When Kevin Coaxum returned to Colorado after fighting the war in Iraq, his wife and parents gave him a fish tank. They hoped staring at fish would help him relax.
“They were worried about me,” said the recently retired Special Forces sergeant. “They said I sounded different.”
Coaxum was different. Psychologically, he was wrapped tighter than a vacuum- packed MRE. He spun his head quickly to confront anyone who got within 10 feet of him. He dreamed of gunfire vivid enough to wake him in the night, believing it was real. Surrounded by an understanding and nurturing family, the Green Beret still took six months to feel safe and act normal.
Coaxum is one of the lucky ones. Studies show that one in three veterans leaves Iraq with some psychic scars.
“What we’re seeing from Iraq is an immediate, pervasive sense of danger,” said Larry Wahlberg, the psychologist who runs the Veterans Affairs post-traumatic stress clinic in Denver. “We call it hyper- arousal.”
Last week, police in Massachusetts arrested this country’s Marine of the Year, who is also an Iraq war vet. The cops say he fired a shotgun into a noisy street crowd last Saturday night, wounding two. According to the Associated Press, the Marine told authorities that “he feared for the safety of his family because someone threw an empty juice bottle through his bedroom window.”
That tragedy followed closely a Colorado murder-suicide in which a Fort Carson soldier killed his wife and then himself after returning from Iraq.
The Colorado murder-suicide came a day after a 20-year-old Iraq war vet in Las Vegas allegedly took an assault rifle on a beer run and shot to death a 47-year-old woman who the soldier claimed ambushed him.
“This is not a joke,” said a 24-year Army veteran undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress after serving in Iraq. “The heightened state of awareness (in Iraq), the threat levels, that does try a mind. It’s not a switch you can turn off.”
Certainly not without time and help, said Pam Staves, a nurse practitioner who runs VA outpatient group therapy for returning Iraq vets.
“When you’re on guard for a full year, the body and brain adjust,” she said.
In Iraq, you are on guard almost 24/7, say those who have served there.
“You’re basically surrounded by the enemy,” Coaxum said. “You just don’t know when they’re going to hit.”
Added Michael Lemke, a National Guard military policeman being treated for post-traumatic stress: “We saw children hurt. We hurt children. Children were sometimes the enemy.”
Iraq is “a continuous war, not a linear war where there’s a battlefield and support behind the lines,” said Capt. Brad McClure, who just spent a year running a combat-stress response team in Iraq.
That may explain why a recent U.S. surgeon general’s report found that truck drivers and troops guarding convoys develop mental-health problems faster than many combat units.
Even with combat training, this war works on heads every bit as hard as it does on bodies. Casualties in Iraq may not compare with Vietnam or the world wars. Stress levels do.
“They have improvised explosive devices disguised as rocks,” Coaxum said. “You can get blown up by an IED or picked off by a farmer behind a hill or some some guy strapped with C-4 (explosive) walks up and detonates himself.”
That’s a recipe for hyperarousal. Unfortunately, what saves you on the battlefield can destroy you at home.
Returning vets, Wahlberg and Staves said, can look for symptoms that include sleeplessness, irritability, anger and emotional numbness.
Learning to relax and cope is critical, Staves said, echoing therapists and other vets who have “been there, done that and are doing OK.”
You’re not crazy, she emphasized. More important, you’re not alone.
For information on stress management, Iraq war vets may call 303-393-2835.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
