Battle of the Mind: The Invisible Wounds of War – Transcript

00:00 – Introduction

full episode

Brent: Good time period, Bracketeers. Today, we’re coming at you with a special episode. Joining us today is David Spencer. David Spencer is a Bracketeer. That’s right.

David: I am a Bracketeer. Been listening to you since you started.

Brent: Excellent. an honest-to-God listener here on the show.

David: Shazam.

Brent: Taken from in the wild, drug into captivity with tranquilizer darts, here to show you that such a thing does exist.

David: I am real.

Brent: For scientific research and whatnot.

David: You can’t judge myself, I am real.

Brent: Yeah, I mean, we’ve had people track down Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster and Bracketeer listeners and pow.

David: It’s amazing.

Brent: It came up. Anyway, so David is also a third-generation veteran.

David: I am.

Brent: He enlisted in the United States Army in 1981. He retired with the rank of Sergeant Major.

David: 2016.

Brent: 2016. Now for those of you who’ve had the good fortune of not being in the military, a Sergeant Major is the big cranky boss that even the officers try not to cross. So…

David:  That’s the guy that tells you to get off the grass.

Brent: Put the cranky, put Sergeant Major face on for us.

David: Get off my grass.

Brent: There you go. There you go. And then David has deployed four different times.

David: Four different operations.

Brent: Four different operations, combat, battles, other operations, which we will get into. And today we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about combat. We’re going to talk about stress. We’re going to talk about PTSD. Now I have a disclaimer for you, my Bracketeers. So, neither David or I are doctors or therapists. What follows is a conversation between two vets describing their experiences. Nothing we say should be construed as medical advice.

David: Amen.

Brent: We’re trying to correct the plague of dumb podcast bros talking like they know everything about everything.

David: In other words, don’t do as we say.

Brent: Yeah, don’t do as we did either. Maybe not, I don’t know. Anyway, so we’re gonna get started.

Announcer: This is Full Mental Bracket.

Brent: So, David, tell us a little bit, a quick overview of your career. What all did you do?

David: Oh, Lord, okay. Enlisted in 1981, went to field artillery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, of all places, in fire direction control.

Brent: All right, so the field artillery is when they launch the guns and the bullets arc over a long distance and come crashing down.

David: Actually, I was in eight-inch howitzers, self-propelled, so I think they can shoot out to about 16 miles.

Brent: So similar to like a fireworks display, but instead of exploding in the air, they come back down and explode on people’s heads.

David: They do. Explode. Take up a whole grid square up the grid square is basically a thousand square meters, but anyway.

Brent: If you played the old combat game of the two tanks and the bullets would arc that’s kind of what you guys were doing you’re plotting the velocity and the direction and all that stuff.

David: With the angle and Deflection okay, and it’s after a long time, but I spent about four years in field artillery went to Fort Hood, Texas and Sitting out there in the field one day. It was hot for you know Fort Hood, Texas ain’t nothing out there, but sand and dirt and okay scorpions and I see these Black Hawk helicopters, brand new ones flying over. I said, why can’t I do that? Why am I out here in the mud and the blood, in the field artillery? I have enough sense to get up in one of them helicopters.

Brent: Why do I feel like this is foreshadowing?

David: It was.

Brent: Okay.

David: So I went back and retested for my, retested and I come out that I could become an air traffic controller. So I became an air traffic controller.

Brent: Nice.

David: And worked my way up. Over time, went to, oh my gosh, ATC school and went, and Keesler, Keesler Air Force Base. Went to an Air Force.

Brent: And Keesler is where?

David: In Mississippi.

Brent: Mississippi, okay.

David: Down on the beautiful Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

Brent: All right.

David: In God’s country.

Brent: God’s country.

David: Yes.

Brent: If you’ve been to Mississippi, the jury might still be out, but we’re going to take your word for it.

