Street roots., December 24, 2015, Page 11, Image 11

S tre e t R o o ts • D ec. 2 4 -3 1
2015
’
PANNELL, from page 10
want to know about is what do you think
about when you go back to your bunk at
night?”
Pannell said the most traumatic part of war
isn’t necessarily the com bat Worse for him
was losing the connection he built with the
people he was assigned with. Pannell
described those 12 to 20 people you live with,
and can t get away from, as being closer than
family.
Imagine going into a field with guys who
had been out there for
- two weeks, who were all
sitting in a circle,
washing one another’s
hacks with baby wipes,
he said.
Portland-area veterans» family
“You rely on that. It
members of veterans» and
becomes part of who
civilians may join a small group
you are, and then that
for the War Stories Rearing»
all goes away when you
come back,” he said. “It
Writing and Discussion Group.
never comes back.”
The free, six-month workshop is
Pannell said he isn’t
an opportunity to explore the
angry
at the person who
experience of military service,
threw the grenade that
wartime, and the transition from
injured him.
active duty to civilian life.
. It helped that he was
The program is funded by a
conscious the whole
time, he said. He saw
grant from Oregon Humanities,
his attacker from about
Meetings are from 6 to 8 p.m.
50 feet away. He yelled
the first Tuesday of each months
to warn the rest of his
through' May 3, at American
patrol. He was awake
Legion Post 134,2104 HE
with his head in the lap
Alberta St, Portland.
of Kevin Kelly, a friend
from high school in
A rk a n sa s a fte r the
explosion. The two
ended up in the same
squad, and they did almost all of their patrols
together.
Pannell woke up from a medically induced
coma nine days later with more pain than he
ever could have imagined.
“I would close my eyes and count to 60
because it was like one more minute,” he
said. “It was unbelievable.
“I had survivor guilt like crazy. I felt I
hadn’t done my job, and even though none of
the other guys got hurt that day, if anything
AMERICAN LEGION
WRITING PROGRAM
happened to them the rest of their time, it
was going to be my fault because I wasn’t
there,” Pannell said.
After about four days* of this, Pannell was
struck with what he described as lightning-
bolt reality.
“No m atter how much I disagree with this
guy,” he said about the man who threw the
grenade, “he believed in something enough to
be there, putting himself out there. If I would
have seen him first, the story would probably
have changed. He was doing what he thought
was the right thing. I couldn’t hate him for
that. I begrudgingly respected him and saw
myself in him.”
As soon as he came to that realization and
he let his aggression and anger go, he said,
his pain immediately diminished. Medical
staff removed his feeding tube. He left the
intensive care unit and was in the amputee
ward the next day.
His perspective on the power of
forgiveness is a gift he doesn’t want to waste,
he said. He wants to help other people come
to term s with their own tragedies by sharing
his story.
Living proof
For a couple of years after he was injured,
Pannell worked with a military blood donor
program. He was part of a team that went to
federal buildings and hospitals to recruit
blood plasma donations from government
employees to be sent overseas. Pannell was
mainly a spokesperson, a reason to donate
plasma and platelets. He had received 41
units of blood and 13 units of platelets and
plasma. He was living proof of the value of
those donations.
When asked about where the U.S. stands
with mental health services for veterans, he
took a deep breath and released an equally
deep sigh. Taking the positive view, he
conceded that the stigma of having PTSD has
lessened. It was, in Pannell’s memory of a
decade ago, shameful to come out as having
PTSD. People would look at you like you were
weak. But that is changing, he said.
According to a report published in 2014 in
JAMA Psychiatry, about 25 percent of nearly
5,500 active-duty, non-deployed Army soldiers
surveyed had a mental health disorder. The
report, the Army Study to Assess Risk and
Resilience in Service Members, was the
largest mental-health-risk study conducted
among U.S. military personnel.
Pannell noted the Returning Veterans
Project’s role in helping with mental illness.
“It’s not just for vets,” Pannell said of the
Oregon nonprofit, which is made up of health
care practitioners who offer free and
confidential services. “IPs for families, too,
which is a big part. Families having to deal
with your PTSD is alm ost «is bad as you
having to deal with your PTSD. I have
certainly run into it in (my life).”
Although writing has always been good
therapy for Pannell, it’s more than th a t
He chuckled as he described his writing
style: “Faction.” It’s got fictional elements,
but it’s all based on factual experiences
Pannell or people he knows have had.
Pannell maintains a writing discipline and
reads regularly around town, including at
American Legion Post 134.
“I’m able to put an emotion on paper that I
have a hard time expressing verbally. There’s
something to that that keeps drawing me
back.”
PHC
j
P H O T O BY
SC O TTY H O W A R D
Pannell posing with
a child in Baghdad
one day before
before he lost his
legs in a grenade
explosion.
5312 NE 148th Ave.
N orthwest Portland, OR 97230
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