BEAUFORT
SEATED IN A CIRCLE, we stare away from one another. Nobody makes eye contact. Words are stillborn; silence golden. Even without introduction, I can tell every Marine in the room is a combat veteran. They share the same expression of semi-repressed anguish. Below their daily façades, a war rages. I know the look because I have it, too.
“Guys, don’t leave me hanging.” The counselor is a graying army veteran of Vietnam. “Group is about knowing your brothers understand your pain. We’ve all been there. I’ve been there. Who wants to start?”
The counselor’s words drape awkwardly around us. I steal a glance at my silent brethren. We’re seated on cheap plastic chairs at a rectangular conference table. One Marine sits with his arms crossed defensively. A huge scarlet scar laces his throat. Another clutches a cane across his chest. He sits hunched over, staring into his lap.
I didn’t know there were so many veterans at Parris Island. They must have come from the weapon’s training range. I had heard something about those instructors having some time overseas. One thing for sure, there’s not a faker in the bunch. These men are hurting, there’s no denying that.
The counselor regards us. We avoid eye contact with him. “Guys, you’re killing me here. We are all combat veterans. At least eighteen percent of returning Iraq veterans suffer from PTSD. At least that’s what the Defense Department thinks. Personally, I think the number is a lot higher.”
The Marine with the throat wound shifts uncomfortably in his seat. The movement catches the counselor’s eye. “What’s your name, son?”
“James.” He answers in a raspy, damaged voice. His eyes look dead.
“Want to tell us about yourself?”
“Not really, no.”
“Okay, how about you?” The counselor points at me.
I nearly swallow my tongue. He wants me to share with these guys? What can I say that they haven’t already endured?
“Jeremiah. I served with three-five.”
“Want to tell us about it?”
“No.” Hell no, actually.
The counselor looks dismayed. “I’ve been there. I’ve had the nightmares. I’ve felt the rage. I’ve suffered the uncontrolled outbursts. I’ve wanted to hurt the people I love the most. I’ve been numb. I’ve been so full of hate that only the thought of killing offered relief. You do not have to hide from me.”
Not a sound follows. The Marine with the cane closes his eyes. Like me he’s clearly not here voluntarily. Last week, when I was sent here to the Beaufort Naval Hospital to see a psychiatrist, she told me that I needed to go to group therapy at least once.
“Give it a try,” she encouraged. “Who knows? You may get a lot out of it.” Then she prescribed some medication for me.
And so, here I am, enduring this misery-fest. There are a dozen men around me. All of them have had their lives turned to shit since they came home. That fact is stamped on every face I dare to inspect.
“Would you like to say anything?” the counselor asks another Marine. He looks like he just got caught passing notes in algebra class. “Uh, no sir. I’m just here because I got a DUI.”
That resonates. Back in Southern California, I had a crotch rocket, a Honda CBR 600. Every night, after drinking at The Harp, I would tear ass home as fast as I dared. The more risk, the more danger, the happier and more normal I felt.
In Iraq, we lived on the edge. Our bodies grew accustomed to the daily adrenaline infusion combat gave us. I became a junkie, and when I returned to the safety of the States, I went into withdrawal.
I went in search of a replacement. Nothing on earth compares to the high that riding the bleeding edge between life and death offers. It makes living more lush and vivid. It magnifies every emotion, every experience. When you don’t know if you’re going to still be breathing from moment to moment, every breath becomes significant.
Coming home, the opposite happened. Without the threat of death, life lost its luster. The lushness dulled like a faded photograph.
The crotch rocket offered a poor substitute to combat, but a substitute nonetheless. I drove hard and recklessly, hitting speeds that would make my mother cringe. But the high that produced proved short-lasting, and I had to find other ways to venture close to the edge again.
I started driving drunk. It was crazy and wrong, but I didn’t care. I craved the rush, and trying to stay upright at a hundred miles an hour with a blood alcohol level somewhere north of .15 provided the thrill I needed. At least, until I pushed it too far.
One night, somewhere in Oceanside, I was so blurry that I missed a turn and skidded up a driveway doing at least fifty miles an hour. I hit the brakes just before I struck a wrought iron fence. The front wheel wedged between two bars and stopped the Honda cold. I held on for dear life and somehow didn’t get catapulted forward, which probably would have killed me.
I don’t really know how I survived that crash, and I think part of me regretted that I did.
After that, I gave up my career as a poster child for a MADD campaign. Of course, that sent me searching for new ways to kick-start my adrenal gland, which led to even worse trouble.
The counselor’s voice calls me back to the present. “Okay, let’s go ahead and take a test.”
A test? The faces around the table grow even longer.
“This will determine the level of stress in your lives and give us a good baseline to start out with for future sessions.”
If I have to sit through another one of these meetings, I’m going to smoke myself.
The counselor hands out the test, along with pencils. “Answer honestly. It will help us.”
I open up the test and start reading through the questions. I find myself checking most of the boxes. When I’m done, I total up the points I’ve scored. I’m over 300.
I turn to the Marine next to me. “What do you think my score means?”
“Means you’re Jeffrey Dahmer. I am, too.” He shows me his score. Three twenty-five.
“Funny, I don’t feel like eating anybody. Just killing them.”
He laughs. “Yeah, me, too.”
The counselor comes over and reads my test answers. “This suggests you are depressed, Jeremiah.”