David: Don’t blink. Okay. All right. Then I ended up in Fort Campbell, Kentucky for about six years and then ended up back in Mississippi at the Mississippi National Guard as an active guard. Active Guard Reservist, AGR.

Brent: And now since you’ve retired, you’re actually helping vets, you’re helping reservists find their benefits?

David: I work for, I’m a federal contractor, I work for Reserve Components Transition Assistance Advisor. What I do is helping veterans figure out what their benefits are and how to find them and how to get them.

Brent: Because navigating the VA can be like a labyrinth, and you need a guide.

David: Just trying to figure out where you’re at in the VA.

Brent: That’s true. That’s true.

David: Just getting my starting point, and I think that’s the hardest thing for young people, just to know where to start at.

Brent: Yeah, honestly, yeah. That was the thing. I got a letter from the VA, hey, you got college benefits. I’m like, yeah, I don’t even know what to do with that.

David: And that’s a lot of the problems that these young people have, these benefits, and they just sit on them and don’t realize there’s money in their pocket, really.

Brent: Fortunately, I had someone in my corner, Camille, who’s been on a few episodes by now, and she’s like, hey, what about that letter? I’m like, what about it? She’s like, get off the couch and go get your schooling gone. I’m like, all right, all right, I’m on it. I’m on it.

David: And I’m glad you listened to her.

Brent: I did. All right, so let’s talk about, let’s talk a little bit. So in all that travel and all that is deployments and stuff. I think people don’t have a good idea on the amount of stress is involved.

David: You have the stress. I mean, you have not just the stress of being in the military and completing your mission, you have the stress at home.

Brent: That’s true. Very true.

David: Because when you deploy or you go off on these missions, you’re not gone for just a couple of days and you come back, you’re gone for months and months and months.

Brent: Yeah.

David: So you leave your wife or your spouse and your children at home. with broken cars, broken stoves, you know, you get all that stress just built up on top.

Brent: But you know, you got top of scale pay to really take care of them.

David: Yeah, right.

Brent: No Bracketeers. You’re poor, you’re broke, you’re alone, you’re separated, you’re dealing with rough conditions, and you’re worried about your family, and you’re worried about your troops, and you’re worried about yourself, and there’s just plenty of worry to go around.

David: And just not enough money to go around. And of course, I served during the Reagan years in the 80s, and we got to watch the our pay raises is pretty annually.

Brent: That was good.

David: So till we got to about 2000, then that changed again. But we have been taken care of here lately.

Brent: I was in a period where I know it’s hard to believe people out there, but somehow our government officials got in some sort of grumpy match, and they shut down the government, and we weren’t getting paid. And I felt really positive about my elected officials. Thank you so much for that, as if my life wasn’t difficult enough. Thank you.

David: I just don’t know how they figured to do that.

Brent: I don’t know. They’re just good like that, I guess.

David: Well, the good thing about me and you, Brent, that we both served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm together.

Brent: That’s correct. Well, together is a long thing because it was a big area.

David: It was a big area. You were on one side of Saudi Arabia and I was on the other side.

Brent: But we were in the same place, roughly the same place at the same time.

David: We was breathing the same sand.

Brent: Yes. Quite a bit of it. Quite a bit of it.

David: And taking our showers out there where there were no showers.

Brent: Oh yeah, we should probably tell people about that.

David: That’s a different type of stress.

Brent: That’s a different, yeah. So I flew in, just long story short, the unit, my unit, I was assigned to, got there ahead of me. I was just getting out of school. I had to get some things straightened out. I showed up, they hauled me out into the sand, and I was like this very rustic city. There was like, what do we say, MoGas, diesel-powered showers. The shower had like this little gasoline heater.

David: Immersion heaters.

Brent: Immersion heater. It was a plywood shower, and then there was an outhouse. It was like a four-seat outhouse on a piece of plywood. No separations between the seats. You sat down, and someone sat down right next to you.

David: Someone pass the newspaper please.

