Living with PTSD: A former sergeant’s personal hell

[IndianaGreen]

Here is a very recent story on a 2-combat tour veteran in my hometown:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4083472&mesg_id=4083472

Living with PTSD: A former sergeant’s personal hell

This is the first installment of a 12-part series on PTSD

Posted : Tuesday Sep 15, 2009 14:38:48 EDT

Sgt. Loyd Sawyer joined the Army to bring honor to death.

For years, he had worked as a funeral home director, and his children learned that death was part of the normal cycle of life — that it’s good to mourn for a loved one, and that there was no reason to fear the bodies their daddy embalmed in a workroom of their home.

But then he spent six months working at the morgue at Dover Air Force Base, Del. And then six more months in mortuary affairs at Joint Base Balad in Iraq.

After that, Loyd no longer saw death as part of a natural cycle.

The faces of dead service members began to haunt his every minute. Awake. Asleep. Some charred or shattered, some with faces he recognized from life, some in parts.

Once, after an aircraft crash, Loyd spent 82 hours lining bodies side by side, the burnt remains still so hot they melted through the plastic body bags.

He took the images home with him, each of the dead competing for space in his mind. He spent hours crying on his family room floor, weeping as his dog Sophie licked away his tears, the only living comfort he could bear.

He pulled back as his sons moved in for hugs and his wife sought the snuggles they had shared daily, hourly, in the past. He lashed out with angry words to increase the distance. He had known his wife, Andrea, since they were each 16, but now he couldn’t even touch her.

They would never understand what he had been through. No one would. Loyd was living a nightmare. And now his family was living one, too.

http://militarytimes.com/news/2009/09/military_PTSD_main_092109w/