Page 1001 - Total War on PTSD

and check out some super remote mountain villages and we were following the rule of 'don't come out the way you went in'. The way out really wasn't a road at all, it was a dry stream-bed. So, we took this convoy down through it and were using local vehicles, driving Toyota's instead of Humvees. So, we took our trucks down this dry stream-bed and it was dark...and we weren't allowed to operate with headlights. And, being in the front vehicle, all of a sudden, the bottom dropped out and we nosed down about 15 feet (around a full truck length) and, what seemed logical at the time was not wearing seatbelts so you wouldn't get hung up on them if you had to bail out. So, no seatbelt and not wearing a helmet because the idea was to blend in and not be obviously American's. So, when I hit the dashboard and windshield, it was a pretty hard impact. From that incident I had some physical pains, a severe headache for several days, visual issues and short-term memory problems.
Another one was from an RPG explosion. The lumbar disc and knee injuries were sustained when a guy who weighed about 75 more pounds than me landed on top of me. Basically, his weight folded my body where it wasn't meant to be folded.
I was the medic for a small team, and I didn't want to leave my team and there weren't replacements available, so when I could be treated for my issues without leaving my team, I did...and that was a majority of the time. I knew that SPECOPS as a whole was suffering shortages. I also knew pretty much that if I left, I probably wouldn't make it back, and I didn't want to do that. So, the other medic helped treat me and I got through it...and I stayed in the field with my team. One time, I took a resupply convoy back to Bagram Airfield and checked in with our lead SPECOPS doctor about everything, and made sure I didn't need to get anything done additionally, had some x-rays taken, checked on the extent of the shrapnel, and then went
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