Brent: Their butt cheek rubbing up against your butt cheek, and you’re like, I don’t get paid enough for this.

David: But you gotta go, you gotta go.

Brent: And I was traumatized. I’m like, this is so rustic. Then they sent me to my unit. That was actually headquarters. That was luxury. No one broke it to me that I was living in luxury. I’m like, oh my gosh, I have fallen as far as I could. That was not, we need Morgan Freeman. That did not turn out to be the case.

David: It was not the case.

Brent: It was not the case. They took me out to my unit and they didn’t even have toilets. They just, they handed me a shovel and they like, you got to go a hundred yards that way. And I dug a hole and everyone was looking at me like, Hey, how’s it coming out? I’m like, yeah, thanks buddy. Privacy was not a thing. This is a pretty early episode to get really kind of TMI, but you signed up for it here. I told you it was going to be a special episode. I just didn’t tell you what kind of special it was going to be.

David: Didn’t tell you how special I was.

Brent: Didn’t tell you how special it was going to be. So the point I’m trying to make here is that There’s all different types of stress involved in the military, even when you’re not doing combat stuff. Just the basic stuff is highly stressful, and it’s hard to deal with. And I was looking it up, getting ready for this episode, and according to recent statistics, 7% of living Americans, people who live in this country, who are currently drawing breath, only 7% of those people have actually served in the military.

David: That’s amazing.

Brent: 93% of the people out there have no idea what we’re talking about. Playing Call of Duty or watching a movie is as close as they’ve ever gotten.

David: Some movies ain’t even close.

Brent: Right. So we’re not here to look down on anyone or shame anyone, but we’re trying to explain this because maybe people don’t fully understand because they haven’t been there.

David: If you don’t know, ask somebody.

Brent: Yes. Yes. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about today is to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

David: PTSD.

Brent: Once again, neither David or I are therapists. We’re not doctors talking to you about it. But we have a lot of experience. We have a lot of practice and experience with this sort of stuff, and we kind of decided to describe it from the bottom up.

David: You know, we were talking last week, we’re talking about the different levels and where some starts. There’s several different types of PTSD, post-traumatic stress. One’s secondary, and then your primary is just what you deal with on a day-to-day basis. So secondary can be anything, anywhere, any stressful situation that you might have witnessed, in your past growing up or something like that on primary is something that you actually witnessed.

Brent: Right.

David: It’s a part of.

Brent: Yeah. I came across the idea and maybe we’re saying the same thing that secondary, secondary is kind of actually putting up with someone else who has PTSD.

David: It is.

Brent: Kind of like a splash damage.

David: It is. It’s like a splash. That’s how I would go from there. But yes, it is. We’ll use my father for example. He was very, very stern. He was a military man and he was very stern and very hard. And you walked on eggshells when he come into the house. So, because you just didn’t know what kind of mood he was going to be in. So, you suffer from some type of post-traumatic stress from there. Thawed.

Brent: Just walking on eggshells.

David: Walking on eggshells.

Brent: Yeah.

David: Because you never know when you’re going to get called out.

Brent: That’s right.

David: So that’s stressful. Very stressful.

Brent: And so a point that comes up is like, you know, sometimes that might seem like we’re just splitting hairs between the secondary PTSD and the primary PTSD, but something that I’ve come across, and I re-researched it to make sure I wasn’t making it up, but there is research that implies that people that have been exposed to secondary PTSD, especially childhood trauma, they are more susceptible to actual PTSD later. All of us could be going to the same stressful event, and a couple of us had horrible childhoods, and we crack, and other people don’t. They’re like, I don’t know what your problem is.

David: They just hadn’t been down the same street.

Brent: We’ve had my parents, but you don’t. I mean, not necessarily my parents, but I mean, if you’ve been where I’ve been, you know what I’m saying.

