Reason I feel I am a failure now, and that I have no purpose here.
I have issues going on in my brain that I am trying to deal with, as much as it hurts me to do it, I have to admit I am wounded. Before the war in Iraq, I was different.
Now, I hate like hell to admit it, but part of me is broken. I would give almost anything to go back to the way I was before.
It may sound corny, but before Iraq, I felt a certain pride in the fact that I had the knowledge and skill to kill but the training and discipline not to act on impulse. Now, I feel differently, I pray that I will not lose it and harm myself or others especially those I love, which is why I tend to have problems in my relationships, because I am having issues I am dealing with from the war, I am haunted by smells, sights, sounds etc. that pull me back to the places I have been, and anyone I am with cant seem to or even want to deal with me in those situations.
Let me try to explain it, Seeing my shadow on the ground jerks my mind back to a dismount on a particularly bad night in Iraq.
Certain smells that I cant even begin to describe, take me to the scene of an explosion and a little girls partially blown off head. Some flashing lights on summer nights, when there is just a little smoke smell in the air, take me back to the scene of our guys burnt nearly to charcoal laying beside and sitting dead in a destroyed (un-armored) HUMVEE.
Just standing in a crowd, especially at an airport, sets me on edge and has me reaching for a drink or something to calm me down.
Had it not been for my closest friends, when I first returned from Iraq, I would have walked out my front door and never come back. Even now, 3 years after I left, the head aches, night sweats, nightmares and all the other afflictions from the war make my life less worth living than it should be.
I wish there was something, anything I can do to reverse all of this, or to take it all away so I dont have to deal with this each and every day, I dont think I will ever get over this issue and I know that it is what is causing me to not be as happy as some people and to think of myself as a failure. People keep telling me "you arent a failure, you are a hero", but I dont see it, I dont see how I can be a hero and have been there to see so many of our people die and not be able to do anything about it.
I am alive, but in reality, I am not. I am just here, the civilian world will never understand.
