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The battle after the war

By Joe Vaccarelli
jvaccare@mscd.edu

Kathleen Montgomery knows what it is like to have her son go to war. She knows about worrying whether or not he is physically or emotionally well, and worrying about one day getting a phone call with bad news.

She also knows what it’s like to have her son come home and seem like a different person. Excessive sleeping, a hand tremor, severe headaches and anxiety were all traits her son came home with when he spent 30 days with her during Christmas. She didn’t know at the time that these were symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, something that hasn’t received a great deal of attention in her opinion.

“PTSD is a much bigger phenomena than we realize with troops that are coming back,” she said. “It’s not widely discussed, it’s being swept under the rug, and the government is not discussing it.”

She thought that everything would be fine when her son got home, but it wasn’t. That was one of the hardest parts for her, she said “When they get home, it’s only just begun,” she said.

Montgomery, who did not want her son’s name published because he is still on active duty, said her son didn’t realize what he was dealing with until talking with clergy on his base.

She did mention that her son had one tour of duty in Iraq and is still on active duty in the Marines. While in Iraq, three of her son’s friends were killed, she believes contributing greatly to his PTSD.

“It’s tough to see people one day, and they’re gone the next,” she said. “He knew those people for years. That’s how Iraq is unlike other wars, you could be in a city and have a suicide bomber go off and do a lot of damage, you’re always on the front lines. You never know where something is going to go off.”

Montgomery added that she talked to a Vietnam veteran who thinks Iraq will surpass Vietnam in PTSD cases for those reasons.

A big problem, Montgomery feels, is the fact that most cases of PTSD go unreported and most soldiers are reluctant to talk about it.

“It’s a difficult topic for soldiers to discuss and families don’t know how to deal with it. It’s highly treatable, but it’s not always done. Getting into a Veteran’s Administration center is very difficult and soldiers don’t seek help.”

Montgomery, through her own research, said that about 30 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq report PTSD, but that is only a fraction of the soldiers that actually have it because it’s not being discussed. She believes the military doesn’t want it to be discussed and that it has motives to hide it.

“The military doesn’t encourage it to be discussed,” she said. “It’s something that’s taboo for them. It’s a very alpha-male world in the military. They’re also having a hard time with recruitment for this five-year war, and they don’t want any attention on that. They don’t want another realm of issues, they don’t want it out there and they don’t want anyone to know about it.”

She said the most difficult part is that there is very little support for soldiers coming back with PTSD. She said she had to turn to the Internet as well as family to find help for her son.

“I can’t even explain how difficult it is to get help. There’s nowhere to turn to. We’re just as confused and dazed as the solider. But it’s such a taboo topic,” she said.

Soldiers are supposed to be more than human. But they aren’t, she said.

Montgomery said her family was very helpful during this time, and she suggests listening to the PTSD sufferer and to keep him or her talking. Don’t push or judge, just listen to what he or she has to say.

Her focus right now is getting her son home safely. Once he is discharged, she hopes to further spread the word of PTSD and get people to talk about it.

She has a website called mothersofmilitarysoldiers.com that she hopes will offer a support system to mothers of soldiers and educate people on the effects of PTSD. She has contacted news agencies and people in Congress to try and get some attention to it, but has yet to get a response from anyone on the national level, something she hopes to change when her son returns home for good.

“We must be prepared to face the illusions of war. We must be brave enough to listen. PTSD is not dishonorable, we must encourage people to speak,” she said.