I remember

I have been told, repeatedly, that I should write my story.  I'm not sure how.  But tonight I did write for a bit.  I was reminiscing today and reading the correspondence my Mom saved while I was gone.  I remembered a few things, little memories that I don't want to loose.  So I wrote tonight.  Here's what I wrote:

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I remember our first nights in Baghdad.  We slept on the roof of our building on the edge of the Tigris river.  The sky would darken and the air would cool ever so slightly.  I would sit on my cot and slowly smoke a last cigarette of the night, always my favorite smoke of the day.  I would look over the oily black sheen of the river to city across from me.  I could here the guns in the streets.  Knowing other soldiers were out there fighting for their lives, just to get through another night.  I could see fires from bombing burn late in to the night.  I remember finishing that last cigarette and finding an absurd calm in the midst of the fighting around me.  I would lay down pulling a single cover over myself and drift off to the sounds of guns in the distance, hoping that no rounds would stray our way and that I would wake up in the morning.  

I remember an old man with a tray of bread.  He was rather small and frail, he wore a dishdasha.  And he didn’t just carry his tray of bread, he had a tray of neatly stacked rings of bread, each precisely laid on top of the next.  He kept this tray balanced on his head.  He didn’t say much, we knew the deal as well as he did.  We would pull out a few dinar and flag him down.  He would stoop, we would take a few rings of bread gently off the top of the stack.  He would pocket the dinar, thank us repeatedly and continue on his way down the street with a tray of bread rings balanced on his head so carefully.  

I remember the mortars.  At first they were terrifying.  I could taste the burnt powder and chemicals left in the air as they went over.  We would all seek cover, waiting in silence for an all clear.  Quickly the mortars became nothing but a nuisance.  We knew they would come, twice a night, and they would miss us again.  I would stay up a little longer, smoke one more cigarette, waiting for the first rounds of the night.  Then I would go to bed, it wouldn’t take long before I started sleeping through them.  

I remember the kids at the orphanages.  They damn near rioted when they saw us.  They knew we had presents for them.  Paper, pencils, pens, and candy; not wanted by the soldiers.  Nothing but leftovers and garbage to us was pure treasure to these kids.  They would crowd the trucks, wanting to touch us and our gear.  Admiring our radios, guns, and pockets.  Little hands reaching out to touch and grab at our gear.  My logic know they were just curious excited kids, but my adrenaline would pump, I would brush them off.  I would try to smile and be nice as I pushed them away.  I remember one particular orphanage the boys were aggressive to see us and talk to us.  The girls stayed to the back.  The kids got too riled up and we decided it was safer if we just left.  As we pulled out of the compound the boys began throwing rocks at me and laughing.  I remember looking past them and seeing several girls standing in the barred windows of an old concrete building.  Like small dirty faces from a prison window; their hands gripped the bars, as they watched us go.  They looked so scared and so sad.  I can’t imagine the fate of a young girl orphaned in a country like Iraq.  

I remember sitting out back of our building in the hot sun.  I would put on head phones and turn up the music as I cleaned my weapons.  I remember the smell of the gun oil and the feel of the metal in my hands as I wiped the dirt and grim of the city streets away.  Piece by piece I would pull my weapon apart, examine it, clean it, take a long slow drag of my cigarette.  It was like mediation, it was time inside myself, inside the quiet.  I would finish cleaning my weapons, reassemble them, check to make sure I had done it right, and check again.  I remember setting my weapon in my lap, folding my hands over it, taking another long slow drag of my cigarette, that now tasted like the gun oil on my hands.  I would close my eyes, tilt my head back and just soak in the heat, the quiet, and the calm of that short moment in time.   

More back story

I guess that there is still some more back story... After I got home from Iraq I began to struggle with some major depression issues.  For about two years (maybe more) I didn't leave my house, I didn't eat or shower or sleep.  I was never really suicidal, but there were may days I wished for a major accident to end it for me.  I flunked out of college.  I struggle with pain in my shoulder, my doctors told me that if it hurts don't do it.  So I stopped living life, I grew up doing sports, but I was afraid to do anything that would cause me physical pain, and my anxiety kept me trapped in the house.  After about 5 years I hit a point where I had to have shoulder surgery, the nature of the joint separation I had makes it only get worse with time.  In October 2009 I quit my job, had shoulder surgery, and shortly after moved to a new town to start college again at a new university. 

After my shoulder surgery I was still cautious about using my body, afraid to cause myself any more pain.  I started dating an amazing man, Pryor, who is active and was on his own journey to be stronger, leaner, and all around healthier.  I wanted to keep up with him.  I was beginning to see how much of life I was avoiding and how sick and out of shape I was.  I tried a variety of things: going back to Aikido, swimming laps, going to the gym on campus, changing my diet.  None of it was quite doing what I wanted, I was bored at the gym and needed something different.  After some searching and listening to a friend of mine talk about CrossFit, I thought what the hell, I'll try that. 

