Featured Veteran: Brian McGough Brian McGough is 32, he currently lives in Ashburn, Virginia and served in the United States Army. Brian's blog is titled "INSIDE MY BROKEN SKULL", which is where these postings are excerpted from: Monday, February 14, 2005 Inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center Welcome to my blog. This blog is intended to inform you of some of the trials and tribulations I am undergoing as I go through the process of being medically boarded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC. Let me start by giving you some background information on myself. I joined the Army in 1995 while still in college. My grades were dismal at best and I thought the Army would be a way to better myself as well as get money to further my education once my discipline level was up to a ‘collegiate’ level. After completing basic training and advanced individual training I was transferred to Ft. Campbell Kentucky, where I would stay for years to come. I have had many ups and downs during my tour at Ft. Campbell, a marriage, a daughter, a divorce, 3 deployments and a life changing injury. That may seem like a lot to most of you out there especially since most of it has been in the last few years. Deployment number one was pretty low key. A peace-keeping deployment to Kosovo with the 1-187th Infantry Battalion. Some ups, some downs. Nothing major. Deployment number two was a little more high strung. A combat deployment with the 1-187th Infantry Regiment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Mostly just guard duty. But a few operations out in the badlands of Afghanistan, most notably Operation Anaconda in the Shah-E-Khot valley of Afghanistan. Deployment number three was another combat deployment. This one to Iraq with the 3RD BDE Combat Team to Iraq in Support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Despite a few tense moments this one seemed to be going well too. That is until I was returning from a mid tour leave in the United States. My convoy was attacked on the way back to our base in Iraq. An IED exploded an some shrapnel hit me in the head and a piece was stuck in my head. I was medevaced to Baghdad where they preformed emergency surgery to remove the shrapnel and to relieve the pressure on my head. From Baghdad I was sent to Handhold in Germany for a few days until I was stable enough to be sent to the states. I was then sent to Walter Reed Army Med Center (WRAMC) in DC to begin my transition back into Army life or my transition out. Things seemed to be going well at WRAMC, I was doing better than expected and was released back to duty. But as is sometimes the case with a traumatic brain injury(TBI) sometimes problems don’t start to happen until months down the road. So now the problems have started to add up while I was back at Fort Campbell. Headaches would come and cripple me, sometimes for hours sometimes for minutes. Sleep was hard to come by and when I did sleep I was either racked with nightmares or vividly real dreams where I awoke wondering if my dreams were reality. I was having anxiety attacks, anger issues, flashbacks and other issues related to PTSD. Medicines weren’t helping any of these symptoms and I seemed to be a guinea pig for migraine medicines to alleviate my headaches. So back to WRAMC I went. And that is where I am today. And I thought things would be better here. No one would be telling me I was faking it, no one would tell me I didn’t need to be medically boarded out of the army and people would look out for my needs. While that is true for the most part I am still standing by waiting on word for when my med board is going to be started. I had an appointment a few weeks ago and haven’t heard anything since then about any out come of my med board. And the sad part is that I am not alone. There are many soldiers here in limbo waiting on med boards, and when they do get med boards the results are usually disgraceful. So I am going to update this regularly, no matter how boring it may seem to give everyone a glimpse of what it is like to go through this process here at WRAMC. Tuesday, May 30, 2006 P.T.S.D. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and why I hate it. Some people know what P.T.S.D. is, others think it is just something that people make up to get over. I will tell you that it is real. And it sucks real bad. Many reasons come to mind when thinking of why this disorder sucks and hold on, cause I am gonna tell them to you. From my perspective at least. Hyper-Arousal -Now this may sound like a good thing if you are thinking sexual arousal. But it has nothing to do with sex. It is the fact that my brain is always on the look out for the next trauma. I jump at some loud noises, making me filter out a lot of what is going on. I have to sit in a corner so that I can fight my way out without fear of someone sneaking up on me. I am always on the lookout for bombs, bullets, and bad things in general. This constant state of brain activity makes it very hard for my brain to concentrate on other things, and combined with the cognitive issues caused from brain damage, I usually just sit around being lazy. Not because I want to be, but because my brain is often somewhere else. Trust Issues -This is a major one. I trust no one. It is a very common effect form the ptsd. I have a hard time forming close bonds with people and am often seen as being quiet and reclusive. Its not that I am such a snob that I don't want to make new friends, but the fact that my brain says "Why bother, they will just fuck you over." Sleep problems- Besides nightmares, I have other sleep problems. I can not fall asleep unless I am dead tired or sedated on a bunch of meds. Even then I hardly sleep at night. For some strange reason my body only likes sleeping during the day. It could be because of the comfort of the sun, or my body still hassnt recovered from sleeping half a world away. Anger- Wow this one could go on for a long time, but I will keep it short. If I had a gun on me at all times I would be in jail. I get angry streaks sometimes caused by no reason at all. Hard to deal with things in general if everything pisses you off. I can go from happy to straight up rage machine, and nobody knows exactly what set me off. And the worse is what I call the sinking feeling. No matter how hard someone tries, they can never understand