Things not to say to a wife of a wounded soldier

I know people don't always know what to say to me, and sometimes things come out wrong. There have been times when I've been completely awkward around someone who is grieving or in another difficult situation.

Although I understand why people sometimes say the things that make me cringe, hearing any of these phrases still makes me roll my eyes and groan:

• I can't imagine what that's like/what you're going through: Most people can't imagine what it would be like to have terrorist try to kill their husbands, didn't really need you to point it out. When someone says this to me, what I hear is, "I feel sorry for you" or "I'm so glad it's not me."
  
• Everything happens for a reason: There's a reason the phrase, "senseless war" is a cliche.  War makes no sense. The events of the night Sgt K. was wounded were incredibly sad and awful, not fate. Just because we're coming through a horrible event stronger and better than before does not mean it happened for a reason.
  
• Oh, I just wish we'd end this war: Although I could write a long opinionated rant about this statement, all I'm going to say is this: When your husband's leg looks like shredded beef, the last thing you want to talk about is politics.
  
• It could have been worse: I know that, because it was much worse for his driver. Thank you for reminding me how guilty I feel that I have the husband who's hurt less, and ashamed that I'm thankful I have the husband who's hurt less.
  
• How is your husband ... emotionally? I don't mind when one of my close friends or someone who takes the time to listen asks me this. I've a some really good conversations about the perceptions of PTSD vs. what it's really like. When I'm asked this in passing, I get the feeling what I'm really being asked is, "So, is your batshit crazy husband going to choke you in your sleep?" If you ask me how Sgt. K is, I'm going to answer honestly. So don't look all shocked when I tell you he has nightmares every night. The same goes for ...
• So what exactly happened? This is another question I don't mind being asked by someone taking the time to listen. But usually my answer causes the person who's asking the question to get all wide-eyed and look like she's going to throw up. It's an understandable reaction, I've told the story of what happened to my husband so many times that sometimes I forget that it's a lot to take in. What get on my nerves is when the same people ask me over an over again, and then looked all shocked every time. Which makes me want to ask, "If you find it so upsetting, why didn't you remember the first time I told you?"
• You must be so glad he's done with the military: Actually, no, it feels weird. I was never counting down the days until Sgt. K would be out of the Army. He was considering leaving when his current contract was over, but he was wounded and the choice was made for him. The military consumed our lives for 3 years, and then it was just  ... over. I am glad I don't have to go through another deployment, but I miss being an Army wife, and I miss being part of the military community.
  
  Sgt. K says when he hears people say this, he feels like what they're really saying is: "Aren't you glad you've realized the error of your ways." Within the military community, there's a stereotype of civilians as lazy idiots who are content to let others do the dirty work of defending our country. It's an over generalization and unfair, but still, "civilian" isn't a label I was anxious to have again.
• I'm so glad he's OK: People see Sgt. K is alive and has all four limbs, and they just assume. But he's not OK. His leg is full of metal, and every step he takes is painful. The pain reminds him of how he was wounded, which reminds him of combat, which make him sad or upset or scared. I know everyone would feel a lot better if he was just instantly OK, but it doesn't do him (or our marriage) any good to rush the healing process or to pretend like this isn't something we're going to have to deal with for the rest of our lives.

So what do you say to the wife of a wounded soldier? I actually don't mind talking about any of these things with someone who is willing to listen. But I've found a lot of people are looking for a anecdote to support their opinions.  So if your genuinely curious about my story, ask away. I'll understand if you can't find the right words to ask your questions. If you have an agenda, please find someone else to use and leave me out of it.

House hunters

After more than four years of saving, Sgt. K and I are finally financially and emotionally ready to buy a house. Of course we wanted to look into what kind of benefits we could get from getting a VA loan. In my research, I came across a state program called the GI Home Loan for Heroes.

According to the site:

"Participants will receive a discounted IHDA rate financing package, closing cost assistance and homeownership counseling."

