Yesterday, January 8, 2011, JR was a guest speaker at a local Veteran Conference provided by NAMI Kern County's Front Line. The topic of focus was reintegration from deployment to civilian life.
JR decided to share his experience of returning to Kuwait after his unit's invasion on Baghdad, as it was a major experience that changed the way he integrated back from deployment and further inflated his PTSD issues. He originally wrote the essay for one of his college courses and below is the essay that he shared at the conference:
In the military, uniforms are certainly not optional. Service members identify one another by uniforms. A most important part of the military uniform is a patch worn on the left shoulder. This patch identifies what unit a soldier belongs to, and who their commander is. Some unit patches such as “ The Screaming Eagle” have become synonymous with courage. In B Company 1st Battalion 15th Infantry Regiment, unit history is as important as sunrise. In the company that Audie Murphy belonged to during World War II (which saw him emerge as the most decorated soldier of the war), there are certain expectations. It’s not that every soldier there is expected to earn a Congressional Medal Of Honor, but everyone is expected to conduct themselves according to traditions of World War II era soldiers. Integrity, courage, and dedication are expected of every B Company soldier. Realistically, that was sixty years ago. The B Company I served in was known only for the color of our patches. The stereotypical view of a soldier today is standing tall, brown uniforms decorated with tan. However, few people have heard of the infamous “ Green Patch Brigade”.
During my service, I belonged to B Company 1-15 Infantry on Ft. Benning, Georgia. Within months of reporting in March of 2002 after a tour in Germany, I found myself in the unforgiving desert of Kuwait, training daily. At the time, there were whispers of an Iraq invasion. We were training just in case. We came home in November of 2002, and were back on planes in January of 2003. We were headed back to the desert. While the rest of the army wore matching tan all over their uniforms, we were still misfits with tan uniforms and green patches. Our leaders decided not to spend the money to match us with the rest of the army. The consensus among leaders was that our patches would set us apart from the other units. They could not have been more right.
On March 22nd, 2003 we rolled with our green patches into Iraq and into history. Accompanied by our tan friends on each side, we fought our way to Baghdad in about two weeks, and earned our tickets home. Afterwards, we stayed in Baghdad and patrolled endlessly for what seemed like an eternity. We did not know that the real struggle would begin after the fighting was over. As happy as we were to get out of Iraq, and back to Kuwait, we were not welcome there any longer. We had been in Iraq for nearly four months, fighting nearly everyday. When we got back, we were shunned, and feared. The most disheartening part is that it was not the Kuwaiti locals who were afraid of us. The people who threw insults and awkward glances were at us Americans, and even worse they were fellow soldiers.
Our reputation had preceded us. The stories told to these soldiers were that those of us who wore green patches were cruel. Our “ Green Patch Brigade” had fought in some of the most intense battles in the invasion of Iraq. We had produced results, winning most battles quickly and decisively. However, these were not the stories making their way to the soldiers in Kuwait. They heard stories of green patch soldiers killing babies, raping women, and stealing. Our unit was an easy scapegoat. The color of our patches set us apart from everybody else. As a result, we were singled out and blamed for everything that went wrong in the invasion. Upon our return to Kuwait, we were regularly stared at with disgust. I vividly remember an incident in a dining facility, where I and four of my friends sat down to dinner, and the table cleared. In an instant, four people with trays still full were up and gone. They couldn’t sit at a table with murderers. I also remember hearing a commander brief his unit on our presence. “ The green patches are back,” he said, “ stay away from them. I want all females to walk in groups of three or more and be escorted by a male.” He continued, “ I want everyone here to avoid them as much as possible. We don’t know what they did in Iraq, and we don’t want to know.” They were told to keep a distance of at least 50 feet from us at all times.
All of these things they heard were exaggerated. An unfortunate yet undeniable aspect of war is death. Our unit was responsible for the death of thousands of Iraqi soldiers. Never once did we kill an unarmed person. We were soldiers. We were not murderers or rapists. Our job was to defeat a rival army in ground combat, and we did our job.
