Here is some food for thought: You never know what crazy, random occurrence might happen which could ignite a “flashback” in someone who has bona fide PTSD…

Yesterday I was sitting on my laptop and I get a call from my husband. He says, “I’m coming home now”...well that’s earlier than expected. "Why cut it short today?" But he sounded pretty-shaken up, and I’m just not used to hearing him sound so vulnerable, and I thought he might have just finished hyperventilating....so then I got real concerned! Well it just so happened that he was driving through a school-zone in the afternoon, in Louisville. Traffic was stopped at a crosswalk as children were leaving for the day. The light was green, but there was a policeman that was acting as a ‘crossing-guard’, directing vehicles so the children could “safely” cross the street, etc. Problem is, the policeman wasn't holding a sign, or anything, like you know...a big red STOP sign! Of course the lights just kept going through the cycle.  Somehow, drivers are supposed to see the police-man’s hand with a fluorescent-green glove on it, and be able to read the tiny little stop-sign on his palm! It's a 4 lane street, mind you.  

Sure enough, an old man came cruising along, because the light was green you see.  At the same time, the policeman had just gestured to the children to come across the walk.  Andy noticed a little boy glancing up at the police-officer with an uneasy look on his face, like he didn't trust the situation. But the officer insisted it was safe, and told the kids to move forward. And of course, he being the authority, the kids just did what they were told.  Did the old man notice the little children heading across the street? Of course not.... Not until he was about a hair’s length away from running a small child over with his car, squishing him flat! The kid jumped back far enough, just in the nick-of-time, for the old man to skid to a halt without punting the kid 30 feet up in the air. The child looked to be about 7 yrs old and was pretty small. He lost his balance and fell to the ground when he abruptly moved back, so there is probably some scrapes he'll have to deal with, but what's worse is the fear the poor kid went through. Then there was Andy, sitting in his truck at the cross walk, watching the whole time. The abruptness of the commotion going on at that moment brought on a rash emotions that started to overwhelm him, and put him in a very uncomfortable place.

Now, I would have been a little jumpy after seeing something like that, but my emotions would have dissipated quickly, and I would have moved on with my day. 

That’s because I don’t have any traumatic experiences from my past which I might (subconsciously) associate to that event. I would not have encountered the same physiological triggers that Andy indelibly had, because my experiences were nothing like his, I don't have the imprints of a war on my mind. When I asked him what was going through his mind when he realized that he was having a "flashback", he said that he must have just panicked at the thought of that little boy being hit, because suddenly he felt helpless, sitting there about to watch a child lose his life. It reminded him of the impending doom that so many innocent people fell collateral to while he was in a war zone. He started seeing the faces of the children in Iraq that had been hurt, or killed, by explosives: mortars, roadside bombs, etc. It was that same emptiness, that same pit in the bottom of his stomach that he had when he saw something that was happening right before his eyes, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was unable to stop it, like his hands were tied behind his back. And it all came to him in a split second. A wave of anger overwhelmed him because he couldn't change the sequence of events. He wasn't able to control the situation in any way, so not only did he feel sick, he felt worthless. The images of the children he had seen in Iraq who were blown up by mortars and roadside bombs just flipped through his mind instantaneously, like flipping through a deck of cards. He remembered picking up their wounded, sometimes lifeless, bodies and transporting them back to the hospital. His Stryker quickly went from a fighting vehicle to an ambulance. Even though he was an infantryman, he had to play the role of ambulance driver. 'Oh man, I don't want to have to get out of this truck and see another dead child.' There is nothing that disturbs him more than seeing that. It's hard to imagine how all of these thoughts can come on to someone in a matter of seconds, but the mind (as they say) is a mysterious thing.

So it’s been, what, 5 or 6 years since he’s been to a war zone, yet he still gets thrown back into it from time to time.  It could be a sound, a smell, an image; any sensory mechanism can trigger a flashback. Seeing a child in the face of danger is a major trigger for him. He is a prisoner of circumstance.  

I’m going to assume that a halfway intelligent person can conceive there are many different jobs within the military, and not every job exposes the service-member to life-threatening elements. I also assume that the average person can conclude that not everyone who goes to war comes out with PTSD. The vast majority do not. The reason for this is not known, as there are many factors at-hand. One being that there is as stigma placed on soldiers who recognize PTSD and seek help for it. So many will never admit they have it; they'll just live miserably. Everybody's experiences are just as individual as the person.  

Andy is in no way the “stereotypical” war vet that society has pegged: like the guy who ‘freaks out’ and breaks things, or grabs a bottle of whiskey to drown his anxieties. All of that’s a crock!  I admit that Andy’s biggest advantage is having a wife that understands PTSD as well as I do, and that I encourage him to discuss it. Many have no one to talk to.

A very generalized criteria for diagnosis of PTSD......

Sethanne Howard and Mark W. Crandall, MD 

US Naval Observatory, retired, Wash. DC 

Reisterstown, Maryland

There are six criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. (1) The person goes through or sees something that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury. The person responds to this with intense fear, helplessness or horror. (2) The person then relives this traumatic event through dreams, or recollections. He or she can behave as if the trauma is actually happening right then, and can react strongly to events that even resemble the original trauma. (3) The person tries desperately to avoid this, and to avoid anything associated with the trauma, in fact, may not even remember the trauma yet still react strongly to certain stimuli. (4) The person often has difficulty sleeping and concentrating. He or she may be hyper-vigilant. All this lasts longer than (5) a month and causes (6) significant distress in daily life.