David: You know, each level is different now. You know, we’ll take first responders. They don’t never, they may, they see things and witness things and participate in things that I don’t. I, as a soldier, don’t, sometimes don’t understand how they can do it. But then again, they say the same thing about us. You know, you’re going into combat, getting shot at, and this, that, and the other. How do you do it? And to me, it’s kind of the same thing. But you end up with, the stress is so prevalent and so obvious sometimes that, you know, there’s things that trigger your post-traumatic stress. I mean, when I talk about post-traumatic stress, some of the symptoms are, you know, you get a little anxious or you get a little withdrawn or some people have temper tantrums or they go into a seven-day drunk or something like that. There’s so many different symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Anger is really a huge one. Now, people are very angry to have post-traumatic stress, but it’s a condition that you just have to work through and try to figure out what those triggers are.

Brent: Right.

David: And so you can maintain some type of stability in your life.

Brent: Yeah, I totally agree. Let’s, let’s take a moment and define PTSD because, you know, I was talking to David earlier. I was like, you know, I throw that term around, Hey, I’ve got PTSD from this meeting, or I got PTSD from too many podcasts. And it was kind of, it was kind of a joke, but sometimes you don’t actually think about what it means. I have a definition. I’ll throw mine off. And then you throw yours off.

David: I got mine from the Mayo clinic.

Brent: I got mine from the American Psychological Institution.

David: We’re going to be really important.

Brent: Yeah, we’re going to be twice the brains for the same price.

David: That’s it.

Brent: Settle in, Bracketeers. This is going to be good. So PTSD is defined as a type of psychological and physical distress that happens as a result of living through threats to life, limb, and safety, or witnessing threats to life, limb, and safety. It can inspire feelings of fear, terror, and helplessness. Symptoms involve re-experiencing trauma and painful recollections, painful flashbacks, painful daydreams and nightmares, avoidance of places and activities that recall the original trauma. Diminishing emotional responsiveness, numbing out, zoning out, critical psychological arousal, always on edge, you’re hypersensitive, exaggerated startle response, disturbed sleep, difficulty in concentrating, Those, when we talk about PTSD, that’s what we’re talking about.

David: Yeah, definitely. And that’s a, that’s a, that’s a long list. So anything, anything can set it off though, just about, and you fall into one of these, these symptoms here. And, and so you’re, you’ve got that one. And then mine’s a little bit more of a user friendly, I guess.

Brent: Okay. Let’s hear it.

David: It says post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that is caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event, either being a part of it, which is basically what you just said, or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Most people who go through traumatic events may have a hard time adjusting and coping for a short time. But with time, and by taking care of themselves, they usually get better. Well, that’s a question in itself. And the symptoms are basically the same thing as you just said. Symptoms can vary over time and vary from person to person. So what anxiety might be in you, and I may not be anxious. Now, I do tend to be a little bit more self-conscious is where I am in my whereabouts. And a little story. I’m always on my wife says I’m always canvassing in the room when we go into a restaurant or right we’re going to a church or whatever. She says you just like automatically just start canvassing. I said, well, that’s what I want.

Brent: It’s like the Bourne Identity. There were three cars in the parking lot. Two of them had Texas plates. That man’s left-handed and can handle himself.

David: He’s got a red tie on, he’s got a blue tie on, and that’s not his wife. But you just get used to it over time. It’s a safety mechanism that I use.

Brent: I have something similar. I don’t necessarily say it’s from deep PTSD, but maybe just from the military training. I come out of the grocery store. I scan the whole parking lot. I’m not necessarily looking for threats. I’m also looking for people who might be in trouble. I come out my front door. I look around. I stare down my neighbors, make sure they’re not doing things squirrely. It’s like an ingrained habit of thought.

David: And you’d be surprised how many times that awareness has come in handy and saved people’s lives, not saved your life.

Brent: That’s true. That’s true. I, I, I recall a few times, you know, walking downtown with my wife or whatever, and I’ll just get a bad feeling. I’m like, all right, I got a bad feeling about these people up ahead. We’re going to just take a side street.