Sounds worth looking into, right? Except I couldn't find anywhere on the site information of how to apply or who to contact for more information. We're shopping around for the best interest rate, so I wanted to know what the IHDA interest rates were, and if we could still get closing cost assistance if we decided to go with a conventional loan.

I tried calling and e-mailing the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and the Illinois Housing Development Authority. Sgt. K tried asking around at the VA, and he came home with some pamphlets about the federal VA loan. I tried calling and e-mailing one of the agencies that the IHDA website claimed offers counseling, and I did get a call back from a woman who'd lost her brother in Iraq. It was nice sharing our stories, and I could tell she really wanted to help, but she didn't really know much about the program either.

So I gave up. Sgt. K can barely handle grocery shopping. If I can't figure it out, how could a veteran who is overwhelmed by reintegration do it?

I've concluded that GI Home Loan for Heroes is just a facade, so the State of Illinois can say, "Oooh, look at this wonderful home buying program we have for our heroes!" But it's so impossible to actually get the benefits that the state doesn't actually have to pay any money.

If I'm wrong or missing something, leave a comment. Although my opinion that it shouldn't be this complicated probably won't change.

Deployment brain

Earlier this summer, my parents came up for a visit. I asked Sgt. K if he could run out to the store to pick up some spinach so I could make a big salad for lunch. He came back with this:

So I was like, "How am I supposed to make a salad out of that?"


I had forgotten about deployment brain, the term we've used to describe the moments when the part of his brain that handles common sense just doesn't work the way it's supposed to. (And being a boy, that part of his brain never really worked that well to begin with.) 

Ever since Sgt. K came home, he finds the grocery store incredibly overwhelming. That scene in The Hurt Locker, where Jeremy Renner is frozen in the cereal aisle is exactly how it is. So usually my grocery lists are really specific, right down to the brand name and size. Because I wasn't specific this time, Sgt. K wandered around Jewel looking for something that said, "spinach" on the package. He also went to the store right after going to the VA, which always makes deployment brain even worse.

His explanation: "I know we're trying to save money. This was the cheapest!" 

Well, I can't be angry at him for not trying. At least he didn't come home with that nasty canned stuff that Popeye eats.

Anybody want a jug of barium?

In January, the VA sent us this lovely jug of barium. What am I supposed to do with 900 mL of barium?

We think it's for the CT scan that Sgt. K was scheduled to have this month. So we've had a jug of barium sitting in our office for the past seven months. Even though the CT scan is over, the jug is still sitting there because, as Sgt. K. so eloquently stated, "I'm not drinking that shit!"

When he was at the actual scan, there was an older man waiting for the same test. The man yelled, "What's the point of this? By the time I get the scan, I'll be dead!" Sgt. K. said it looked like the man had been waiting there since 1975.

I understand his frustration. Ranting about the VA has become one of my favorite topics. To make an appointment, Sgt. K. has to put in a request. Then he has to wait for the VA to mail him a piece of paper with his appointment time on it. If he can't make that appointment, he has to start the process all over again. It's not like a a regular doctor's office where he could say, "I have a job interview that day, could we reschedule? Do you have anything open on a Tuesday?"

When he was putting in his claim, he had to go to two sets of doctors: one to treat him, and one to evaluate his claim.  Two doctors to look at his leg, two psychologists, two brain doctors, two sets of the same tests. He had two CT scans in a month. In the weeks after he returned home, he spent nearly 20 hours a week at the VA.

When it's time to re-evaluate his claim, the doctors who have been seeing him on a regular basis can't do it. He has to see a second set of doctors all over again. Because they don't know him, he will likely need to tell the story of how he was hurt over and over again, which always puts him in a great mood.

Hey, I have a crazy idea. Why doesn't the VA have returning soldiers see one set of doctors?  It could save money and time,  and cause less emotional stress for veterans. I guess that's just too obvious.

OK, rant over. I can't promise that I won't have another one.

Praha

Last winter, I took a memoir writing class, and our teacher sent us an email about the Prague Summer Program. It made me think about how I've always regretted not doing a study abroad while I was in college, which led Sgt. K to say, "You should go. Why not?"

