PTSD Support

The Narration Script

This video is dedicated to our wounded and vulnerable veterans, our first-responders, and their families, because words can never say “thank you” enough….

“Our Time, Our Turn” 

I begin with the words of Joe Doyle, Marine and Vietnam Veteran, who currently devotes himself to healing work as a facilitator for other veterans still recovering from PTS. He shares, “I have been working with other combat PTS vets for the last 4 years; and that has been an awakening and an opening for me. I’ve carried this for almost 50 years; and for much of that time, I shut it down. What has unfolded, is that I have been living between two worlds, with only a foot in this one and the rest of me in a time and place that no longer exists in a physical sense, yet whose existence is eternal for all who have fought.

It has been said that the greatest war story ever told, was by a Captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. “In 1863 we all went up to Gettysburg, and some of us came back. That’s it, except for the details.”

Well, for us, the same could be said of Nam, 1959-75. The details, ahhh… those details, maybe PTSD should actually mean “Post Traumatic Stress Details.” Somehow, we can’t seem to speak of the details, at least not to others. Yet we live in those details: the dreams, the flashbacks, the internal conflicts, and the judgments.

We can’t tell our spouses any details; they won’t love us. We can’t tell our children, we’ll scare them. We can’t tell Dad, he won’t get it and certainly, we can never tell Mom, she just wouldn’t believe her baby could do that. Yet those details constantly scream within us; they scar our dreams, they open the wounds fresh, every night and every day. We hurt. The details hurt; and we can’t share them. But we can and we do….spread the hurt around to others, not in the details, but by avoiding the details. We use our anger, we use our rage, we use isolation, we use booze, drugs; and we spread more hurt and our loved ones can’t understand. They don’t realize that there’s a mountain between us and the only way to ever cross it, is to go to war.

We need to have a voice with people who understand. A place that’s safe, and there are some. Here’s one of those places, and there are others; and once we have told the details to those who do understand, to those who will help us bear the burden, as we also listen to them, as we share their burden…Once that is done, the healing can start. We can cut the mountain down to a small hill.

I would like to share a thought that truly helped me go to The Wall for the first time ever in 2012; I had never gone for I feared the ghosts that I would find there. The word of wisdom came from my wife, but it’s for all of us vets with survivor’s guilt and that deeper guilt that we never speak of. She told me that the dead have no ill will towards the living; and I knew it to be true. For I was the one who had been carrying all those details. The dead had gone beyond the cares of this life and they were really in a better place. I went, I cried, I healed some more; and after, there seemed to be fewer details inside me. My prayer is for all to work out the details.” – Joe Doyle

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Ann reads her comments:

Thank you Joe Doyle for your words of insight…and many of us here in America, growing numbers of us here in America, are praying that prayer with you. Because for our combat wounded or for our first-responders who have sustained injuries in the line of duty, they and their families face more than just recovery from what appears obvious to the eye on the outside; but in addition to the adjustments and challenges of recovering from catastrophic injuries, many struggle for years with the haunting memories of what they have seen or of decisions they have had to make, in facing the enemy or in saving lives.

Those who have served in harm’s way, have seen the worst of what life can bring and they have done what they can to act and to endure under extreme conditions. They have had their turn in hell…and now…..it is our time….to extend a hand of fellowship and to be there with our hearts, our time, our listening, our prayers, and our resources….

We can fill in where so-called government agencies are failing; and we can appeal to our officials with relentless persistence, to demand the best for those who have given all.

We can be a voice for our military and first-responders who have more than earned their time of rest. As their bodies and souls heal….this is the least of what we can do for our brothers and sisters; and yes, they are our family, because though they may be strangers to us at first, we must consider, that we were strangers to them when they came to our aid, going where angels fear to go, to rescue or to serve….and now….we must be the angels for them and be ready to go where God leads us, offering our love and warm smiles to the souls of those who are tired…but have much to offer us as they recover.

The Truth is…we need them…we need their insight, their wisdom, and friendship; and we need to let them know that the world is waiting for the special gifts they bring…as well as the courage they will continue to inspire in us.

My friends, we are in this together on planet earth; let’s really be a team…for each other and for the sake of Love.

By Ann M. Wolf – BMI – c 2015 – All rights reserved.