Richard | Allen | Smith

 My friend and colleague Aaron Krager courageously published this piece today about his struggles with depression.  I feel for Aaron, and I hope with everything he finds a way to manage his illness. I’m not a qualified therapist, and I don’t pretend to have all or any of the answers. But I do have some knowledge about what Aaron is struggling with. And if Aaron is interested, this is the story I’d tell him. 

I don’t want to violate anyone’s personal privacy, but it is sufficient to say that I have a family history of depression. I have witnessed its affects on a person and a family from an early age. And I myself have dealt with it. In the summer of 2008, I went from being a combat experienced noncommissioned officer in an elite airborne infantry battalion to unemployed overnight.  At the same time, I was still working my way through acknowledging that, even though the majority of comrades I served with likely suffer far worse, I was/am afflicted with PTSD. A year after that, I was also divorced.

What followed was one of the darkest and most confused periods of my life. Luckily, I immersed myself in academics so that I had something to concentrate on other than my only unraveling sanity. Having a toddler to take care of certainly helped as well.  And while I probably owe the fact that I finished a BA in two and a half years to that struggle, it wasn’t all pretty. I drank a lot. I gained close to forty pounds. I did things I’m not proud of.  I thought about things that aren’t pleasant. I cringe thinking back at some of the things I said and did.

I don’t know what triggered it, but one day that cloud was gone. 

I love to tell stories. I’ve tried to live my life in a way that when I become an old man, I will have a wealth of interesting stories to tell. One day, I realized there are so many beautiful and amazing things in this world that I haven’t see yet. There are enough amazing things I haven’t seen within ten miles of anywhere I happen to be to occupy the rest of my life, not to mention all the beautiful things in distant places. I’m not fixed. There are still bad days, bad weeks, and a bad month her and there. But through therapy and valuable personal relationships, I’m able to move on a little more each day.

So, Aaron, I know this probably won’t help right now. I’m sure these are things you know intellectually but when you fight an illness like this you can’t force yourself to internalize them. But, Aaron, in spite of your less than pleasant experiences, in spite of what you are dealing with now, in spite of all the terrible, dirty, scummy problems we discuss and think about everyday, this world is beautiful. Life is beautiful. Living is beautiful and amazing and wonderful even with all of the bullshit that comes along with it.  And you are a person with beautiful, existential value, and there are many wonderful things that people will see through you that they will be deprived of if we are ever without you.

 I know it sucks. I know it probably really sucks. And even when it no longer sucks all the time, there will still be days when it sucks. But maintain your strength. There is so much beauty on the other side. 

Every year, I make a habit of taking on a New Years Resolution. I’m happy to say I’ve accomplished pretty much every resolution I’ve made since I began the tradition in my pre-teen years. They’ve ranged from the specific (2011’s, “lose weight”) to the grandiose (stop being miserable, one from a particularly dark period several years ago). Sometime’s my resolutions have been achieved with diligent work. Some have come via good fortune. I have my eyes set on a few different resolutions for 2012. The one I want to write about today definitely falls into the “will require diligent work” category.

2011 was a year of changes. I moved across the country and lived outside of the South for the first time in any period that I have resided stateside. I made some great new friends, started one new job and took on exponentially greater responsibilities in another. I also encountered a struggle in an area of my life that had, in the past, remained rather prolific.

There are few things in the world that bring me greater joy than the written word. I’ve always said that I write not because I desire to write, but because I can’t not write. Ideas seep into your brain. They swirl around. They consume your every thought, every action until you have no choice but to pick up a pen or sit in front of a keyboard and set them free. In the past, such an emotion has led to many late nights. It has sent me click-clacking on a computer with unparalleled fury, leaving words on my screen with little forethought that resulted in some of the work of which I am most proud.

Put something happened in 2012. Suddenly, I was able to not write. My online work became more and more infrequent, and consisted of little more than a link, a quote, and a couple sentences of snarky “analysis”. What I did write was not of the quality I had previously demanded of myself Good writing can affect people in many ways. One of my many joys has been in attempting to affect our discussions over impactful public policy. I feel that, to some small degree, I’ve done that.