So five months later, I was packing my suitcase to spend two weeks taking a nonfiction writing class in Prague. I will admit part of me thought "Ha! Let's see how he likes being left!" What I didn't consider is that I would get a taste of what things were like for him too:

• Boarding the plane, I was more than a little terrified. I was headed off to a country where I did not speak the language and I knew no one. Then I felt a little silly for feeling terrified because I was headed off to frolic in Europe, while Sgt. K had to board flights knowing he was going to places where people were going to try to kill him.
• I've never felt culture shock more so than I did my first night in Prague. I ended up eating pistachios and and apple for dinner because I didn't know enough Czech to figure out where the grocery store is. (Although I did pass by a casino that offered "Roulette! Nonstop! Nonstop!") But my disorientation really only lasted a day. Prague is a western city, and unlike the countries Sgt. K was deployed too, the alphabet is the same as in the U.S.
• Both times Sgt. K was deployed, I complained that when he left, he got to be around a bunch of guys who were all going through the same thing he was, while I had to go home to an empty apartment. This time I was headed to a place where I would be surrounded by other students who were experiencing the same jet lag and culture shock that I was. But when it comes to having someone to talk to about the ups and downs of my day, nobody is better than my DH.
• There's also nothing better than sleeping in my own bed, but I already knew I had the advantage in that area.
• I kept hearing about how cold and dreary Prague is, and packed lots of jackets and sweaters for layering. It was in the 90s nearly the whole time I was there, and there was no air conditioning. I ended up sink washing the one pair of shorts I packed over and over. I think this trip established that I could not handle wearing body armor in 100 degree Iraqi heat.
• When I came home, Sgt. K had gone to the grocery story and stocked the fridge with my favorite foods, including both a 12-pack of beer and a bottle of wine, so I could have my choice of what to drink when I walked in the door. He also left two weeks of mail sitting on the table for me to go through. I wondered if I was the one to deploy, would there be a year's worth of mail on the table? Apparently, I would be the type of soldier who came home and bitched about how my spouse didn't do things the "right way" while I was gone.
• While Adam came home on leave, I could always tell a part of him wanted to be back overseas with his guys. All of me wanted him home, why didn't he feel the same? The Prague Summer Program had a 2-week and 4-week option. I signed up for the 2-week option because I figured it would be more doable in terms of getting time off work. And let's be honest, maybe I was a little scared of a a whole month. Then in Prague, I made some great friends. As nice as it is to be home, I can't help thinking about how they're still having fun in Prague, and wishing I could spend more time with them. Being in a foreign country really helped us build a sense of community that's missing from my life at home.

The lonely life of an Army wife

My husband often tells me that being a soldier's wife is the hardest job in the military. I have to agree. It is incredibly isolating. Yes, partly because my husband was gone, but also because I was suddenly an Army wife surrounded by civilians. I was the wife of that guy who was in Iraq. No one knew how to act around me. I constantly had the sensation of feeling alone in a room full of people.

Luckily, I did meet some other Army wives. But then my husband was wounded, and I was the different one again, the wife of the guy who was hurt.

So I was really excited when my friend Lisa asked me to help with MPower. MPower is a new organization for military wives and families. Its goal is to help us build connections with each other so we have a support system before things are broken.

I shared part of my story at their fundraiser in Chicago. Speaking in a room full of people was a little terrifying, but also fun. I think I pulled it off without making a complete fool of myself. And Sgt. K and I got to pretend that we were rich philanthropists heading off to the fancy charity fundraiser.

