Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Cadence.

Recovery is not always a daily victory. I try to maintain a positive attitude to be a beacon of light for my fellow Veterans to follow. Today I was scheduled for a PTSD assessment for a VA rating. As excited as I am to be pushing forward in the battle against PTSD, this appointment totally wiped my energy reserves. My last post was about making a plan for each day and having the courage to follow it. Okay, my fellow PTSD Vets here I am following my plan. I decided today was the day I would make another blog entry. I am struggling to see through the fog and feel like I am swimming against a rip-tide. I always wanted to know that the people I followed actually had the guts to walk the path they asked me to walk. Step by step I will move forward.

We all remember learning to march in formation. For me it was at Great Lakes Recruit Training Command in March of 1988. Tired as all hell and cold to the bone I just wanted to lay down and rest. That was not the plan. We were going to learn how to stay in step with the cadence if it killed us and our Company Commander. We were a bunch of civilian knot heads struggling to push our square minds through a round hole or porthole as the case was. I loved to hear that cadence called. It made me want to march. I still love to hear it and every time I do, I return to boot camp and that day in my mind. As we learned to march to the cadence and got good at it, we started adding a little flair to it. A stomp and drag,
or maybe an "eyes right" as we passed the female cadets. Little by little that began to build a camaraderie between the men of company 911.

On days like today I refer back to that cadence. I don't want to march forward. I want to lay on my ass and do nothing. I can't allow it, PTSD is ravaging my fellow Veterans. So I call an internal cadence and I march. How many of my brothers will die today? I can't stop them all, but I won't be sitting on my ass while it happens. The doctor I saw today was pointing out the fact that we find our identities based upon what we do. He said if he couldn't be a doctor then he would be lost. I can relate, when I got out of the Navy I was lost. If I couldn't be a squid, then what was I?

I have tried to be so many things, some I was pretty good at and others not so good.
I was a corrections officer, I liked the physical conflicts. I hated the fact that these people never got to go home. I know they were convicts but that doesn't make them any less human. I was conflicted, they deserved a beating in some aspects and deserved to be treated like people at the same time. I quit!

Then came retail sales, I am so glad I did this. I found that I can't stand dealing with the public, but since it was Western Auto I learned all about cars. I still do all of my own mechanic work. Yet again I quit! Had a few more automotive service and sales jobs and decided maybe retail wasn't my game.

I started my own construction business. I guess at first it was more destruction than construction, but I learned quick. By the end of my run at this field I was doing tile and stone in multi-million dollar homes in south Tulsa. Good money, hard work and a drug habit to boot! And yep you guessed it, I quit!

So I had the bright idea of going to truck driving school. People have a total misconception of truckers. It takes a special breed to drive a truck. I learned to drive, back and inspect everything concerning a truck. I was a safe and prompt truck driver. No accidents, no incidents, runs, errors, or drips. I hated it. I didn't like the isolation, I wanted to be in a team environment. Before I could quit this career I was injured on the job. On April 18, 2008 I was rolling a compressed argon cylinder and the bottom of the cylinder slipped on the concrete floor. I attempted to man up and hold on, and as a result I destroyed my right shoulder.
Game over!

I have had two surgeries to correct the problem, but I am left with only a partially useful joint. I was so lost and confused about who I was and what I was supposed to do. Until one night I decided to get on Twitter. I met Mac McPherson an Army Vet with PTSD. He saw my Twitter name was OperationPTSD and reached out to me. That was about a month ago, and I now realize what I am supposed to be doing. I am supposed to be calling cadence for my fellow PTSD Vets. I used to watch the foot steps of the guy in front of me, I would just get lost in the cadence and concentrate on his steps. Before I knew it, we were at our destination. I am asking you Veterans to fall into step and begin a march toward healing. Before we know it we will all arrive at our destination.

OperationPTSD

2 comments:

  1. The doctor is near sighted! We all have many identities we can inhabit. We CHOOSE them. We design, construct and reconstruct them. We evolve. We are one thing one day, and then we have the option to choose being something else the next.

    Fate is not in control of our destinies. We are.

    Great post. Love the idea of cadence, and the visual of all us survivors getting lost in the safe familiarity of following those who walk before us, healing, living, starting over.

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  2. I was a corrections officer, I liked the physical conflicts. I hated the fact that these people never got to go home. I know they were convicts but that doesn't make them any less human. I was conflicted, they deserved a beating in some aspects and deserved to be treated like people at the same time. I quit!

    Then came retail sales, I am so glad I did this. I found that I can't stand dealing with the public, but since it was Western Auto I learned all about cars. I still do all of my own mechanic work. Yet again I quit! Had a few more automotive service and sales jobs and decided maybe retail wasn't my game.

    I started my own construction business. I guess at first it was more destruction than construction, but I learned quick. By the end of my run at this field I was doing tile and stone in multi-million dollar homes in south Tulsa. Good money, hard work and a drug habit to boot! And yep you guessed it, I quit!


    You forgot to add that you are a writer, a damn good one, if I could point this out to you. Remember what Hemingway once said, and I am paraprashing, . . . you have to go to the well and reach deep, so deep inside of you that it may feel uncomfortable, unusual but completeley unique, because you have reached that inner point that is you, you're psyche, your child untouched, unmolested, univolved with or by the world above. The true you unique from anyone else but, unconsciously, in touch with the universal union of . . .
    Crap, I couldn't come up with another word beginning with "u,"
    unlucky, huh?
    Boy, did I enjoy your post! I hope to hear good news from your compensation board meeting. I'm at 100 percent now, but still seeking the next level, "permanently disabled" in order to get Uncle Sam to help pay for my high-school-senior 17-year-old junior college expenses next year. The VA will pick up tuition for children attending state-funded post high school -programs as well as colleges and universities as long as a parent is rated "Permanent."
    In any case, I look forward to more posts.
    Remember whatever you do: "no sweat, GI." (do we still use that term? Not sure where it came from, put I guess it applies to anyone who wore government-issued uniforms.)
    Michael J

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