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** Do I Have Ptsd? - ** HUGE - GRAPHIC TRIGGERS **

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socomsam

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I served with SOCOM from 1984 to 1988. After 21 years of red tape, I was just awarded 10% disability for a back injury while active duty.

While active duty with SOCOM, I experienced a couple of situations that have bothered me since. First was cleaning up the wreckage (including charred bodies) of a Blackhawk Helicopter crash at Fort Bragg. I was initially told to take video of the crash (I was a 84F combat videographer), but after arriving, I was told to help in recovery. I remember seeing one charred body, but the eyes were not burnt and they were looking at me from the wreckage. I thought the guy might be alive, but when I went to see, he was obviously dead. When I went to pull his body from the wreckage, his head came off. I remember the smell was so bad, I threw up and had to burn my BDU's and boots.

My second incident happened while deployed with 7th SPG in Central America in 1986. I was attached as a camera man and we came into a village in the Honduras/Nicaraguan border that had been visited earlier by Sandinistas. There were several bodies that had been skinned alive, and one guy had his face peeled off and he was still alive. One of our team had to end his life. I still remember him laying on the street, gasping for air. We also came under fire doing a beach assault. All of the video I took of these incidents was confiscated by men in civilan clothes and we were debriefed on not to speak a word of it. I am tired of keeping it a secret. I was threatened with an article 15 when I returned to Bragg for "losing the footage".

The third incident happened while I was videotaping the annual 82nd Airborne Capex at Fort Bragg July 1987. While waiting to interview Socom Cm. Gen. James Lindsey, I began taping a LAPES. I was standing behind the bleachers when the C130 took a dive into the ground about 75 yards in front of me and a grandstand of spectators and skidded down the runway at Sicily drop zone and exploded in a mushroom cloud. The ground shook so hard and hot oil rained down on everyone. I stayed the entire day documenting what happened on videotape (I still have my copy of the crash and footage).

It wasn't until a month later that I went home on leave and on my way back on the plane, I had a panic attack and was convinced the plane was going to crash. I was airborne and on my next jump, I had another panic attack and the jump master moved me to the front of the stick and let me exit the plane first. I was also convinced the C130 was going to crash. I also have nightmares of being in Honduras and hearing that man breathing and also of a toddler in the jungle and I hear it crying and falling, but I am not allowed to do anything. Then it sounds like it falls into water and I hear the child gurgling, but I still am not allowed to save it.

I had planned on making the Army a career, but I ended refusing to jump or fly in any capacity, and because of my back injury, I ETS's (1988). Since then I've had nothing but odd jobs and I still will not fly. It's cost me jobs. I am always worried and depressed. When I hear a plane go overhead, I have to go outside to make sure it won't crash into our house. My wife says I too fearful of everything.

For over 20 years I've been dealing with this and I am all used up. I can't see myself living to be an old man. I fear that I am going to have a stroke or heart attack at any second and die (I would actually welcome it).

A friend who is a disabled Vietnam vet told me to file a claim for PTSD, but I am afraid too but can no longer go on this way.

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