Hello, I go by Stavi, named after my cat. I was diagnosed with slight PTSD upon discharge from the USAF due to combat exposure, but it's much worse than I led them to believe. Out of fear, I wasn't truthful during the exit psych eval. I've only told two people what happened out there; my wife and my mother.
First, I would like to explain my injury. I was a simple car mechanic. On a routing trip to pick up a disabled vehicle outside the wife in Afghanistan, I was riding in the back of a deuce with the toolbox we loaded up, on the passenger side bench. We were attacked by a small band of overzealous villagers. Nothing big. They came from the left, so I got low and tried to drop the driver side railing so we could roll out with a low profile. Turns out, this deuce had it's railing welded on because the pins were missing from the hinges. Lovely! Still, I wanted out of the damn truck because there was a big toolbox preventing me from getting low enough to avoid fire. I jumped up and over the railing after firing a few suppressing shots. On my way down, my three-point sling caught on the lever and contorted me on the way down, and I slammed into the bed of the deuce, right under my kevlar, so it didn't absorb any shock. This happened in 2005, right before I met my wife.
What haunts me is what happened in 2004 in Baghdad. I was assigned to checkpoint duty. It got boring, and I was young and full of bravado. When a Captain from the 1st AD dropped by asking for patrol volunteers, I jumped at the opportunity. After a conflict, one of the insurgents let slip that their arms were in a nearby house, so we went to check it out. Whoever was running things weren't expecting us, and after we breached, all hell broke loose. I was the third man in so I went left and covered the stairs to the second floor. Someone had run from the left side of the staircase and turned quickly to go to the second floor. He had a weapon slung on his back, and looked me in the eye as he reached for his weapon. I gunned him down without a thought. It was a child, maybe 10 or 11 years old.
I'm currently married with two young boys, working on divorce, which I will go into in a different thread. The horror that I experience time and time again have driven me into a hole so deep I can't see light in anything anymore. I've asked, BEGGED, the VA to help, but every time I talk to someone, they offer a different pill that doesn't do anything, and I need people who really listen.
First, I would like to explain my injury. I was a simple car mechanic. On a routing trip to pick up a disabled vehicle outside the wife in Afghanistan, I was riding in the back of a deuce with the toolbox we loaded up, on the passenger side bench. We were attacked by a small band of overzealous villagers. Nothing big. They came from the left, so I got low and tried to drop the driver side railing so we could roll out with a low profile. Turns out, this deuce had it's railing welded on because the pins were missing from the hinges. Lovely! Still, I wanted out of the damn truck because there was a big toolbox preventing me from getting low enough to avoid fire. I jumped up and over the railing after firing a few suppressing shots. On my way down, my three-point sling caught on the lever and contorted me on the way down, and I slammed into the bed of the deuce, right under my kevlar, so it didn't absorb any shock. This happened in 2005, right before I met my wife.
What haunts me is what happened in 2004 in Baghdad. I was assigned to checkpoint duty. It got boring, and I was young and full of bravado. When a Captain from the 1st AD dropped by asking for patrol volunteers, I jumped at the opportunity. After a conflict, one of the insurgents let slip that their arms were in a nearby house, so we went to check it out. Whoever was running things weren't expecting us, and after we breached, all hell broke loose. I was the third man in so I went left and covered the stairs to the second floor. Someone had run from the left side of the staircase and turned quickly to go to the second floor. He had a weapon slung on his back, and looked me in the eye as he reached for his weapon. I gunned him down without a thought. It was a child, maybe 10 or 11 years old.
I'm currently married with two young boys, working on divorce, which I will go into in a different thread. The horror that I experience time and time again have driven me into a hole so deep I can't see light in anything anymore. I've asked, BEGGED, the VA to help, but every time I talk to someone, they offer a different pill that doesn't do anything, and I need people who really listen.
