Wounded warriors are important... and their families, too.

Today I want to talk about something very important, something very near and dear to me. First, though, I want you to read this great article from The Huffington Post. Click here. It's three pages of easy reading, and will enlighten you to a side of something most people never think about.

See, this war has a lot of injured troops. We have great military trauma surgeons, and much love to all my medic friends, because they do amazing stuff on the battlefield that was totally inconceivable a generation ago. Most of our wounded warriors of today probably would have died of their injuries in, say, Vietnam, but today, we have such amazing techniques to stabilize them and get them to Germany or the US for treatment in a top of the line hospital, that a lot of troops survive some pretty catastrophic injuries.

This is a double edged sword. It is always great when a soldier comes home, but our wounded warriors face a long road after they get here. What's more, their families do, too. Nobody ever thinks about that, but it's true. Next time you see a combat wounded veteran, look beside him or her, and you will probably see either a wife, or a husband, or a parent, who has pretty much devoted their life, at least for a while, to caring for that veteran. It's true. What's more, most of the time, it's a wife, and most of the time, she's under 30. We're not talking about older people here, people you would expect to see as caregivers for an incapacitated spouse. We're talking about people you would expect to see in grad school, or at a street festival, living it up.

I have watched friends go through this. A girl I know from Ft. Stewart, whose husband was in my friend D's unit, nearly lost her husband to an IED explosion. When this happened, she went right to Brook Army Medical Center, where she stayed at her husband's side for six months while he went through surgery after surgery, trying to repair the damage from the blast. Their story is a good one, comparatively speaking. The surgeons managed to save both his legs, and he can even walk. He can't function as an Infantryman anymore, though, so he was medically retired from the Army. He went to school, and has found employment, although it isn't that steady. They mostly live on his pension, which is about half his Active Duty salary. Most notably, she has never been the same since this experience. It's easy to see, it's a really big deal to get your husband back in pieces, even if they do manage to put him back together again reasonably well. Of course, this goes double for those whose husbands don't ever recover to a degree to be able to function in society without significant accommodations.

Don't get me wrong. If it were a choice between getting Thak back from war in a box, or alive but not quite ok, I'd choose to have him back alive. At least then there's a chance he can get better, and I love me some Thak, so I'd take every chance to keep him around as long as quality of life would be good (This is in accordance with his wishes, which I have had in writing for years.) If he's dead, well, there is no possible good outcome for that, and trust me, I've seen my share of death in my ten years of military affiliation. I have gone to Alabama with a couple other wives and helped pick out a burial plot for a soldier whose wife simply could not stand to do it (I don't blame her a bit!). I have watched a pregnant 20-year-old widow bury her husband. I have watched the casualty notification officer do his job more times than I care to recount. I have watched Ft. Stewart's Warriors' Walk grow from a line of a few trees, to a forest. And if you want to know the real reason me and the boys went to the Westboro protest earlier this week, it's because those bastards showed up to the funeral of one of my favorite NCO's last year, and I will never forgive them for that. Death is shit, especially when it involves people who should have had most of their lives ahead of them. It is shit for the families who had nothing but great expectations. It is especially shit for the children who will never know their fathers. When a soldier dies, nobody wins.

Even this is a double edged sword, though. The families who have lost their soldier can eventually move on. That girl who was the pregnant 20-year-old widow is now 24 years old, and just picked out her wedding dress last week. She is engaged to a medic, and could not be happier. In fact, nearly every widow I know has remarried, and is living a pretty good life today in spite of what they went through years ago. It is always a terrible thing when a soldier dies, but eventually, even if it is years and years later, those families generally do find some degree of closure. The same cannot be said for the families of wounded warriors. Their struggle goes on for as long as they live. I am in no way saying those troops would be better off dead. This is just the fact of the matter.

The families of wounded soldiers face a unique challenge that we don't hear about much, but everyone needs to be aware of. It is not something that goes away, even once the troop in question looks like he/she is doing ok. There will always be good days and bad days. The person they sent off to war is not the same as the person they got back. How would you react if your spouse was all of a sudden completely different than the person they were when you married them, and the world expected you to just be cool with that? Think about it.

Parallel to this, is the story you hear about even less, because these wounded warriors don't always even have Purple Heart medals to show for it. These are the ones with invisible injuries. I am the wife of a soldier with PTSD and chronic migraines due to burn pit exposure. I am, by military standards, one of the lucky ones. Thak has not beaten the crap out of me. He doesn't use drugs or drink excessively. He's not too sick to function, and now that he's no longer Active Duty, he is well able to hold a job, and win the favor of his employer since the one thing that never did change about him is his work ethic. We have it better than a lot of people, no doubt. Of course, that doesn't mean that it has been simple. I have heard things come out of my formerly sweet husband's mouth that I could not have imagined he would ever say when we got together 8 years ago. He was standoffish and sullen for years after coming home from his 3rd tour, and living in a place that looks exactly like Iraq surely doesn't help (In fact, his PTSD symptoms did not appear until we moved here).

I can tell you, even though we have it worlds better than a lot of people, this isn't something that goes away. Thak is a lot better than he was, but the man I married is never coming back. No, that man died in a mortar attack in Iskandriya in 2007, and this one came home in his place. They look identical, but they are not. Occasionally, there is a small glimpse of the old Thak, but it never lasts long. My best advice to wives whose husbands have PTSD is that you really do have to learn to love the new guy. In a lot of cases, he's not so bad. There are things about new Thak that I like better than old Thak. New Thak is more assertive, more decisive. Old Thak was chronically wishy washy for fear of upsetting me. New Thak, on the other hand, knows what the hell he wants, and does not hesitate to tell you about it. Of course, new Thak is also impulsive, and has an awful temper. You learn to work around these things. It's best to focus on the good, though, and to know that it gets better as the years go by. Maybe it's just because we get more used to it, or maybe they really do improve, but whatever it is, it does get easier, so if you're just now beginning your PTSD journey, keep your head up. If I can do this, anybody can.

I know the nation is sick of the war. We're sick of it, too. If you even read the comments on that Huffington Post article I linked above, you'll see that every single time anything is mentioned about the troops, even if it's just about them as people, as this was, it turns into people talking about how sick they are of the war. Yes, we know. We agree. The fact is, though, the war will never end for us, or for the thousands and thousands of other wounded warriors and their families, especially those with severe injuries (whether visible or invisible). The war lives with us. It's the elephant in the room. Society will probably forget eventually, just as they have with every other generation of veterans, but maybe don't be so quick to. Remember wounded warriors, and remember their families! I am one of the lucky ones, who does not need help from the government which sent my husband to war (three times in rapid succession, just for the record), but there are many who do need help, and it is all of our responsibilities as Americans to insure that they get it. Vote for candidates who will do a lot for wounded warriors and families. If your local VA is notorious for problems, write your congressman about it. Even really simple things help. Don't judge wives who are having a hard time with the fact that their husbands are not who they once were. That last one goes double for other military wives, who tend to be so quick to throw a wounded warrior wife's vows in her face when she's just plain had enough, and honestly just needs a little bit of support and distraction from it all. This is something everyone can do, though. Consider wounded warriors and their families. This is a real issue that matters a lot. We all have to do what we can.