But I’ve grown more cynical. This doesn’t apply solely to the last year, but it seems to have come to a head. I still hold fast to my ideals. I remain on unabashed liberal, and a believer in electoral democracy and our political system (for all its faults and corruptions). But that cynicism aided, and in some cases amplified, by a number of factors (new responsibilities, unresponsive leaders, my own general lack of motivation) has made my contributions of far less consequence.

So in 2012, I will resolve to write more. I will write with greater passion, in the way I wrote in previous years. I will write in greater volume when the ideas demand it, and I will write in greater volume when they do not if for no other reason than to get the bad writing out of my system. I will not set specific metrics, other than to write more than I have in the past year.  Setting a goal beyond my earlier joy for the medium is unnecessary.

I may affect our policy discussion. I may not. That isn’t my concern yet. What I will do is reclaim the joyfully urgent endeavor that has brought my so much pleasure in the past. 

How is this for some eerie trivia:

The curse of the Bambino of course originates with the sale of Babe Ruth from the New York Yankees to the Boston Red Sox. But Ruth first played professional baseball for the Baltimore Orioles (who eliminated the Red Sox from Wild Card contention tonight) and last played professionally for the Atlanta Braves (who lost the NL Wild Card to the St. Louis Cardinals tonight). In 1926, the St. Louis Cardinals (who clinched the NL Wild Card with a win tonight) won their first World Series as a result of a two outs, bottom of the ninth base-running error committed by the Yankees’ Babe Ruth. In 1934, Babe Ruth played his last game in Philadelphia (home of the Philadelphia Phillies who beat the Braves tonight ending their hopes of post-season play).  After retiring, Babe Ruth moved to his winter home in the Tampa Bay area (home of the Tampa Bay Rays, who eliminated the Red Sox from wild card contention by beating the Yankees tonight).

I don’t know how long the term “PTSD” has been around, but for however long that has been, I think the term has been inaccurate. If you spend several months away from your family in a foreign, third world country, spend every day living somewhere on a sliding scale of fear, knowing anyone that isn’t wearing the same clothes as you might be trying to kill you, actually experiencing what it’s like to have someone try to kill you, seeing what happens to people when they try to kill each other, if you spend, 6, 9, 12 or in my case 14, months living that way and don’t come back altered in some way, that’s a disorder. Post-traumatic stress is the natural reaction.

I still remember the first moment I realized I wasn’t the same.  It was a couple days before the Fourth of July, 2008. I had just gotten back from Afghanistan the previous April and was staying with my ex-wife’s cousin in North Alabama while we were house hunting.  My ex-wife heard something outside and asked me to go check it out. I walked to the door, opened it and looked around. I couldn’t see anyone and assumed it had been an animal or something. Then, across the street one of the neighbors fired off a roman candle or a bottle rocket or some other thing that made a noise that sounded exactly like a rocket propelled grenade. Reflexively, I half ran, half dove back into the house, ending up beneath a table ten feet or so from the front door.  I got up and didn’t think anything else of it.

 Similar moments have happened intermittently ever since. A balloon pops at a birthday party. Fireworks unexpectedly exploding nearby. It was fireworks before a political event later that summer of 2008 that made me finally admit to myself that I wasn’t the same. I had been waiting to get in with several friends when the fireworks were unexpectedly tested. All of my friends were Vets. When the pyrotechnics fired, everyone else in line looked up and released a chorus of “oooohs!” and “aaaahhhs!” Not us. We all moved towards cover with our hands over our heads, similar to what I had done a few weeks before in the entry way in Alabama.  It’s never a “flashback” type experience as its often-portrayed in movies. It’s far more ingrained than that. You know exactly where you are, but the movements are completely involuntary.

 When talking about PTSD later that night with friends that have been more afflicted than I, they asked what reaction I had to the fireworks. I said same as them. “Then you have PTSD”.

I doubted my affliction for a while because I didn’t see much in combat in the way of events you generally associate with PTSD. I saw enough to say I saw some, but not much more.  Lord knows most of the guys in my unit saw a lot more.  But I’ve come to realize that apart from the physical reactions, like jumping under things when I hear loud noises, are because of that, not in spite of it.

 I feel guilty. I carry with me the guys who we lost. I carry the thought that I should have been out there with them. I don’t have a “it should have been me” mentality. I just regret doing so little while others gave everything.

