Page 441 - Total War on PTSD

that we could search for what was left of our LT. The only thing we could find was a piece of upper thigh and a necklace, which we placed in a bag and put into the back of my truck.
We would go on to clear 83 pieces of explosive ordinance in order for us to carry our LT home.
Amazingly, within 10 hours, we were back on mission to the same area. No tears, no time to grieve. We still had a mission to accomplish. There is no time to process emotion in the midst of war. The mission always comes before grieving.
But even after my deployments ended, a war raged on. This was a battle for my own mind and spirit.
The first time I walked into REBOOT, I had spent the previous six months struggling day in and day out. My marriage was ending. I was angry and had no fuse. Physically I had been injured in Afghanistan and was so frustrated with my medical care I was on the brink of giving up. Frustrated and not improving, I couldn’t even sleep.
And that’s just a few of the issues I was struggling with. Needless to say, life was not as I had envisioned it would be as a kid growing up in a little town in North Carolina.
So as I walked into REBOOT for the first time, there stood a slightly chubby civilian and his do-gooder wife trying to help service members. Looking back, even as I stood up to introduce myself at the first group meeting, I can remember the anger that was still inside me. My identity still remained at war. I remember saying, “I’m SGT Bradford.
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