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thinking of taking his life. To this day I feel I let him down by not hearing him asking for help and not being there enough. But at the end of the day, he made a choice and the choice he made angers me.
Brent, like many Veterans including myself deal with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the horrors of combat. The difference is in how we individually choose to deal with it. I participated in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. For me, after serving over 22 years as an Army Airborne Ranger, and retiring as a First Sergeant (E8) in 2011, my choice was to continue working in the same type of environment with the same type of guys. I did high threat contracting in the middle east for five years. But that too started to wear on me and my family. My wife and I felt it was time to come home and be a family. My job was easy, take care of the house, dogs, take her to the airport on Mondays and pick her up on Fridays. It was the life for about six months. During that time, I started to lose my identity and I felt as though I didn’t have a real purpose. I stopped going to the gym and started drinking while my wife was gone on business. I was going to a bad place and continually thinking about my time in combat and the men and friends I lost. Needless to say, I was miserable, and my mindset was not right. How did I overcome all this?
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