SPC William McMillan III US ARMY KIA 08 July 2008 Iraq

Our hearts and prayrs go out to the McMillan Family, his fellow Soldiers, Friends and loved ones.  The “DOC” Community will miss this hero. We at Corpsman.com Grieve for this loved ones loss.  Condolences can be left in the Scuttlebutt Forums here: Condolences

Lexington soldier dies in Iraq, family says
By Michael White
Kentucky.com

Spec. William McMillan is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, a student at the University of Kentucky.
Spec. William McMillan III was destined for the military, like his father, and loved working in the medical field, like his mother.

McMillan died in Iraq Tuesday, said his family, who lives in Lexington.

An Army medic based at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, he was traveling with his outfit when his vehicle hit a homemade bomb, injuring five and fatally wounding McMillan.

McMillan, 22, was seven months into his first tour in Iraq, his family said. He had received the Bronze Star, his mother said, the fourth-highest combat award in the service, which is unusual for his position. His mother said McMillan seemed almost genetically inclined for his position in the Army. “It’s almost like this is what he was born to do, you know? It was definitely in his blood.” McMillan’s father, Gen. William McMillan Jr., studied at the Kentucky Military Institute and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., before serving in Vietnam, and his mother is a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Lexington.

“He was always the star athlete,” Marge McMillan said.

McMillan attended high school at Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia, where as a senior he was captain of the wrestling, lacrosse and football teams, winning the school’s Athlete of the Year Award. He loved the water and in his free time enjoyed wakeboarding and boating on Lake Cumberland with his family, Marge McMillan said.

He attended Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va., for a year before deciding to go straight into the Army.

After being stationed for a year in Hawaii, McMillan was deployed to Iraq as a combat medic. His family says he never complained about being sent to combat and believed strongly in the cause he was fighting for. He hoped to become either a nurse or physician’s assistant when his tour ended later this year.

“He brought laughter and light into any room he entered from the day he was born,” said his mother.

McMillan kept in close contact with his family during his time in Iraq, and his mother said they talked to him on the phone at least two times a week.

“There always seemed to be a crowd of people around him,” she said. “He told us people would just come to see him in the barracks, because he was such a hilarious guy.”

McMillan was not just a wonderful and loving husband, brother and son, his wife, Elizabeth said, but a hero and friend to everyone who knew him.

“I want everyone to know that he always wanted to help people, and that he was and still is a hero,” she said.

McMillan is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, a student at the University of Kentucky; his parents, Gen. William McMillan Jr. and Marge McMillan; his sister Lauren; and his brother Brad.

McMillan’s family said he will be buried at Camp Nelson, however, no date or details have been set.

3rd 4th of July in Iraq..

Corpsman overcomes odds, achieves life-long goal

5/27/2008 By Pfc. