Page 433 - Total War on PTSD

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informed me that mechanics never leave the shop and that I would be far away from combat. So I jumped at the chance. I would be a United States Soldier!
I learned quickly after getting deployed that this just isn’t true as I was led to believe. In fact, I would see combat — often. In only the first few days of my deployment, I saw a little boy lose his life and an Iraqi Soldier with a portion of his head blown off.
Since I was new to the unit, the other guys thought they need to “toughen me up,” so I was put on the recovery team that retrieved blown up trucks. This was a horrible job because of the things I had to see in the blown up vehicles. Every door I opened was a new personalized horror movie complete with carnage and death.