 I get by far better than a lot of my friends who have had serious problems.  Avoiding county fairs and other places where balloons and fireworks are going to be popping isn’t a bad deal in the grand scheme of things. Surely, I have other problems. It’s extremely difficult for me to form attachments with people, to allow someone to become more than just an acquaintance.   It’s not that I don’t want to let people in. Its just become extremely rare for me to have a reaction to anyone that is more than what’d you’d have for an office acquaintance.  I don’t know how to “fix” it. So if you’ve managed to be one of those people, consider yourself lucky.

And then there are some nights when all the guilt hits me hard. It’s always triggered by something. For example, when photojournalist Tim Hetherington, who co-directed the documentary Restrepo about a platoon in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan, was killed in Libya several weeks ago, that was a bad night.  When there was a shooting at my school last February, that was a bad few nights. I get depressed. Sometimes the trigger is just being depressed about something else. I generally don’t do anything self-destructive like drink to oblivion. I just sit around by myself and think. The thinking never helps.   

This doesn’t happen often. Maybe a few times a year since I got back. 99.9% of my nights are fine, but the tough nights aren’t fun.

 I’m not a mental health professional, so I’m not sure how healthy this is, but the more I think about my post-traumatic stress, the more I come to the realization that I don’t want to get “better”. I feel like I owe it to the guys we lost to continue carrying their names, their circumstances and my guilt. If I let it go, it’s as if I’m failing to acknowledge their sacrifice.  And so that’s what I do.

 Today is PTSD Awareness Day. I’ve been trying to think of what to write on the subject all day and decided to just tell my story. I don’t know that it will help anyone, or if anyone will be interested, or if those I know will be uncomfortable from reading about the wound that they don’t see and probably don’t know much about my struggle with.  But it’s the burden I carry everyday, that I don’t want to get “better”, and if nothing else I’ve humped it a little further down the trail today. 

On the rare occasion that I have the misfortune of discussing politics with a conservative, they always react with feigned outrage when I make a reference to conservatives being bigots. Now, I won’t argue that all self-identified conservatives subscribe to some form of bigotry, even though conservative policies have disproportionate negative affects on minorities. But the fact is, the rare level headed conservative must realize that when you claim to subscribe to a certain ideology, you are associating yourself with the leadership of that ideology and the positions of that leadership. And in the case of conservatism, the leadership of that movement is composed nearly exclusively of radical bigots.

To illustrate my point, I need only point to tonight’s GOP Presidential primary debate. Without exception, every candidate that will appear on the stage tonight has a history of extremist bigotry. Let’s take a look:

Ron Paul:

“Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action. Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,’ I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal (W)e are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers. We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”

Newt Gingrich:

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

“The American people believe English should be the official language of the government… . We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” Gingrich said, drawing cheers from the crowd of more than 100.

Michele Bachmann:

One comment she has never explained came during a debate she had while running for Congress the first time in November 2005. Prompted by a question on the rioting in France and Europe at the time, Bachmann said “not all cultures are equal, not all values are equal,” letting it be known that she thought that people of the Muslim faith had an inferior culture to that of the United States and the West.

Herman Cain:

Cain’s comments came in response to a question from a reporter for liberal-leaning Think Progress about potentially appointing a Muslim in a Cain administration. “No, I will not,” Cain responded. “And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.”

Tim Pawlenty:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (yes, him again! sorry, Minnesotans), in a little chat with reporters this week, described why he feels immigration enforcement is so necessary: “It’s analogous in some ways to what was happening in New York not long ago. If you allow people to pee on the sidewalks, next they’re snatching purses.”

Mitt Romney:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that “jihadism” is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, “…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.”

And of course, the GOP field’s Grand Poobah of bigotry, Rick Santorum:

Marriage is an institution that’s a bridge too far for too many African-American woman and is not desirable among African-American males.

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.

[On senior military officers acknowledging that allowing gays to serve openly would be good for the armed forces]: I’m not too sure that we haven’t indoctrinated the Officer Corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decisions.

The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness“

The Islamization of Europe that is already on the way and will visit these shores not too soon is a concern for us and something that we need to identify and we need to talk about and we need to fight with every ounce of our being“

If you find these comments distasteful, maybe you should question why you subscribe to an ideology that is led by outright bigots. If you don’t maybe you should take a moment for introspection to determine whether you are actually a bigot.

