The Voice

Last night I went to bed immediately after blogging. My mind, still geared in recall, presented me with an open Pandora's Box of nightmares. I awoke, drenched in sweat, frightened, angry, confused. I lay there for another hour and a half trying to calm down and get back to sleep. The voice had returned. Not voices, just one voice. I cannot hear the voice, but it is not mine. It has no accent, it has no sound, as far as I can tell, meaning I can not hear anything audible, yet in my head the voice is speaking. It's like reading silently to yourself, you see the words, and you read them without the use of audible vocalization. 

The PTSD Monster Part 4: Quarters

We sat out in the Kuwait desert for far too fucking long. For over a month we sat there, throwing rocks and doing whatever bullshit to keep from going stir-crazy.
The convoy there was something something I won't forget. First off the ship, February 14, 2003. Managed to get half of the vehicles offloaded before the sandstorm became too intense to continue. We were stranded ashore until the storm passed. Took the time to take a few pictures. Not sure if it was that night or the following night when we did a quick convoy to where ever-the-hell-it-was tent city. We took off at night, that, I remember. I remember driving fast. The Kuwait police had all the intersections blocked off, so it was a straight shot until we veered off into the desert.

The PTSD Monster Part 3: It Ain't Safe Here No More...

It ain't safe here no more...


I remember being at bar / restaurant  with outside entertainment in California a few years back. A place I had been to before. This time was different. Sitting outside around one of those fire pits, I remember it being cold, or what is considered cold by southern California standards. It was a fair amount of people out there. I began to feel uneasy. Annoyed. Not by someone bothering me, but by the people, the audience there to watch the music group play. They were around us and on the balconies above. They were clapping, laughing, dancing, and pissing me off. I felt the walls closing in around me.

The PTSD Monster Part 2: Shitters n' Sandbags

A port-a-john. There were a few out there in Kuwait. At first there was shit-paper, then you had to provide your own. Napkins and wet wipes from MRE's. You made sure to hold onto those when you came across them. Those, and the little bottle of Tabasco sauce. You would want to get to the port-a-john shortly after it was clean. Everything all washed down and a new roll of shit-paper. There were only two drawbacks of being one of the first to use the "Officers' Quarters".

The PTSD Monster Part 1: Initial Onset

This blog is not going to be going in any particular order. That's too taxing, and allows for the you to skip right to the end. Rather, E5E is going to be a hodgepodge of posts. I will post things that come to me as I remember them. This post, this one I have been holding off of for a long time. I hope it provides some insight to those who don't understand PTSD. I'll be chopping it into parts as to not have one long post, allowing you time to go to the lobby and grab yourself a snack. **WARNING: POSSIBLE TRIGGERS**

July 4th, 2003. I had been home from Iraq a month. Thank God me and my guys made it back all in one piece. I told them "Once I get all of you guys home safe and sound then I'm done." It was be a little while longer until my EAS (End of Active Service) in December, so I just need to ride these few months out, then I'm outta here. I wasn't included on any of the upcoming field ops, so that was a good thing, but, since I was in the rear (with the gear) I got my fair share of barracks duty.