Page 9 - Total War on PTSD

K9 patrols. Truth is it was a war zone where I and hundreds of thousands of other U.S. service personnel and civilian contractors experienced daily shocks that created PTSD,
especially for the uninitiated. I was one of those, as I deployed after the main body of 3NCR did, being a late asset, as they were in need of an Administrative Officer and I
didn’t have the time to go through the same training they did.
I’m no battle-hardened hero. I ran an administrative team. Let me take you back there. It’s been a pretty nice day — as long as you stay inside and don’t inhale too much of the
dust that seeps into every crevice. My three to four team members (depending on timeframe) and I are wading through piles of sometimes repetitive but still vitally
important paperwork when the obnoxiously loud siren on the pole just outside our building roars to life issuing a warning that forces us to do what has become almost
automatic. We then hear the booming, pre-recorded, suspiciously calm and somewhat irritating (given the number of times I heard it during my deployment) female British
voice saying declaring “Rocket Attack” three times over. After dropping to the floor for the requisite five minutes...give or take...we quickly secure our computers and exit the small office building, heading out to the bunkers that dot the sprawling airbase. We pack into the bunkers much like sardines, something that has made me claustrophobic to this very day, waiting until the all-clear announcement came from the same British lady and
we were allowed to exit the bunker and return to work. Then it was business as usual...as if nothing happened...more nonsense...at least to me. We didn’t get killed or wounded
this time but our nervous systems were assaulted by fear doing subtle damage to physical and emotional systems that are routinely ignored by military physicians as a matter of
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