To check out MPower go to http://mpowernow.ning.com/
It's also on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MPower/109229402448386

PTSD around the Web

Once someone told me she didn't understand why Iraq/Afghanistan veterans were having so many more problems than the WWII Greatest Generation Veterans. I said veterans of past wars had problems too, they just didn't have an acronym for it. And it's become more socially acceptable to talk about. PTSD has been around so long, there's a Greek play about it: To heal combat trauma, the military looks back 2,500 years

An interesting profile of a veteran who now works as an advocate for returning soldiers: Once branded a coward, he fights for PTSD victims. I loved this quote from the article:


"Those of us who have come home and have survived this war ... we have an obligation to help those who come home and struggle. We must help them, because if we don't ... not only are we breaking a sacred promise we've made to them, we're also dishonoring the memory of those who have not come home,"

The power of the book

I'm a librarian, so I can't go long without talking about books.

There's an feature in Publisher's Weekly called, "Why I Write." One week, it featured author Karl Marlantes, who is also a Vietnam veteran. He writes about how he was verbally attacked by a group of students and how a girlfriend left him because he was a marine. He said, "I’ve wanted to reach out to those people on the other side of the chasm who delivered the wound of misunderstanding. I wanted to be understood."

In my last post, I wrote about how civilians can cause PTSD.  I want to believe that most civilians don't realize they're inflicting these wounds of misunderstanding. They don't know they are causing more pain and damage than the shrapnel in my husband's leg.

It's not limited to civilians vs. veterans. When it comes to war, there's no shortage of misunderstanding. So much of my husband and I learning to live together again revolves around this misunderstanding. (If you speak militaryize, this is called reintegration.) Obviously, I don't understand combat. Sgt. K doesn't understand that time actually passed at home while he was gone. He doesn't understand what it was like for me to run our household by myself. He doesn't understand how scared I was.

We'll never fully understand each other. But admitting you don't understand opens your mind and heart to other points of view. I've always relied on books to show me the world and in a different way and give me comfort.  (I tried learning about the soldier's viewpoint by following Sgt. K around the apartment and asking him, "How do you feel? How do you feel?" According to him, that sort of behavior is annoying.)

So I'm going to start including book reviews in this blog because, like Marlantes, I believe books have the power to build bridges over chasms.

From the Journal of Obvious Studies

According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, deployments are stressful to spouses. Apparently, when someone you love is in danger, it can make you a tad anxious. Who knew?!

Ranger Up (via SpouseBuzz) has a good post on why this belongs in the category of no-shit-Sherlock. Perhaps in future studies, the Journal can study the nutritional value of romaine lettuce vs. deep fried Snickers bars, or the caloric output of running vs. watching Rock of Love reruns.

About a month after Sgt. K came home from Afghanistan, we were at a Yellow Ribbon reintegration event. We were suffering through a PowerPoint presentation on PTSD vs. plain-old reintegration issues. (The military sure does love that PowerPoint.) When the chaplain reached the hyper-vigilance bullet point, we both started laughing. Sgt K whispered something  like, "Honey, I think you need help." And I said, "You don't understand, man, you weren't there." The chaplain was describing me!

Before going to bed, I double-check that the doors are locked. In restaurants, I don't like sitting with my back to the door. When I drive home from work, I pay attention to whether the cars parked on my street are familiar. (But I am constantly losing my keys and cell phone.)

I later learned from a counselor that it's common for spouses of soldiers to have symptoms of PTSD. The stress is literally contagious. In my case, the hyper-vigilance started during deployment #2. My non-medical opinion is that after being in a state of fear for three years, it takes a while to come back down.

I guess the Journal's study could be helpful if it brings more attention to military family programs. But as a military wife, I don't need someone to tell me that deployments are emotionally tough. How these emotions are likely to manifest, and how to deal when they do, is far more interesting to me.

Validation

I can see why it's hard to understand why Sgt. K doesn't work. He can walk without his cane, although with a limp. He looks fine.

For one, driving scares the shit out of him. He has what's called intrusive memories, which means about once a day his mind runs through what happened the night he was wounded. He becomes really sad, upset, and sometimes angry. All of this might not be a problem if he had a supportive employer, someplace that would give him the time a space to ease into his job gradually.