David: We’re going to walk across the street.

Brent: And sometimes the, at first she’d argue with me. No, no, no.

David: Just follow me dear. Hold my hand.

Brent: And now it’s like, just humor me. I got a bad feeling. Maybe I’m right. Maybe I’m wrong, but we’re going to go down this other street. And I just feel like this is not a good plan.

David: I think what the worst thing that we’ve lost, and I always said, and my father always said, it’s a gut instinct that you have. You feel something in your gut that is just absolutely not right. It’s probably not right.

Brent: And that’s an interesting point because, you know, it’s the intuition, right? It’s not the outer part of the brain, that’s where the logical stuff is, but the inner part of the brain, the limbic system and all of the stuff in the brain stem and stuff.

David: Yeah, what you said. Yeah, all that fancy sounding stuff.

Brent: All that fancy sounding stuff. was it processes your emotions, you know, it’s your primitive autopilot, and it’s like, all right, so, and you, your logical thought processes are slow, and they’re serial, and they have one, okay, carry the one, add the two, but your emotional processes, they’re parallel processing, they’re all happening all at the same time, they’re happening really, really fast, and you can’t always put a finger on it. It’s like, something’s wrong. And I know when I was a kid, I learned to discount that. I can’t trust that, I have to be super logical.

David: Right.

Brent: And then later, I’m like, actually, I had a lot of really good gut instincts that I ignored and got into trouble.

David: I did too. I wish I’d have listed my gut instincts back in the day. And of course, I’m more familiar with what those feelings are as we age, I think we just kind of start to realize that these feelings come upon us. I need to react to that, I need to react to that right now.

Brent: I think there’s a balance, though. I think some people go too far with their intuition. It’s like, I had an intuition that I should sell everything and go to, like, well, maybe…

David: Well, that’s not intuition. That’s losing your mind.

Brent: There you go.

David: Yeah.

Brent: It’s like, maybe, maybe you need to… I mean, don’t lose logic entirely.

David: You have to find that balance. But that’s a gut instinct. You know, for example, I walked out of a… a grocery store, I won’t mention it, but I always hate going to it. And because it’s a crowd, and I’m not too big, I don’t mind crowds as long as I’m in control. If I’m in control, it’s a different story. And just walking out to my vehicle, to my truck, and just paying attention, and this lady’s backing right up, and she keeps backing and backing, and I just reach out there and slap the trunk of her car, and she about has a conniption, and faints and falls out of the car, because she thought she hit me. But it’s just, I knew it was coming. I just felt it coming and I was aware. As I was walking, I was maintaining my awareness.

Brent: I’m the same way. I do not like crowds. I do not like grocery shopping. All right, so personal confession. Grocery shopping to me is a timed Olympic event.

David: Quick, yes. It’s a sprint.

Brent: If you lean on, anyone that starts leaning on their cart, they’re in the wrong frame of mind. Now get out of the way. Now people are sitting there and they get right in the door and they’ll check their purse or they’ll check their phone, like, not in the doorway, Susan, move. And so I go to the same store all the time, not because I like it, because I have everything memorized. This aisle, this aisle, this aisle, and I’m done. And it always baffles me that other people are not like that.

David: I have a route.

Brent: This is my social activity for the day, I’ll just kind of lean over here on the Starbucks, and I’ll lean over, like, Janet, out, out, out, I gotta go.

David: And then if you see somebody you know, you try to avoid that conversation because you know you’re going to be there a minute. How’s your people? How’s your mom and them? I say, hey, how are you doing? I keep on going. I got meat in the basket. I can’t, I can’t. I’m being ugly. I’ll see you at the bar.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I can’t do it today.

David: Not in the grocery store. That’s not socializing place for me. Time to get out. It’s just special when I go to get in line. I hate to self check out.

