different story.  When I got out, that was it, that chapter was over, and I buried it in this box in the back of my mind.  And that’s where I went wrong.  While locked up, I was diagnosed with PTSD from Iraq, and it took a few years of counseling to get that to a manageable place.   Being Locked up is a traumatic experience that I just never dealt with……. It’s a tale as old as time, I had issues from being confined for almost 7 years, but I ignored them, denied they existed and just thought they would go away…… Being around people became uncomfortable, change of anything caused me stress, I used alcohol to deal with this, at first it was a couple drinks here or there when I was around a crowd of people, then it became a few drinks, where ultimately I just became a binge drinker in social situations.  Then Vern introduced me to F3, it’s kind of hard to drink at a workout, so I poured all of my energy into the physical aspect of F3, I tried to take on any challenge, participate in any event I could, but I was still just covering up the real issues. Then I became part of SLT2.0, were we had to deal with a complete douche bag, who tried to end our region.  This is where that box started breaking.  I was posting less and less each week, I was drinking more heavily, The walls I thought I had built up and secured, where now crumbling around me…..I didn’t feel like could reach out, some of you knew I was locked up already, most of you didn’t, even for those that knew, I felt it wasn’t something I could talk about, because I didn’t think many people could understand.  I went to professional help a couple of times, and the counselors were good, they helped with a lot of my superficial problems, but I never really let them know how deep my past was, so I was never fully honest…….In fact I had never been fully honest with anyone at that point about the things from my past that haunt me.   My wife, who I just celebrated 17 years of marriage with, and if you do your math right you will see she was with me through all of this, didn’t even know how damaged I was inside…….. I tried to fake it, but I wasn’t fooling anyone, The only place I was able to continue to fake it was with my kids…….. when it came to them, nothing else mattered, I was going to be the dad they deserved, everything else in my life suffered…….everything………I now have a counselor I trust completely, and have been able to open up to, I have opened up the box I tried to bury and I am learning to deal with it as best as I can.   I no longer drink in social situations, I prioritize things that make me happy, and do not just try to pour my energy into one single thing, I talk to my wife about the things that are in my head, I have finally let her completely into my world, it’s a work in progress, and honestly always will be.

I don’t tell you any of this because I want sympathy, or empathy…….. Everything that has happened to me is a result of decisions and will deal with all that has to follow.  I tell you this because Im not afraid anymore, Im not afraid of what people will think, I am not afraid of being vulnerable, I am not afraid of being accepted.  The only thing I am afraid of in regard to this is falling back into that dark hole, because that was hell.   I need you guys, Im still going to struggle at times, I am still going to hit moments that suck, I want you guys to hold me accountable if you see a change in me, if you see me out of the gloom for an extended period, come and find me, come and put a foot in my ass. With you guys having my back, I know that I will not fall again, I love all of you guys