It actually took a couple of months to conquer my anxiety of going to a new place, putting myself out there, and joining a new gym.  I finally got the courage to go to Alternative Athletics.  It's a CrossFit gym.  CrossFit focuses on functional fitness, instead of isolating muscles and hours of cardio, we use our whole body and do shorter high intensity workouts.  It is definitely intense.  We also focus on community, we are not just a gym, but a family (actually CrossFit gets accused of being "cult" like, we're so tight)  At Alternative Athletics they do a free workout to see what it's like.  The Newbie Shuffle is a 10 minute workout of rowing, box jumps, and wall balls.  I could not finish a 10 minute workout.... Katie stopped me about minute 6 because I felt like I was going to blackout...  It was awful and embarrassing.  I was the skinny fat kid, I look fine from the outside, but I was in awful dangerous bad shape, I ate terribly and was quite sedentary. 

At first I was embarrassed and thought of never going back to that gym.  But I realized that I couldn't do that, I had to change.  I had to face the fin and learn to live again.  I've now been crossfitting for about 8 months.  I love it, I hate any day that I don't get to the gym.  I love feeling stronger, every workout is a challenge.  I've met so many great people.  It has helped give me confidence in all aspects of my life.  I am coping better with my anxiety and have been able to get off all of my prescription medications (except a sleep aid, but I cut way down on the dose of that).  I also started Olympic lifting.  It's super technical, which my analytical brain loves.  I've only began to get strong and healthy again, but I want more.

Back story

Me getting geared up for a mission - 2004

First my goal is to talk about my life as veteran and as a (kind of) athlete.  I do tend to ramble and get off subject, or periodically jump on my soap box about something, but this is my life, my story, and my passions.

So I mentioned in the first post that I had PTSD, guess a lot of my story starts there.  In March 2003 I was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  I was stationed in Baghdad, Iraq from May 2003 until May 2004.  I know I didn't have the hardest tour in the world, but it definitely was not an easy year.  I turned 19 years old sitting in Kuwait, waiting for orders to go to Iraq as a part of the 143d Military Police Detachment.  We were a Law and Order unit, trained specifically for state side garrison work.  I enlisted July 2001, as in before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  I joined the Montana National Guard to serve my country, but mostly to support my state.  I planned on years of helping with summer forrest fires and spring floods.  Never did I imagine my ass would land in combat...

I ended up working the year as a M249 humvee gunner.  Basically my job was to be the eyes and ears of the convoy.  Our detachment ran in two and three truck convoys, our main mission was to help re-build the Baghdad police department.  We were outside of the wire nearly everyday, running around town to meetings and police stations.  Our detachment had many close calls, and had a few of our own injured.  I had several friends critically wounded throughout the year, every time it tore my apart.  Our battalion had suffered one combat related death, SPC Michelle Witmer.  I didn't know her, but I knew her two sisters who were also serving in Iraq at the same time.  Michelle was the same age and rank as me, from a small town like me, and working as a gunner the night she was killed.  Her death shook my to my core.  I will never forget the day we learned about it, or her memorial service, or her family.  

During the last few weeks of our tour my squad finally ran out of luck and was hit an IED.  We were coming back from the Baghdad International Airport to our camp along the famous IED Alley, Route Irish when it happened.  I don't remember a hole lot.  But I remember looking at my hands to see if they were still there, I remember not wanting to look down into the truck below me, afraid of what might have happened.  But we got lucky, no major injuries (which I attribute to the up armored trucks we had just got)  We had some truck damage and flat tires.  The gunner in the second truck, Jensen, sustained some cuts from shrapnel.  As we got out of that situation, I knew something was wrong with me, but wasn't sure what.  As the adrenaline wore off my shoulder started to hurt, bad.  My forearm and thumb would not stop spasming.  After a few days of obnoxious muscle spasms my hand just went numb.  I stayed and finished the last few weeks of our tour.  It wasn't until I was home (and still with a lot of pain in my arm and no feeling in my hand) that I learned I had separated my shoulder and crushed the nerves in my shoulder, elbow and wrist.  Years later I also learned that I must have suffered a concussion that day too, as I struggle with cognitive issues and chronic migraines from a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  I also suffer from PTSD as a result of many situations I faced that year.  I have struggled with severe depression and anxiety, as well as a host of other problems.  As a result of that day I was awarded the Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge.

Well, that's enough for now... it's kind of the ground work for the rest of my story.