Brent: Really?

David: Yeah, because there’s so many people behind you normally. Oh, the pressure.

Brent: Yeah.

David: And it’s like, yes, it’s like, uh, um, beep, beep, beep, beep…dad gum it…dad gum thing…

Brent: This is the thing. This is the thing that my wife and my kids don’t get and it’s exactly that. To me, the grocery store and the grocery store…here’s the test. The real test sometimes of whether you’re a good person or a bad person is not in life or death, it’s at the grocery store. It’s like, how self-conscious are you? Like, I will park my cart around the corner and then walk over to the produce to make sure I’m not blocking the produce with my cart. And I’ll get a bag and I’ll come back. And I might take three trips. But I’ll turn it, and maybe this is not a very friendly thing to say, Bracketeers, but I was like, at least I’m not that lady over there with her cart, and then she’s spread out over here, and she has to touch every single fruit until she finds the exact one.

David: She picks up every potato until she gets to two she wants. I’m like, just 20 minutes later.

Brent: So, and then it’s the same thing with waiting in line. It’s like, in my mind, and I don’t know where I got this, because I didn’t, like, I wasn’t indoctrinated with this with my parents or anything, but to me, especially in the grocery store, making other people wait is the unforgivable sin. You move with quick efficiency. You scan swiftly. I go to self-checkout, but I know I’ve got all the codes. Bananas are 4111. Ale is something else. And I go through as fast as possible.

David: I’m not that good at it, but I grew up when I was, grew up. In high school, I worked in a grocery store.

Brent: Oh, there you go.

David: So, of course, it was back when you had the ching, ching, ching, ching.

Brent: Yeah, yeah.

David: So, when we first started getting the scanner codes, or you pushed a code in, whatever. And so, my boss was very customer-oriented. We didn’t have self checkout. You’d check them out, you’d get them bagged up, you’d get them out the door. Quick, quick, take care of your customer. And it’s not that way no more.

Brent: No. Sigh.

David: It’s amazing that they built all these businesses off of customer service back in the 80s and 90s and now they just get it. What is it? Get your stuff, get it and get out. I said it the nice way.

Brent: Well, that’s something I’ve seen and that will will not go too far down that rabbit hole. But I mean, it’s the thing about treating people like commodities and then people pick up on that. And that’s the thing about the military is that you’re definitely a commodity. Hurry up, wait, stand here, bring a book because this is going to take all day.

David: And keep your mouth shut.

Brent: And keep your mouth shut. Don’t complain.

David: Don’t complain. Don’t complain. If it’s raining you, if it ain’t raining you ain’t training.

Brent: Every formation is a family reunion.

David: That’s it. And folks, you just don’t know how true that is.

Brent: So one thing about the military is it’s taken them a long time to get serious about mental health.

David: It has.

Brent: We talked about that. We talked about, like, after World War I, people came back traumatized and, oh, they just have shell shock. And then after World War II, they had battle fatigue or combat exhaustion or war stress.

David: And then it would be ugly to him and zero them out, pushed him out of the way because, oh, he’s he’s got a problem.

Brent: Yeah, because they treated it a lot like it was a moral failing. It was a trait. You are weak. And so therefore it’s like, I’m sorry, Susan, of blood and guts and trauma and explosions upset me. That’s called being human. Like the problem is not with me. Maybe the problem is with the rest of us. How are you so cool with this?

David: If you’re not sitting there watching a howitzer shell explode 15, 20 feet away from you every 15, 20 seconds, then you don’t have no idea what stress is.

Brent: So something I found that was interesting is that PTSD wasn’t added to the manual of psychology, the DSM, until the 80s.

David: That’s crazy.

Brent: And even then it was added. They didn’t use it. Well, because it was lobbied by Vietnam vets and their therapist. Please stop stigmatizing the people who have this. Please add this to the thing. Please do research on it. Please take this seriously.