It all boils down to a single point. We were tired. We had not seen our families in a year, or even talked to them on the phone. We had been sent into combat, and none of us knew what we were fighting for. The news said that we had rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. We never saw any such thing. The President and our commanders told us that we had restored freedom to an oppressed people. There were a million excuses for what we had done. After the fourth or fifth excuse, we no longer cared. We just wanted to go home. Most of all, we wanted a little gratitude from people who had never even crossed the Iraqi border.
Asking for gratitude or even just a little respect proved to be too much. Anywhere we went, waves of people would clear. In dining halls, we were ushered to the front of the line so we could eat and not be seen. While those things might sound like rewards, or like respect, it felt like embarrassment. We were the unwanted, undesirable soldiers who only two months earlier were fighting an unjustified war for our lives in the streets of Baghdad. The freedom that we had fought so hard for was taken from us. The Army had taught us how to attack and defeat a determined enemy in Iraq, but it had never trained to us in how to fight against our own soldiers. Everywhere we went, we were treated like criminals.
We were given separate showers, and were sealed off in our own area. We called the area “Heroes’ Hell”, which is almost literally what it was. In July, when we left, the temperature would reach upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Our tents had no air conditioners, and forty-five people were crammed into tents meant for thirty. All the fresh food and hot water went to others, and we got what was left. After a week, we were no longer allowed in the dining halls. Our food was served to us in green containers, outside in our area. Dinner was a time for conversation for us, but it was Mardi Gras for flies who swarmed us as we ate the camp leftovers. Our unofficial slogan became “heroes on any battlefield, bastards in any camp”.
After a month of constant taunting, and six flight changes, we boarded the most beautiful plane ever. The Green Patch Brigade was going home. We had earned our tickets through five months of constant combat (on and off the battlefield), sleepless nights, and enough destruction to haunt us for two lifetimes. Finally, it was over. Home was a mere eighteen hour flight away. All the name calling and crammed sleeping arrangements were left there in Kuwait. Soon, it would all be a memory.
Looking back on this experience, I remember one specific event. I was sitting in Baghdad eating a Beef with Mushrooms M.R.E. ( a dog food delicacy). We had fought all morning, and I was enjoying my lunch. There was smoke everywhere, and the air was alive with the sounds of ongoing combat. On the highway where I sat, the road was littered with dead bodies of citizens, who were trying to get out of the city and were shot by Iraqi soldiers. I looked over to my right, and only twenty feet away was the body of a small child. I knew then (as my stomach reversed engines and I lost my lunch), that I would never forget that place. The insults hurled at me and my friends afterward came from people who never saw that poor little child. When I look at the letters dutifully kept by my family during the war, I can see the spots where the ink was smeared by a tear. Never before (and never since) have I felt so alone. I have also never felt so betrayed as when a fellow soldier called me a murderer. The only thing they saw were green patches.
JR shared with the audience that he has figured out during his recovery that his experience after Baghdad impacted his reintegration after deployment. He suffered silently from PTSD since the 2003 invasion, with a second deployment in 2005, and only admitted to his issues in 2009, six years after his original experiences. His speech brought tears to the audience. It was followed by a lengthy Question and Answer session with great discussions with the audience.
JR's speech was followed by Denita Hartfield, a 17 year Army veteran who was medically released from the military after an IED explosion ended her military career. She spoke about her own reintegration from serving the military to the current job market, as well as her doctorate research of veteran integration. She has plans to help veterans reintegrate after finishing her PhD in the field and we look forward to seeing what she discovers with her research.
Bonnie Wilson also spoke about her experience with PTSD and her reintegration into civilian society after leaving the military. Bonnie shared her experiences with her family and her struggle to go back to school. She also shared how Front Line support groups have helped her through difficult times and have become a 2nd family to her. It was a honest and touching speech and it was an honor to hear her story.
- JR, Bonnie Wilson, and Denita Hartfeld at the conference.
Front Line co-founder Patrice Maniaci also presented all three speakers with plaques commemorating our local county Board of Supervisors proclamation of "Front Line Week" that occurred last October.
Overall, it was fantastic to hear the personal stories of veterans that we have the pleasure to know personally. JR, Denita and Bonnie are all focused on educating others on PTSD and advocating for other veterans. The Front Line program holds three conferences a year, and we look forward to attending more in the future.
~ Nicole
