[Mb-civic] Coming home -- to what? - Nathaniel Fick - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

Coming home -- to what?

By Nathaniel Fick  |  August 28, 2005

IRAQ VETERAN Daniel Cotnoir learned that Baghdad rules don't apply in 
Lawrence. The former Marine sergeant, who was named 2005's ''Marine of 
the Year" by the Marine Corps Times newspaper, was charged earlier this 
month with two counts of armed assault with intent to murder after 
firing a shotgun near a crowd of revelers outside his home. He had 
already reported their noise to police and, when a glass bottle 
shattered his bedroom window, Cotnoir allegedly feared for the safety of 
his wife and children. The story chilled me, not because I could have 
been part of the crowd, but because I imagined myself as the shooter.

As a Marine officer from 1999 to 2003, I led platoons in Afghanistan and 
Iraq. Following two combat tours, I left active duty to go to graduate 
school, thinking I could seamlessly return to normal life. But even with 
a loving family, supportive friends, and solid future prospects, 
homecoming derailed me for a year. I woke up to nightmares, shook 
uncontrollably during Fourth of July fireworks, and felt myself switch 
into ''combat mode" when challenged. After a driver cut me off on my 
morning commute and I envisioned gutting him with my car key, I 
recognized classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, the disorder may 
result when people survive events ''that involved actual or threatened 
death or serious injury." Combat stress disorder, in its simplest form, 
is the persistence into civilian life of behavior that was necessary to 
survive in battle: hyper-vigilance, fear of crowds, aggression.

None of us can know what Cotnoir was thinking before he pulled the 
trigger, but he is certainly an eligible candidate for the stress 
syndrome, and I see in his actions the anguish I felt after my own 
homecoming. What makes this so tragically significant is that Cotnoir is 
not alone.

A study at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington found that 
at least 17 percent of Iraq veterans experience anxiety, depression, or 
post-traumatic stress disorder. 425,000 American troops have served in 
Iraq since March 2003, which means that more than 70,000 may be 
suffering from psychological trauma. Indeed, its visible manifestations 
are growing. The divorce rate for Army officers has tripled in the past 
three years, and the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans reports 
that its affiliates helped 67 veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq in 2004.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/28/coming_home____to_what/
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