The way civilians treat my husband has been a bigger source of stress than anything he experienced in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Sgt. K could have gotten his former job back under USERRA. He did so when he came back from Iraq.  Shortly after he returned, his now ex-boss asked him, "So, you're not going to come in here with an M-16 and kill everyone are you?" Not a supportive environment for someone with PTSD.

Sgt. K's first disability check came in the mail this week. It only took about eight months. When he called to let me know, it was one of those moments where I realized how cliches were cliches. I breathed a sigh of relief. If I saw Sgt. K's caseworker, I would have kissed her.

I was relieved knowing we wouldn't have to obsess about every penny we spent. We've been living off just my library paycheck, which isn't exactly huge. But I also felt validated. Somebody was saying that it was OK that Sgt. K couldn't just jump back into civilian life like nothing happened. The actual paperwork says something along the lines of, "gainful employment" is not "feasible or advisable."

I'm not going to lie, receiving a check every month is nice. But it's not about the money, it's the message it sends: "Hey, we understand your husband went through a traumatic experience. He needs time and help readjusting, and there's nothing wrong with that."

You might want to bookmark this because it is probably the last nice thing I will say about the VA in this blog.

What happened

I always can tell when people want to ask me about Sgt. K's injury. There are things they want to ask, but don't know if it's appropriate.

I don't mind answering any question (about his injury or either of his deployments). You should know, I'm going to answer, and you might not like what you hear. When Sgt. K was first deployed, I would see I was freaking people out, and alter my answers to calm their fears. I would say things like, "Yes, he's right next to Iran, but nothing ever happens there!" I'm trying break that habit because it's bad for my skin.

So if you don't want to know how Sgt. K was wounded stop reading.

So here's what happened: Last June, my husband was riding in an MRAP, which is like a Humvee on steroids. His convoy was attacked and someone shot a rocket-propelled grenade at his truck. The rocket went through his truck, through his driver, and sprayed Sgt. K's legs with shrapnel. (Yes, his driver is still alive.)

The next question I usually get is, What's shrapnel? If your squemish, skip to the next paragraph. Shrapnel is all the junk that sprayed from the explosion: dirt, bone fragments, and pieces of plastic and metal. When Sgt. K came home to me, he is leg looked like a piece of raw meat. When he flexed his foot, you could see his tendons in his shin slide back and forth.

A couple of days after it happened, another Army wife said to me, "Wow, most people don't survive attacks like that." When someone you love comes that close to the line that separates us from death, there's no describing the emotion. At times I feel shocked, scared, and angry. Someone tried to kill my husband. But most of the time I feel blessed and thankful that I didn't lose him on that road in Afghanistan.

Delaying the Dawn

In July, my husband returned to me from Afghanistan with a leg full of shrapnel and a head full of PTSD.

When Odysseus came home from the Trojan war, the goddess Athena stretched out the night to give Odysseus and Penelope time. Yes, time for them to get it on, but the wise Athena knew that after living separate lives for so long, Penelope and Odysseus would need time to get used to being married again. She knew that Odysseus would need time to readjust to being home without those pesky Ithacans looking at him all concerned and constantly asking him, Have you gone back to work yet? You can bet the first question his father asked him was, What are you doing with your time, son? Athena knew he needed time to heal.

When Sgt. K was deployed, there were a crapload of blogs I could go to find someone else going through the same things I was. But when it comes to what happens afterward, the Internet is silent. (Unless, there's some great blog I missed. If so, link to it in the comments.) I don't know why other people don't talk about it, but I know why I don't: Because of those news stories that come up every once in a while about a veteran shooting is wife. Because of that episode of Grey's Anatomy where the returned Iraq vet starts choking his girlfriend in his sleep. Because of that movie preview where Toby Maguire is doing his crazy face and and waving a gun around. Because the only way I know how to fight these stereotypes is to show that Sgt. K. and I are OK.

Pretending like we're all Stepford-like happy isn't really the truth either. Making the decision to blog about it is scary, but I don't think keeping quiet is doing anyone any good. So if nobody else wants to start talking about it, I will.