David: And then other occupations like the first responders fell in line.

Brent: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

David: Of course. The military, though, since it’s such a large group that actually would go into combat and be utilized in that situation, they concentrated on them first and then ended up with the first responders coming into play. But it’s just a very hard, it’s very hard for them. I guess the Vietnam veterans, I just don’t, it’s so hard for them.

Brent: That’s just crazy.

David: They’re my heroes, by the way.

Brent: That’s just the things that they dealt with, they’re just insane. You know, and we talked about it. It took, you know, as we’re saying about it, it took the military a long time to get with the program. I got back from Desert Storm and I was not tested for any sort of mental health or anything. They tested my lungs for tuberculosis, breathing all that oil. But they’re like, nobody asked if I was crazy or sane or I was breaking down. They didn’t care.

David: Well, he’s crazy because he was in the Marine Corps.

Brent: Well, that doesn’t help with your sanity. That’s true.

David: No, they didn’t test us either. I mean, I don’t know all those shit shots we got.

Brent: But you said, oh, as deployments went along, they did start testing that. When do you think that started to happen?

David: I think we started the first time that we really talked about that and actually sat down with a therapist or a doctor or somebody called himself one, was after the first deployments for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. So I said War on Terror. That’s when it really started. Because our guys were going over there, coming back just minutes.

Brent: So just to be clear, Enduring Freedom was Afghanistan?

David: Enduring Freedom was Afghanistan and the Balkans. And then Iraqi Freedom was Iraq. So they included the Balkans in because the Balkans started in the late 90s with Freedom with the liberation of Kosovo and the destruction of Yugoslavia and the Serbians or whatever you want to call it. It was a long war over there and they still ain’t happy with each other. But I think it was about 2002-2003 they really got serious about it and started asking, and you had to go through when you’re down in process or de-mobed. You talk to somebody about your mental, how are you feeling today there, Sergeant? Well, you know, I had this dream last night that I got run over by a tank, you know, and then it’s, well, we need to talk about it. And I think that’s when our, about the time our suicide rate really started going out the window.

Brent: When they started talking about it?

David: I think before. I think the suicide rate was really going out the window and they said, we got to do something about this. We got to give these guys some help.

Brent: I did read something about that. It’s, uh, what was it? I think it was Martin Seligman in his book, Learned, Learned Helplessness. I think that was the one he was talking about how sometimes you can be too soon with an intervention. Sometimes if the trauma’s still real, and they’re like, all right, talk about it, write it down, and that doesn’t necessarily help. Sometimes you need to give them some time to processing on their own, and then they come back, okay, now let’s revise the story that you’re told. Let’s look at it. Sometimes they do.

David: And define it.

Brent: Yeah. Because there’s several different things. But having stress counselors right on the scene while the blood’s on the ground, that might be too fast.

David: I think that wasn’t going to happen because they weren’t coming out there. You know, when you go back to the de-mob station or back to your home station, you come back off, you leave, and it’s time to get right back to work, and your mind’s just in a fog because now you’re not going back to the desert, you’re not going back on patrol, you’re not going back on a flight. You’re actually in the rear with the gear, so now it’s time to settle back down. And I think it’s when it finally started hitting them that loss of camaraderie, loss of partnership, loss of brotherhood, and people got the emptiness. And that’s why I think, in my personal opinion, again, I’m not a doctor, never claimed to be one, but that’s when I saw, personally, it’s when I saw the suicide rates going up.

Brent: Well, let me ask you about that. I think we’re going to wrap this up and have a part two, because this is really good. But in kind of closing this out, tell me, when I was talking to you earlier, you were talking about how diligent you were and the burden that you had to bring all your people back alive.

David: That’s absolutely true. Any commander and any senior NCO, First Sergeant. Sergeant Major, a sergeant, it don’t matter, as long as you’re in a leadership position, they beat that, I don’t want to say beat that into you, that’s not really fair, but they teach you that, they teach, coach, mentor you that you need, your main job is to accomplish your mission and get everybody back in one piece.

