Street roots., December 07, 2012, Page 13, Image 13

Street roots
13
Time reveals, and may someday heal, old wounds
Dec. 7, 2012
One veteran uses
his experiences to
connect with the
next generation
I
met Brian Bland just before Veterans
Day.
Brian, a former Marine Corps
corporal who served two deployments in
Iraq, had been invited to Reynolds High
School in Troutdale, just east of Portland.
The school was hosting a Living History Day,
a day devoted to recognizing area veterans
and inviting them to share their stories with
the student body.
All our modern wars
were represented:
WWII, Korea, Vietnam
— each veteran sharing
their story with the
students. Brian, at 30
years old this month,
took his place that day
as a representative of
our new generation of
from the wars
Robert Britt veterans
in Iraq and
Robert B ritt is a
Afghanistan, his two
writer, photographer
tours to the Middle
and U.S. Arm y
East earning him his
veteran with two
seat.
deployments to the
In front of a class of
war in Iraq. He is
currently serving a
about 15 students,
six-month fellowship
Brian had at his flank
with Street Roots and three survivors of the
The Mission
war in Vietnam. And
Continues, a
after one told his story
nonprofit that
of being at sea aboard
connects post-9/11
veterans with service the USS Oriskany the
day a fire killed 44 of
work in their
communities.
his shipmates in 1966,
it was Brian’s turn to
share his story.
He had joined the
Marine Corps in mid-2001 and was in boot
camp on 9/11. Trained as a combat engineer,
he deployed to Kuwait in 2003 and his unit
was among those to breach the Iraqi border
for the invasion forces that March.
His unit returned to the States soon after,
he told the class, but by early 2004, he was
back in Iraq.
This time, his engineer battalion was sent
to the outskirts of Falluja, where the first of
two battles for control of the city was
beginning to unfold. His unit was tasked with
constructing a traffic control point at a
highway offramp on the outlying area of the
city — a site aptly nicknamed Cloverleaf.
“We heard about other units taking mass
casualties there, so we knew it was going to
be rough,” he would later say. “People were
writing letters to their families and keeping
them in their blouses. I wasn’t planning on
dying, but by that point I’d just accepted it.”
As he and his comrades began setting up
a series of Hesco barriers — earth-filled
gabions used to control access or provide
protection from enemy fire. They soon came
under fire. A coordinated attack of small
arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and
mortar rounds peppered the area.
“It was like all hell broke loose,” Brian
said. “As soon as we started unloading the
trucks, they started shooting RPGs and AKs.
You could see the RPGs skipping off the
road.”
In the immediate confusion, his squad
dispersed and fled the area, leaving Brian
isolated. For about 30 minutes he was left
alone, stranded, and a real-world counter to
the motto of “never leave a fallen Marine
behind.”
His squad returned once they realized
what had happened and after spending four
more days at Cloverleaf and several more
months in Falluja, Brian left the battlefield.
He came home without physical injury, but
the seed of trauma had been planted.
P H O T O B Y R O B E R T B R ITT
Brian Bland on campus at Portland State University where he is finishing his bachelor’s degree in history.
n 2005, Brian returned to Portland after
on everybody. As he sat at home, he took out
receiving his discharge papers and his
his Ka-Bar knife and intended to stab it into
reintegration began smoothly. He landed
his heart. He had — as a counselor would ask
a job with an armored car company and had — a plan.
filed for service-connected disability for post
In a moment of happy coincidence, his
traumatic stress disorder while he was still
then-girlfriend returned home before he
in the Marines, so his claim had been quickly could carry out his plan. “I realized then that
approved.
things needed to change,” he says. He was
But there’s a strange thing about coming
admitted to a local hospital and spent four
days in the mental health ward.
home. Everyday life seems almost boring
after you’ve lived in the clamor of war, and
As he shared this with the class, Brian
sometimes it’s in this calm when memories
stopped for a moment. “Other than my
of trauma begin to
counselors at the VA,
work themselves out.
and maybe some
There's
a
strange
th
in
g
Brian began
family, I’ve never told
about
c
o
a
lin
g
home®
drinking, initially in
those stories to
celebration of his safe I w r y d a y life seems alm ost
anybody,” he said.
return home, but soon b o rin g a fte r yom 'ro liv e d in
The students,
young enough to be
he was turning to
the
cla
m
o
r
of
war>
and
free from the social
alcohol and drugs to
sometim es It's in th is calm
constraints of
control his PTSD
everyday conversation,
symptoms.
when m em ories of tra u m a
began asking
Eventually, he
beg in to w o rk themselves
questions. What’s it
recognized there was
a problem.
