CAUTION: THIS POST CONTAINS WRITINGS THAT MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME READERS. IT CONTAINS A DEPICTION OF AN ACTUAL COMBAT INCIDENT AND IS MORE DESCRIPTIVE THAN MY LAST POST.

After the episode described in “The Power of Seeking Help” I became extremely angry. I was angry that humanity could be so cruel and emotionless. The Iraqis were using civilians as shields all over. They were filling the battlefield with troops carried in on ambulances and in taxis. They were firing from hospitals and other “protected” locations, like mosques. They forced Soldiers into making hard decisions like the one I described. It causd confusion on the battlefield as Soldiers had to decide whether or not to fire on the ambulance or civilian vehicle barrelling down the road towards them.

After the battle of As Samawah, we encountered sustained combat for weeks without much of a break. It was constant contact.

One of my jobs during the war was to search the battlefield dead after each engagement if there was time for intelligence. We needed to know who we were fighting and whether we could expect a larger force.

I’m hoping that continuing to talk about some of the things that haunt me will help. I know it won’t go away, but so far it has helped my stress levels in dealing with the images. It’s important that we talk through these issues to get over them.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to some of these bodies until days after they were killed due to the ongoing combat. I witnessed virtually every level of human decay possible. I searched guys killed by everything from a simple bullet to shrapnel to direct hits by a 25mm Bradley round. Some were missing arms, legs, heads or even torsos. Some had only parts of those areas left. Some were fresh kills. The gases within some of them were expanding the bodies into human balloons. And some literally had skin falling off portions of their bodies.

A few days after one particular battle I was finally able to search a vehicle with some insurgents that we had killed. It was a civilian vehicle and we needed to search it to ensure that they weren’t civilians. It was also fast approaching the timeline required to bury the dead according to Islamic tradition.

The car had numerous bullet holes throughout. The driver was lying outside the car, having tried to flee after the car was disabled. The passenger was still in his seat slumped to his left slightly. The car was a cream-colored sedan. I didn’t catch the make or model, but it was an older car. The interior upholstery was brown.

As soon as I opened the door to the vehicle I was overpowered by the worst stench of my life. This guy had been baking in the car for nearly three days. We had already found rifles and RPGs in the trunk of his car. The swelling of the body had made his clothing tight and I couldn’t get to his wallet to check for identification. I had to make several attempts because I couldn’t hold my breath that long. Each time I took a breath, I wanted to throw up.

Unable to pull out his wallet, I grabbed my knife and began cutting away his pocket, careful not to puncture his skin. The man had numerous bullet holes in his chest and one in the left side of his neck. The sawing action of cutting away his pocket forced his body to move in unison, a result of rigor mortis. Just as I was about to free the wallet (my fifth attempt), the man’s ear literally fell off and landed on his shoulder, right in front of my face.

That is when I noticed his neck was moving. At first I thought it was a pulse, but upon realizing that maggots were eating this man from the inside out, my stomach had had enough. The shock forced me to take a breath, which just added to the nausea. The maggots began falling out of his ear.

As I type this, I can literally smell the corpse of this rotting man. I actually had to turn around and make sure I didn’t leave anything in the garbage can. It is that vivid to me. I will never forget the smell of rotting flesh at various stages of death.

In another incident that occurred prior to this, that bothers me for two reasons, my team was called away to help an Iraqi family that was caught in a cross fire between American and Iraqi forces. A man traveling in a civilian car was approaching our troops and didn’t stop during the firefight. The Bradleys lit the car up with 25mm fire, causing it to erupt in flames.

After things settled down, we were called to the scene to help the family extract the man from his car. At the time, my anger and loss of hope for humanity caused me to treat this event lightly. I assembled my team and we created what I called at the time the “Crispy Guy Extraction Kit” comprised of rubber gloves, scissors, garbage bags, and masks.