what I am going through and noone really knows if it will ever get better. Even the closest people in my life can not understand how I feel. That hurts. Its a feeling of being all alone when you are surrounded by those who love you. This is what drives the depression or slumps as I call them. I am not suicidal in any way. I dont think about killing myself, but sometimes I wish i just wouldnt wake up, or that I woke up somewhere else, completely isolated from everyone who tries so hard to understand and help me, but can't and that fuels the fire of the sinking feeling. I was discussing some music over the weekend and talked about the Rolling Stones song "Paint it Black". I used to think I knew what it was about when I was younger, but now I know and I can feel each lyric hit a part of me inside that just reverberates through my soul. Hard to explain. But I will sign off with.... ."I wanna see it painted, painted black Black as night, black as coal I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky" Broken Skull---out. Thursday, November 08, 2007 The lucky ones. They say I am one of the lucky ones. People tell me all the time how lucky I really am and how thankful I should be. With Veterans Day right around the corner I’m sure that I will hear some “thank yous” as well as the lucky comments. I don’t always feel so lucky or thankful though. I sustained an open head injury on Oct 17 2003. A piece of shrapnel literally went under my Kevlar and was lodged a few inches deep into the back of my skull. They tell me I’m lucky that the medevac choppers got there so quick and that the Doctors in Baghdad were so much more advanced than in any other war. In any other war I would be dead. They sent me to Walter Reed, where I got outstanding medical care as an inpatient for the most part. The only screening I got for any kind of mental issues was a nurse asking me twice a day whether or not I wanted to commit suicide. When they sent me to outpatient status I found out that I was all- alone. I couldn’t keep track of my appointments. I had to make appointments for myself. I had a care coordinator who never communicated with me. Things would have been a lot better if I was not a soldier with a brain injury, reeling from the effects of PTSD and starting to walk down the long lonely road of depression. I didn’t know what doctors to see. The doctors didn’t know that I needed help either. There was a complete breakdown in the care system, and for that I am not thankful for. If it weren’t for my wife I probably would be just another statistic. Another veteran in the 25 percent of America’s homeless. She was there when I needed someone to pull me out of the slump and for that I am thankful more than she knows. But the fact that she feels that she always has to take care of me has put a strain on our relationship. She feels like she has to play more of a caretaker role and less of an equal partner role. That is hard for her, and I am not thankful of it. The two Military Treatment Facilities in my area are not set up as well as they could be for veterans with mental issues. Both are only accepting active duty patients. And neither will allow you to make an urgent appointment unless you are suicidal and homicidal. Being suicidal and homicidal are horrible things, but sometimes you just need an urgent appointment so that you don’t get to the point where you feel so alone that you start to contemplate the bad things. Both my wife and I have tried to call a care coordinator at our local VA hospital to see what kind of services they can offer. We have yet to have a call returned. I don’t lay blame on this on coordinator, yet on the system that is overwhelmed and under funded. I further lay blame on the politicians in D.C. who allow the VA to get cut and trimmed in the middle of a war where more men and women are returning home wounded than any time in American history. I am grateful that the VA has given me the opportunity to go back to school. I am struggling with staying afloat in the academic world. There seems to be no cross communication with anyone and I am left scratching my head to look for help on my own. I can assure you that there are not many tutors out there who specialize in brain-injured students…I looked. So this veteran’s day, don’t just thank us for our service. Honor us for our service. Find out what political candidates are strong on issues for returning veterans, such as; healthcare, education, job placement and mental health assistance. Write a letter to your local elected official demanding that they support the VA and all veterans. Find out what you can do to help with the growing numbers of homeless veterans, whether it is something as small as donating clothing to a local shelter that aids veterans. It may sound like a lot. It isn’t when you consider the sacrifices we made fighting for this country, and the sacrifices many of us make when we continue to fight our issues and injuries when we get home. |
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| Photos: Luis Simco/Los Angeles Times |
An advocacy site on behalf of active duty military personnel & veterans who have been casualties of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. |
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Our header photo array depicts three phases in the life of James Blake Miller, also known as the "Marlboro Marine". Miller is shown in the three pictures as a young, unscathed 20 year old Marine on initial deployment to Iraq in 2004, after being pinned down during an all night firefight in Fallouja, Iraq, on November 8, 2004, and then almost three years later, after being discharged from the Marines due to PTSD. This is the face of a young American patriot who will be a disabled casualty for the rest of his life, all because he served his country. Learn Miller's full story here. |
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This is where we plan to publish stories shared by PTSD victims and those who advocate for them or provide services to them. We will also publish articles or information to inform the public about the issues subject to our advocacy here. We are open to your input, either ideas, or material to publish here, please contact us with questions in this regard, ideas, article proposals, etc at: Big.Fella@FIGHT-PSTD.ORG |
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