Brent: And in the terms of this show, that would be kind of like your legacy, delivering these people back alive to their families.

David: Fortunately, I was very lucky, I was able to bring everybody I took with me back home.

Brent: But you were telling me that just because they made it home in one piece wasn’t necessarily good enough.

David: That’s true. I had several that did not, that chose another path after they got home, that couldn’t deal with the pain, couldn’t deal with the loss, and couldn’t deal with the whatever was troubling, and unbeknownst to some of us, that they were even having any problems. And they took their own life. And that’s something that weighs on my heart very heavily. And as it does the other soldiers that were with me, that served with me, it’s all part

Brent: Well, they were part of your family. You were responsible for them. And then you go to all this work to get them home safely. And then they don’t get the resources that they need. And it feels like it’s all for nothing.

David: It does. But it’s happened. I mean, you feel lost. You feel empty. When this happens, I’ll tell you a real short story. My first cousin and I deployed with us from Desert Shield and Desert Storm. And about five years after we got back, he hung himself. He was in the Army. He was in the first, I think it was in the first Cav Division. But he just had all kinds of problems. I think it all just came around from his duty in the desert. And he just never could get the right foot out in front of the other one. And just so, he took a way out, which is not the right way. I always say that, if you take your own life, you’re never going to have the opportunity to fix anything else.

Brent: Yeah.

David: There’s no chance to fix it. There’s no chance for it to get better if you take it. We’re in deep now.

Brent: We’re in deep. Yeah. So Bracketeers, I hate to end on a heavy note. We’re going to come back for a part two. And there’s actually a story about a dog that’s much, much happier than this particular story.

Announcer: This is the Full Mental Bracket. Full Mental Bracket.

Brent: As we wrap up, let me just, I want to give you this unfiltered thought. Normally we have like takeaways here. I’m not going to give you that today. Sometimes people come up to me and they say, Oh, thank you for your service. And, and I do appreciate that. And it’s like, Hey, support the troops. Thank you for your service. But as we’re sitting and we’re talking with David here, a lot of people need a lot more than that. A little pat on the back and an attaboy is nice, but if you’re tormented by the memories of what you did and what was done to you and the things that you saw, a little, you know, someone buying you a beer at the bar is not enough. We need to make sure that we’re supporting these people.

David: We need to pay attention.

Brent: We need to make sure that we’re supporting the VA. We need to make sure that we’re actually, if you’re actually, about supporting the troops, you’ve got to put your money where your mouth is.

David: Absolutely. And there’s so many great organizations out there that actually tend and lend a very great help or become a great help to our veterans. And seek them out. Seek them out. I always say when they say, well, thank you for your service, I always tell them it’s my honor. It’s my honor.

Brent: And a final, final note. If, if this doesn’t phase you, you don’t care anything about the military. You think maybe the military is unnecessary. That is that’s your opinion. Remember that 93 percent of you have never dealt with this. There’s seven percent of us who are doing this so that you don’t have to.

David: Amen.

Brent: So whether you appreciate that or not, just keep that in mind. I’m not I won’t use the word privilege, but sometimes when you judge people that you’ve never been in their shoes, your judgments aren’t very accurate.

David: Correct.

Brent: Now, everyone’s going to quit the show and hang up.

David: No they’re not going to call you and say, I want to come on, too.

Brent: OK. All right. So thank you very much, Bracketeers. We will catch you next time with an exciting yellow dog.

David: Yep.

Brent: Thank you.

David: Thank you for having me.

Announcer: Full Mental Bracket podcast hosted by Brent Diggs. Executive producer, Brody Scott. Art design, Colby Osborne. Interact with the show at FullMentalBracket.com. This is the Full Mental Bracket.

Announcer: Full Mental Bracket. This is a Brody Scott production.

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