Olli®
like having PTSD?
What was it like being
Sometime in 2007,
left behind? Were you
he first thought he
scared?
needed to get help. After talking with a
Despite never having shared his story in
doctor at the PTSD clinic he was prescribed
such a public way, he says he was glad the
antidepressants, which he took for a couple
students were inquisitive. He says he found
of weeks before giving up on them when
some relief in telling his story that day and
they didn’t immediately help.
hopes to speak to more groups about his
He went back to the bottle.
combat experience and his PTSD.
A bottle of Grey Goose, three or four
vicodins, some marijuana. All this, he says,
were in preparation for a night out at the
i i rian meets with his VA counselors about
bars, where he would easily spend $100 on
^once
a week and says he is doing much
(
drinks.
better. He has learned a lot about PTSD, and
“That was a Friday or Saturday night for
his drinking is nothing like it was. Now, he
awhile,” he says. “And I was also going to
says, he might go out and have a couple of
dollar drink nights and spending $20-$30
beers on the weekends, but that’s it.
and having the time of my life. People liked
His latest great moment of self-realization
hanging out with me because I was drunk all
was coming to the conclusion that there is
the time.”
no magic cure for PTSD. “It’s never going to
The alcohol and drug abuse got so bad, he
go away,” he says. “The hope is to give you
says, that he was smoking pot in the
the skills to manage your symptoms and to
mornings before work so that he could fight
have the most productive life you can have,
off the setting hangovers.
knowing that it’s never going to go away
He was taking college courses using his
completely.”
VA education benefits, but the government
Now married with two sons, Brian is
mistakenly overpaid him and called for
finishing his bachelor’s degree in history at
repayment months later. Already struggling
Portland State. He plans to pursue a
with anxiety and depression, Brian avoided
master’s in counseling with the hopes of
the bills for the debt and it was soon sent to
getting a job in the VA system so he can help
collections. The government began
other veterans.
garnishing both his monthly disability and
He also wants to work to fight the public’s
education benefits.
misconceptions about PTSD and the
By late 2010, Brian was seriously
negative stigma attached to it.
struggling with anxiety and depression, and
Though common, PTSD is not the leading
his new financial problems strained an
disability among veterans. According to the
already stressful situation.
VA’s most recent annual report, only about
One day that October, he decided that he
544,000 of the 3.54 million veterans receive
had enough. He was going to make it easy
I
B
disability compensation for PTSD. And of all
service-connected disability compensations
started in 2011, only 5.3 percent were for
PTSD.
Brian’s frustrations in navigating the VA
system still continue. He has waited more
than 16 months to have his disability rating
adjusted to reflect how his PTSD has
manifested in the years since his discharge.
At one point, he says, his claim was stalled
because the VA needed the medical records
from his hospitalization for attempting
suicide. “But nobody told me,” Brian says. “I
could have just gotten the records myself.”
He did. A week and a half after he found out
about the problem, he submitted the
hospital records to the VA.
“At this point, I’m tired of calling them
and asking about it,” he says. “I keep hearing
the same thing, for months now: ‘It’ll be
done soon. It’ll be done soon.’”
In addition to his battles with the VA
claims backlog, Brian still fights with
depression and the other symptoms of his
PTSD. He relives the days at Cloverleaf in a
series of nightmares, each playing out the
same scenario but with varied results.
He says he still deals with his symptoms
on a daily basis — avoidance, anxiety,
nightmares, depression, a general uneasy
feeling in crowded areas, including some
large classrooms-but he continues working
to manage them.
“I have my days,” he says. “Ups and
downs.”
aving painted the picture of Brian’s
struggles, it needs to be said that his
difficulties cannot be assumed to apply to
every veteran. The veteran population is as
varied as the population it is sworn to
defend. And for every veteran fighting these
internal battles during reintegration, there
are likely 10 others who are finding a smooth
transition into the civilian world.
But in sharing Brian’s story, I am in some
ways sharing my own, as well as those of
many of our brothers- and sisters-in-arms.
Brian is by no means alone in his new battle.
Many of us returned home with wounds that
can’t be seen. Many of us are confused by
anxiety and depression as we try to move
forward. Many of us are still learning about
our own PTSD and how it affects us. And
tragically, too many of us — an estimated 18
veterans a day — are losing the fight with
depression and suicide.
For all of us trying to come home, we look
for understanding — from others and from
within ourselves.
H
robert@streetroots. org