I spent last night drinkin’ with a good ol’ boy I’ve met here in Denver. We talked for hours about the Southern Diaspora (I should really copyright that term) and our feelings of overwhelming love for our homeland combined with our reservations about some of its history, and even some of its present. My friend directed me to this song, which describes to me perfectly the feelings I’ve been writing about. I think if there is going to be a Diasporic National Anthem, this is an outstanding candidate. It could be my autobiography.

I spent most of the first 20 years of my life running from my heritage. It isn’t like my ancestors were Nazis or members of a cult or anything. They were Southern, and so was I. I saw anything touched by Southernism as ignorant and uncouth. So I rebelled. I deliberately worked the drawl out of my voice. I tried to be as punk as a kid from a small backwoods Florida town knew how to be. I decided to hate guns, trucks and gravy. And I left. When I was 18 I joined the Army and left the South and thought I’d never have to deal with it again.

Then, I left the Army and by a bizarre twist of fate ended up in Alabama in a town less than an hour from where my Dad graduated high school. And somehow, I came to realize that maybe being a Southerner wasn’t such a bad thing. My drawl worked its way back in to my voice (though not near as thick as it once was). I got a taste for cowboy boots. I realized that perhaps no one was as punk as Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. And I made my peace with my homeland. But after not even three years, employment once again drew me away and I left for the mountain west vowing to return as soon as possible.

But then in the short time I’ve been away, things like this and this happen and apart from the bare minimum of sane citizens who aren’t afraid to speak out, there is no outcry.

There are a lot of things I love about the South. Plenty more than there are things that are repellent. But I wonder of the atrocities that provoke little if any outrage are so egregious that they overwhelm the things that are dear to my heart. And they make me question if I can ever choose to return.

I’m sitting in my apartment just a few blocks from downtown Denver. From the windows in my home office I can see the sun setting over the Rockies. A year ago, I was recently divorced and living in grad student housing on campus while my GI Bill payed for me to finish my degree at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. A year ago today, I was also helping out a friend who was running for Congress. I had arranged for him to speak to the UAH Political Science Club. After an hour or so of pointed questions, I had to drive my candidate back to his office. As we left campus, swarms of police patrol cars sped by from every direction. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

Texts messages and emails began pouring in to my phone. “Are you ok?” “Can we get a thumbs up?” I had no idea what they were talking about. I had to call my Mom in Florida while I was driving to find out.

Minutes earlier, a disgruntled biology professor, Dr. Amy Bishop, who had recently been denied tenure walked into a faculty meeting with a loaded 9mm hand gun. After 30 to 40 minutes of normal behavior she stood up, drew her weapon and began firing at the heads of UAH biology faculty and staff one at a time. When she arrived at Dr. Debra Moriartiy, her weapon jammed. She walked out of the room, borrowed a phone from a student, and called her husband to ask for a ride home.

In the end, three biology professors lay lifeless while three others received non-fatal gunshot wounds.

I was a Political Science major, and didn’t know any of the biology faculty that were shot. One of the Professors in the room had taught my Intro to Biology course. But, of course, I shared that class with another 200 or so other students. But I was still profoundly affected.

A little less than two years earlier, I returned from Afghanistan. I didn’t see as much actual combat as most of the guys in my unit, but I saw I enough to say I saw some. I know what it’s like to hear a rocket impact a few hundreds yards from where I’m sitting. I know what it’s like to dive under the closest truck at a convoy halt when someone shouts “INCOMING!”. I know what a rocket propelled grenade sounds like when it flies by your head while you sleep.

And I’m okay with that. I was okay with it then and still am. I expected it. It was a war zone, after all.

But then I came home and left the Army to start a new chapter. And I was never supposed to know those things again. College was supposed to be a place where I could go and feel safe, never having to worry about people being killed in such close proximity to me. I had left that world behind. But on February 12, 2010, I realized I was wrong about that.

I don’t mean to write this for any specific purpose. I’m not trying to make an ideological statement, or change anyone’s mind about anything. I just want to say that today, I’m thinking about the surviving families of Dr. Gopi Padilla, Dr. Maria Davis, Dr. Andriel Johnson and the survivors Dr. Luis Cruz-Vera, Dr. Joseph Leahy and Stephanie Monticciolo. And I hope you all are thinking about them too.