I look back
at the opportunities I’ve had and the thing that strikes me most is not what
has been taken but what has been given to me.
Because of my service I certainly have lost many things but when I look
back I don’t see those things. What I see are great memories; I see traveling
through Europe with friends, I see sitting on the beach at the Black Sea
drinking a beer with my close friends, I see all the pranks we used to play on
each other, mostly though I see a group of friends who even if we don’t see
each other often would kill for each other to this day.
Today is
the Veterans’ Salute at MTSU’s football game.
This whole weekend is full of things like free meals, parades,
celebrations, and many people giving thanks to our service members. While we certainly love and appreciate all
the gestures, there are many veterans who won’t go and get these free meals,
some because it doesn’t feel right to take something for free, others are the
ones who truly need the meals.
There are a
great many homeless veterans in and around the Murfreesboro area. It’s an amazing thing to think about, the way
many of these homeless are viewed. So
many of the truly homeless you won’t see.
They will stay out of the public eye for the most part. You won’t see the majority of homeless
veterans on the street corner in the middle of the day. How can so many veterans be homeless? PTSD takes away your ability to rationalize,
it takes away your ability to be motivated, and it takes away your willingness
to be a member of society.
PTSD leads
to depression which in turn leads to drinking which then worsens the
depression. It’s a vicious circle that
is extremely hard to get out of. It
takes the love and support of family and friends. It takes people willing to step in and force
their love and care on you. I’ve been very lucky, I had people who were
concerned and stepped in. I was lucky
enough to have someone I call my sister move in and keep watch over me, cheer
me up when I was sad, and to this day remind me daily that life is good and I
can be great.
This
weekend isn’t just Veteran’s Day for me.
It’s the time I get to celebrate another year of being a part of
something that has given me so much more than it has taken from me. I see the losses as the price I have to pay
to be allowed to continue doing something that means so much to me.
Often times people tell me they
wish they could understand what it’s like to live with PTSD. This isn’t something we want to hear, we don’t
want you to know. We want to be very selfish with it because it is our
burden. It is the cross that is born by
the men and women who chose to live this life and we don’t want to share it
with anyone else. I’m glad you don’t
understand because that would mean that you’ve had to live through something
traumatic. The reason I did it was so
that you didn’t have to go through it. So while you want to have empathy, we
don’t want you to have to live with it which is the only way to truly
understand.