Upon arriving at the scene, we encountered another horrible stench – burnt human flesh. The body looked like a badly charred cheap steak in the loose form of a human. The feet and hands had been burned away. Only the head, torso and larger parts of the arms and legs were left as burnt stumps. The man was literally fused to his seat where he died. As we tried to gently pry him from the car, his upper torso detached from his lower body and…something…oozed out all over the car. I immediately vomited along with a few others. The family began wailing (yes, they were there too) and shrilling.

At that point, we let the family finish the rest of it. We simply had no more interest in removing a completely burnt body from a car while we were still fighting on the outskirts of Baghdad. While we were wasting our time trying to help this family, a missile struck the Headquarters where we were supposed to be, killing eight Soldiers and two journalists and injuring dozens, including my First Sergeant and the S3 Sergeant Major (see article HERE and skip to page 4). So, in addition to this experience by itself, there’s a bit of guilt about not being at HQ to assist with the aftermath.

I tell these stories for a few reasons, but I don’t think I’m going to tell any more publicly. I’m going to start writing these down privately. I think you understand what our troops have had to go through and I think I’ve met my purpose in sharing some of them. I hope that talking about these experiences – just some of many – encourages other troops to talk about their experiences. I honestly feel a lot better getting them off my chest. I encourage those of you that may be trying to figure out how to move forward to write these experiences down in as much detail as possible.

This experience has been extremely cathartic. I’m feeling better than I have in a long time as far as these issues are concerned. It won’t make them go away by any means, but it offers me a better way of getting past them to the point that they don’t affect me in such an extreme manner any longer. They are quickly becoming just unpleasant thoughts and experiences. I’ve learned not to beat myself up over something I couldn’t help. No amount of therapy will help us forget those unpleasant things that we witnessed and, frankly, nothing should. They are experiences that can provide us with much needed levity in challenging circumstances. They keep us grounded on what is really important in life – unlike the dude yelling at a Subway worker for not cutting his sandwich perfectly.

We have a choice to let PTSD control us or force PTSD to be controlled BY us. We don’t have to feel like monsters – which reminds me of a song that I can relate to by one of my favorite bands called Skillet. They have a song on their new album, Awake, called Monster:

Songwriters: Brown, Gavin; Cooper, John Landrum;The secret side of me, I never let you see
I keep it caged but I can’t control it
So stay away from me, the beast is ugly
I feel the rage and I just can’t hold it

It’s scratching on the walls, in the closet, in the halls
It comes awake and I can’t control it
Hiding under the bed, in my body, in my head
Why won’t somebody come and save me from this, make it end?

I feel it deep within, it’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I hate what I’ve become, the nightmare’s just begun
I must confess that I feel like a monster

I, I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster

My secret side I keep hid under lock and key
I keep it caged but I can’t control it
‘Cause if I let him out he’ll tear me up, break me down
Why won’t somebody come and save me from this, make it end?

I feel it deep within, it’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I hate what I’ve become, the nightmare’s just begun
I must confess that I feel like a monster

I feel it deep within, it’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster

It’s hiding in the dark, it’s teeth are razor sharp
There’s no escape for me, it wants my soul, it wants my heart
No one can hear me scream, maybe it’s just a dream
Maybe it’s inside of me, stop this monster

I feel it deep within, it’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I hate what I’ve become, the nightmare’s just begun
I must confess that I feel like a monster

I feel it deep within, it’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I’ve gotta lose control, he something radical
I must confess that I feel like a monster

I, I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster

© EMI APRIL MUSIC CANADA LTD; LANDRUM PUBLISHING; NOODLES FOR EVERYONE; PHOTON MUSIC; WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP;

You can hear the song and the rest of the album HERE. I think the key here for us is not to “keep it caged” or “under lock and key” and to talk about our experiences. It’s going to be very difficult. After about two months of counseling I think I’ve resolved myself that it’s okay to cry sometimes, especially when it’s just you and your doctor. It’s okay to get angry sometimes as long as that anger isn’t destructive, leads to something positive and ends in overcoming the pain pushed deep down inside.