For mysterious reasons, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 this year hit me particularly hard. A flood of memories from my time as a 9/11 relief worker and the rest of my service in the Navy came back with astonishing intensity. Memories I thought had been healed came to the surface, and faces of various friends—some of whom are dead—came to the forefront. With that in mind, the most important thing I can write today for Veterans Day is a fervent call for the Church to pray for veterans and active-duty servicemembers.
What came to light for the Lord to heal this year was the terrible treatment I suffered in the Navy when I developed delayed onset Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder three years after serving as a 9/11 relief worker. I was a 20-year-old Third Class Petty Officer when I volunteered at the Pentagon Family Assistance Center. The resilience of youth only lasted for so long after what I witnessed during those days. I was serving overseas when I collapsed—night terrors, nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks, and depression had come on with a vengeance.
I learned very quickly how expendable I was when the suffering of PTSD became too intense and I could no longer serve without focused mental health treatment. Up until that point, I had stellar performance reviews and multiple medals. I was the lead linguist as a Second-Class Petty Officer who helped bring a new station online in England, which is where I was stationed when the PTSD hit. The years of throwing myself headlong into my work caught up with me.
It was during this time that I met a man who became like a father to me. He was a fallen-away Catholic who had served in five different wars in three different branches. He was living through extreme PTSD at that point. He and his wife took me in as one of their own while my immediate supervisor did everything possible to shield me from the unjust treatment from my superiors. The Lord provided good people in the midst of mistreatment.
All these experiences happened before it came out in the news how bad suicide and mental health issues were becoming for veterans in the late 2000s and the scandal about the abysmal conditions at the original Walter Reed Medical Center in DC. None of us were shocked to hear about the rats. I was among the many veterans who were cast aside and intentionally punished for succumbing to the weight of terror and war.
I came back from my overseas assignment early in order to get treatment at the then National Naval Medical Center and to escape mistreatment from superiors at my duty station overseas. Unfortunately, I walked into the indifference many wounded veterans were facing on the homefront. I witnessed firsthand how the government treats its wounded. I was originally placed in the Marine barracks while they waited for another barracks room to open on the Navy side. I saw how the Marines who served in Iraq and Afghanistan were abandoned in the barracks on high doses of multiple psychotropic drugs, given mediocre psychological support, and largely ignored because they no longer served a purpose.
I remember wheeling a friend of mine around the National Mall in his wheelchair on a stiflingly hot and humid June afternoon. He was the sole survivor in an IED blast that tore apart the Humvee he was riding in. The blast shattered his leg. He was nineteen years old. All three of his best friends died in the blast. He was haunted by ghosts and survivor’s guilt. He was angry at his country and the world for all he had suffered, and it showed. His leg was shattered, so he had a metal halo around the outside of his calf that was secured through pins that went through his leg muscles to the bone. It was to keep things in place until he could have major surgery on the leg.
I was with him a few days later while he wept at the Marine Corps memorial and grieved the loss of his friends. He grieved with me at the American History museum while I wept in front of the large American flag that had draped the Pentagon during my relief work days. I looked on in horror as teenagers and families took goofy photos in front of it—a show of tremendous disrespect and irreverence towards the dead. Another friend who accompanied us on that outing was twenty-three years old and had taken shrapnel in the forearm and his leg. He would walk with a cane for the rest of his life.
There were the guys who would scream in their sleep at night or wander the barracks because they couldn’t sleep. They looked like zombies thanks to all the medications and their many side effects that no one on their medical team seemed to care about. My initial psychiatrist, an Army doctor, put me on a medication that kept me awake for three straight days. When I tried to get him to change it, he was angry that I had challenged him, so he added a personality disorder to my diagnosis, for which I have none of the markers, so that it would be in my medical record.
My spiritual father who had also moved with his family back to the DC metro area was haunted in his dreams by what he called “ghosts.” He had flashbacks while under anesthesia, which his surgeon had never seen before. His best friend who had been in special forces committed suicide by blowing himself up. He had a lot of explosive ordnance (EOD) experience, and he used it to end his own life. No one ever recovered his remains.
And there was my friend, a Marine interrogator, who committed suicide by using his own military medical training after terrible life choices and the horrors of what he spent years doing caught up with him. He left behind two young children. I had introduced him to his wife.
War is hell. Terrorism leaves scars that last a lifetime. It is easy to turn all of it into a sentimental form of patriotism, but the reality is, whether a person makes it out without succumbing to trauma, addiction, divorce, or any of the many issues that plague both active-duty military and veterans, serving in the military is complicated and often comes with immense suffering.
The wars following World War II are much more complicated morally and that weighs heavily on veterans who suffer the wounds of wars that often seem completely pointless later. It is a brutal thing to live with the pain of wondering if your friends died in vain for wars the American people were lied to about. Many veterans quietly carry this suffering, not because they didn’t want to serve, but because they did want to serve and then they were thrown aside when they no longer served a particular use. I took my honorable discharge at the end of my six years and walked away.
This is why Lieutenant Dan’s character in Forrest Gump is so important. I was blessed to meet Gary Sinise years ago at the National Press Club. I was an intern at The Heritage Foundation during my blessedly short stint in politics. The Lord put me among the Lieutenant Dans during my military service, so it was fitting. I even became like him in many ways without the booze and prostitutes. I had to fight to make peace with God after witnessing some of the greatest horrors human beings can inflict on one another both through 9/11 and the victims of war on all sides that I have met.
The only one who can heal deep wounds from war and terror is the Lord. His transforming love is what healed me in countless ways and continues to heal me as He goes deeper into the painful places and memories within me. I wish my friend who committed suicide had known before he died how loved he is by the Lord no matter what he had done professionally and personally. I pray for God’s mercy on his soul.
I pray today that all those veterans whose minds are haunted by the dead and traumatic memories may find peace in Christ. That He may heal their addictions to drugs, alcohol, painkillers, pornography, gambling, promiscuity, adulterous affairs, or any other addiction that has driven them into isolating darkness. I pray they may know His healing touch and that He will save many lives through our prayers.
This year my request to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is that you thank veterans by praying fervently for them. Pray for their families. Pray for those who still live with the wounds of war. Pray for those who grieve the dead. Pray for those trapped in addiction. Pray for those who wake up at 3:00 a.m. in terror from nightmares and/or demonic attacks. Pray for those who were abandoned by the powers that be. Pray for those who have left the Church because they think they are irredeemable because of the people they have killed. Pray for forgiveness and healing on all sides. Please pray.
Lord God, Almighty Father,
creator of mankind and author of peace,
as we are ever mindful of the cost paid for the liberty we possess,
we ask you to bless the members of our armed forces.
Give them courage, hope and strength.
May they ever experience your firm support, gentle love and compassionate healing.
Be their power and protector, leading them from darkness to light.
To you be all glory, honor and praise, now and forever. Amen.
(USCCB 2021)
St. Martin of Tours, ora pro nobis.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
