PTSD Is Brought On By Days Like These

[unhappycamper]

PTSD Is Brought On By Days Like These
by: war-junkie
Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 05:58:05 AM EST

Normally I'm writing about something about the wars or a political view. Not this time. This is a very personal story about a lesson I had to learn the hard way in combat. I have purposely left out any names or areas of operation although I'm sure anyone who is in my AO will know most of this story and know exactly who I am. So we will try to keep the Opsec rule in effect here.

A couple of months ago I arrived back to Iraq and to Baghdad. It had been a few years since I had been here and things had definitely changed. I also am just returning from the worst Afghanistan rotation actually worst any rotation I had ever had to deal with in five tours. I fired my weapon more in this last Afghan rotation than in all of my other tours combined. I could do without ever having to fire another round as long as I live. So I was not thrilled to pick up a rifle and come back to this hell hole.

We arrived and immediately found out that we would be living in a safe house in the city. We packed our things and began training with the unit that we were relieving. We call this "right seat left seat rides". Upon arriving at our new safe house I noticed a guard tower that was standing all by itself right off of the highway. It was not in the best place and it was not very well built and the guard was completely exposed. I asked what the deal was with this tower and I was told it was called the "OH Jesus Tower" because if a car bomb ever rolled up to it the last thing said would be....yep you guessed it OH JESUS right before the soldier was turned into a light pink mist.

I was not a fan of this Guard position and after talking with my peers they were not happy with it either. We decided when we man the posts we will not be using this tower. We had been there exactly 20 minutes when gunfire erupted and rounds struck the safe house. We all checked each other and the other unit did the same...or so we thought.

~snip~

I was very disappointed so I went through this same routine for three or four nights. The Intel was that he was still in the area and frequenting his hide site and I was determined to get this guy. On the fifth day I gave up for a while. I was hurt. I felt like this guy was going to get away. I had been sitting in our Tactical operations center or "TOC" and a guard came over the radio "I think I see the sniper". I shot out of the TOC and grabbed a Barret 50 caliber sniper rifle which is the big brother to the M-24. I ran to the roof and got next to the guard. I popped open my scope guard and there he was. He was leaning out of a window. He had a Druganov SVD style russian made sniper rifle. I had him. I waited and got everything right. I racked the blot on that big fifty and felt the mechanism shove that round in the chamber. I wasn't cold or hot. I wasn't feeling anything except that adrenaline rush. I was going to kill this man. I was going to end his life. The fifty would cut him in half. I was ready. I had been here before. In this situation. It's sad how natural it felt. I felt good. My thumb flipped the safety and the meat of my finger was on the trigger. I snapped in. I took a deep cleansing breath and let it out. I held it at the bottom of my breath. I could feel my heart beat. I was waiting for that perfect time between beats to squeeze. Then it happened steady pull back. Ease it back. Feel the trigger. Then a scream from behind me. "Hey man don't shoot It's a toy!". I let off the trigger and looked again to see that my focus was on the man so deeply I didn't notice the kid. The kid paying for the all too real plastic air soft rifle. I laid the weapon on the ground and went downstairs out the door and around where I could not be seen and got sick.


Rest of article at: http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=421