Duh. Both Doc Goldberg and the shrink here at Beaufort already figured that out.
“Yeah, well, what’s there not to be depressed about?”
I see a head or two nod. The others know what I mean.
The counselor looks over everyone else’s tests. We’re all depressed. We all have Dahmer-level stress scores. No surprises.
“Okay, let’s change gears. How many of you are easily angered at work?”
Nobody responds, but I can see we’re all listening.
“How about at home? Do little things just send you off the handle?”
He has our complete attention.
“Nightmares. Do you have the same dream over and over? Or do you have different ones of a similar theme?”
The room remains quiet. I’ve been to funerals with a better atmosphere. The other Marines stare at the floor, or the table, or their laps—anywhere but at the counselor or one another. The one with the cane clutches it hard against him, as if it were a talisman that could ward off the reality he’s facing.
“Have any of you had trouble at work? With coworkers, or doing the job?”
He’s describing my life. And I can’t help but hate him for that.
“Do you drink to sleep? I know when I came home, that’s the only way I could get through the nights.”
A quick glance up and I see admissions on every face. We’ve all been doing this.
“Have any of you had flashbacks to Iraq or Afghanistan?”
The question triggers a memory. When I first got back from Fallujah, I was given thirty days of leave and flew home to Ohio. My little town gave me a hero’s welcome complete with a mini-parade, banners, and music. I was totally humbled by it. Hundreds of people came out to greet me and offer their support. I spent the day cradled in my past, and for once I felt safe and at ease.
That night, at my mother’s house, Jessica came over and we ate dinner together as a family for the first time in over two years. We laughed and talked and reminisced. I felt almost normal.
It was a perfect evening. But then things went terribly awry. Just after Jessica left, I grabbed my duffel bag off the living room sofa and started for my room up on the second floor.
When I reached the stairs, the smell of gunpowder assailed me. I froze. For a second, my mother’s house disappeared and I was back in the Soldier’s District, stuck on the stairwell as bullets smacked the concrete wall above my head.
I tried to take a step. My legs refused to move. My mother wandered into the living room and saw me. “Jeremiah? Are you okay?”
My face squeezed in anguish, my heart thudded in my chest so heavily I thought I’d explode.
“Jeremiah?” My mother’s voice became shaky.
My eyes went wide with fear. I couldn’t take another step. My legs melted and I fell facedown. I remember the smell of carpet intermingled with my memory of cordite and blood.
“Jeremiah!” my mother cried. “What’s going on? What’s the matter?” Tears poured down her face. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t answer. She ran to my side, pulled me to my feet, and led me to the couch.
I never got to my bedroom on that trip. I spent the entire time sleeping on that living room couch.
So flashbacks, yeah. Had those, too.
Are we all damned by our experience? Is our fate to be our counselor’s? Those who counsel drug addicts the best are the ones who used themselves and made it through rehab. All they know is their experience with addiction. It consumes their life. Will that be our fate as well? Will this collective experience come to dominate who we are and what we’ve become? I don’t want the rest of my life defined by PTSD.
The questions send me spiraling downward. I don’t know if it is even worth staying around to find out.
The meeting ends with hardly another word. The counselor tells us he hopes we’ll come back, but I doubt any of us will. Our private hell is just that. Sharing it will only make it worse and reinforce the magnitude of what we’ve all lost.
Normalcy. That’s what we’ve lost. And that’s all we want to return to, but sitting here today convinces me that probably will never happen. I understand now why those who fought the Great War came to be known as the Lost Generation.
The Marine with the cane struggles to his feet. He looks like an old man as he hobbles for the door. He can’t be more than twenty. The Marine with the wounded throat holds the door open for him. He offers a quick thanks, but they don’t exchange eye contact. We are all ashamed.
The wreckage of my generation. I am part of this aftermath. We’re caught in the clutches of something we don’t understand and have no idea how to fix.
The Marine with the cane limps out of sight, dragging one leg as he goes. I want to cry.
I flee the meeting room for my psychiatrist’s office. I’m ushered inside, and the doc, who is a navy lieutenant commander, sees the anxiety level on my face.
“How’d group go?” she asks.
“Miserable. I feel worse now than before I went.”
She smiles at me, but I am not reassured. “Well, I guess you won’t be going back.”
“Yeah. Guess so, Doc.”
She reaches for her prescription pad and starts to scribble. “These will help. Take them only as directed, okay? Nothing more, nothing less. And don’t skip or stop taking them.”
“Roger that.”
She hands the prescription to me. I look down. I’ve already been put on Zoloft and Saraquil. This one’s for something called Clonopin.
“Take it at night. It’ll help you sleep. Be sure not to drink any alcohol. Come see me in two weeks. In the meantime, I’ve recommended you for limited duty.”
“Thank you, Doc.”
That night, I take the Clonopin. I’ve never done any drugs before, not even pot. The hardest I get is Wild Turkey neat. But within minutes of taking the Clonopin my life suddenly has no edges. Everything becomes soft and muted. I stop caring. As I reach my bachelor’s bed in my near-empty apartment, I feel the omnipresent sense of anxiety release its grip on me. The misery vanishes, replaced by a neutral sense of nothingness. The Clonopin neuters every emotion. I find blessed balance in its artificial peace. As I fall asleep, boots still on my feet, I have one final cognizant thought.
Oh yeah. I can get used to this.