My name is Kim and I was released from active duty in September 2007 and since June 2008 I have been serving in an Army Reserve unit here in Las Vegas. I was deployed to Iraq from 2006-2007 with the 82nd ABN DIV 1/505 PIR (Forward Support Company) I was one of 7 females in the whole unit, my MOS was 88M (Truck Driver) I am now a 42A(Human Resources) While in Iraq I was tasked with working checkpoints searching women and children, when I wasn't doing that I would be driving convoys to relocate detainees to bigger fobs and to resuply. On February 12 2007 I was in a convoy going to FOB Speicher we were on MSR Tampa there was a black intertube on the side of the road the lead truck called it up and my Platoon Sgt said for us to keep going, even though we had EOD in our convoy with us. We continue on our route not long after that I came upon the intertube and when I saw it I knew something wasn't right. I was driving an LMTV with 6 Iraqi Detainees in the back of it. I pressed the gas as far as it would go hoping that I could pass this object without anything happening. As soon as my cab cleared it, it went off the IED hit right behind my cab and injured all of the detainees in the back very badly. I was later found to have mild internal bleeding but was told I would recover just fine. After that I was not the same, Going on missions for me I was begging and wanting to die, I didn't care anymore I had given up and knew that my life could be taken at anytime and I didn't care because it would have been better with everything that I was dealing with at the time I would have been better off dead. After getting back from Iraq I knew I had issues with my temper and my attitude about a lot of things. I just kept telling myself that it was normal and I would get back to me soon, well after waiting nearly 4 years I have come to see this is not the case. I filed a claim with the VA in May 2010 for PTSD, and a few other health issues that I have had since Iraq. I have gone to all of my C&P appointments and my file is still in the 1st Phase of the process so god only knows how long it will take for them to give me a rating. I have recently started seeing a therapist at my local Vet Center, everything was beginning to be too much for me to handle on my own and so I finally broke down and made a phone call. I just hope that it gets better, my marriage is hanging on by a thread right now because of everything. I have horrible insomnia, It takes me hours to fall asleep and I wake up numerous times during the night I lay there trying to go back to sleep until my alarm goes off then it's time to go to work. My fuse has been getting shorter by the day and I am not sure how much more of this I can handle, I blow up on people for anything anymore and I hate it. This is not who I am I don't know this person that is living my life and I don't like her and she needs to go the hell away so I can have my life back. Everything is affecting my work performance and I don't know how much longer I can keep trying to pretend like everything is fine and do my job at the same time, it is very time consuming and it drains all of my energy. I just don't know what to do anymore. I found this site through google and after reading some of the forums I decided that this might be a good place for me to get advice and help since I have no real support system here. I am working with a VSO with the VFW for my claim but I don't know how much help he really will end up being. So that is me in a nutshell I guess, I am sure I am leaving things out because my memory sucks and I forget things so dang easily but this will have to do for now.
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Kim82
Hello everyone,
My name is Kim and I was released from active duty in September 2007 and since June 2008 I have been serving in an Army Reserve unit here in Las Vegas. I was deployed to Iraq from 2006-2007 with the 82nd ABN DIV 1/505 PIR (Forward Support Company) I was one of 7 females in the whole unit, my MOS was 88M (Truck Driver) I am now a 42A(Human Resources) While in Iraq I was tasked with working checkpoints searching women and children, when I wasn't doing that I would be driving convoys to relocate detainees to bigger fobs and to resuply. On February 12 2007 I was in a convoy going to FOB Speicher we were on MSR Tampa there was a black intertube on the side of the road the lead truck called it up and my Platoon Sgt said for us to keep going, even though we had EOD in our convoy with us. We continue on our route not long after that I came upon the intertube and when I saw it I knew something wasn't right. I was driving an LMTV with 6 Iraqi Detainees in the back of it. I pressed the gas as far as it would go hoping that I could pass this object without anything happening. As soon as my cab cleared it, it went off the IED hit right behind my cab and injured all of the detainees in the back very badly. I was later found to have mild internal bleeding but was told I would recover just fine. After that I was not the same, Going on missions for me I was begging and wanting to die, I didn't care anymore I had given up and knew that my life could be taken at anytime and I didn't care because it would have been better with everything that I was dealing with at the time I would have been better off dead. After getting back from Iraq I knew I had issues with my temper and my attitude about a lot of things. I just kept telling myself that it was normal and I would get back to me soon, well after waiting nearly 4 years I have come to see this is not the case. I filed a claim with the VA in May 2010 for PTSD, and a few other health issues that I have had since Iraq. I have gone to all of my C&P appointments and my file is still in the 1st Phase of the process so god only knows how long it will take for them to give me a rating. I have recently started seeing a therapist at my local Vet Center, everything was beginning to be too much for me to handle on my own and so I finally broke down and made a phone call. I just hope that it gets better, my marriage is hanging on by a thread right now because of everything. I have horrible insomnia, It takes me hours to fall asleep and I wake up numerous times during the night I lay there trying to go back to sleep until my alarm goes off then it's time to go to work. My fuse has been getting shorter by the day and I am not sure how much more of this I can handle, I blow up on people for anything anymore and I hate it. This is not who I am I don't know this person that is living my life and I don't like her and she needs to go the hell away so I can have my life back. Everything is affecting my work performance and I don't know how much longer I can keep trying to pretend like everything is fine and do my job at the same time, it is very time consuming and it drains all of my energy. I just don't know what to do anymore. I found this site through google and after reading some of the forums I decided that this might be a good place for me to get advice and help since I have no real support system here. I am working with a VSO with the VFW for my claim but I don't know how much help he really will end up being. So that is me in a nutshell I guess, I am sure I am leaving things out because my memory sucks and I forget things so dang easily but this will have to do for now.
Kim
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