Like many soldiers who face and witness battles like the war in Iraq, face the reality of it all, if fortunate, once they come back to the United States. Today Mark Terry, a former U.S. soldier, suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and must take medication on a regular basis to cope with pressures of everyday life and handle his abnormal experiences in Iraq.
According to mentalhealthchannel.net, PTSD is defined as "an anxiety disorder people may develop after experiencing or witnessing, overwhelming traumatic event during which they felt intense fear, helplessness or horror." There are generally three categories this disorder may fall into: intrusive, avoidant and hyperarousal. Dissociative symptoms include psychic numbing, depersonalization and amnesia. Anyone like Terry may fall into any of these categories after experiencing and witnessing the things he did.
An ear-splitting explosion goes off as a rocket fired at the compound blows up a nearby generator into pieces. Surrounded by huge cement blocks, or T-barriers, made to protect soldiers from bullet’s shrapnel, Terry replies as he unpacks his belongings in the compound, "Well that wasn't so bad [...] it'll be their luckiest shot".
Terry began to sweat uncontrollably as he stepped onto the dusty peanut butter-colored pavement in a place he had only heard of. It wasn't the hundred-degree heat in the middle of an unfamiliar desert that covered him with perspiration, but it was the fear of the unknown as he booted up on November 11, 2005, Veteran's Day, for his first day of service in Iraq. Compared to his hometown in the Bay Area, Terry felt from years of torture that this place had become the devil's playground.
"This wasn't like the Cold War in 1980 where it was just a war of words, this was something different," says a sincere Terry.
While sowing seeds years before, March 2003 marked the beginning of the United States' invasion into Iraq as well as a turning point in Terry's twenty plus years of serving in the United States military.
Six months before setting up camp in Baghdad, Terry had gone for his weekend duty at the army reserve unit. Here Terry also planned on turning in his retirement papers. Upon arrival, he was informed that he was being transferred to Military Police (MP) in San Diego.
"There I was activated for twenty-three days of training," says Terry. After nearly four weeks of training Terry was handed deployment papers to further his training in Texas for three months. From Texas, Terry traveled to Washington State for an additional two weeks to receive prison training for Abughraib Prison, a prison built in the 1960s by the British fourteen miles west of Baghdad. But means for the prison took a turn in later years to come as a new leader monopolized Iraq.
"When Saddam Hussein took over he used it as a place to torture Iraqis who had committed crimes against the Iraqi regime," says Terry. But in comparison, Terry’s job at the prison was much simpler.
As Senior Food Service Sergeant, Terry made sure that all detainees at Abughraib were fed. According to Terry, meals were not cheap.
Averaging at about $57,000 U.S dollars a day, Terry and Third Country Nationals (TCNs)- Indians, Pakistanis, and Napolis prepared three-a-day meals consisting of tea and flat bread served at every meal along with jelly or cheese and milk for breakfast; vegetable soup and fruit for lunch; and meat and veggies for dinner.
"The pots we cooked in were huge enough to put hot water and soap in to take a bath," says an exciting Terry. But for the eleven months Terry served in Iraq, duties in the kitchen were the beginning of his orders.
Terry and a group of fellow soldiers were the third group sent out since United States' invasion.
"After the first group went in and did all the torture, we were to do three things," says Terry. Those three orders consisted of Terry and the other soldiers establishing operations in the prison, closing down the prison and opening up the newly built prison in Baghdad- Camp Cropper.
"This was a brand new facility [with] real bathrooms [and] real showers," says Terry. As luxurious an oasis of bathrooms and showers may seem in a hot and dry desert, it did little in maintaining the cleanliness of the soldiers’ uniform and hygiene.
"[There was] nothing but dust [and] dirt. [We] had to clean out our ears everyday. And it was so hot that [our] t-shirts were soaked," says Terry, as he recalls moments where temperatures were scorching at one hundred and twenty-six degrees. Dirt and dust could not match up to the other problems soldiers faced and witnessed in and out of Iraq.
Kneeled to the golden brown pavement, one Iraqi citizen is armed and ready for battle. Just as he begins to fire off his oversized gun resting upon his left shoulder, a bullet traveling his way beats him before his finger pulls the trigger. Shooting through the left side of his head the bullet leaves a golf-ball size hole and lifeless "soldier".
Soldiers who witness these sorts of acts can only joke about it or let it roll off their backs to keep their minds focused, that is until they reach home.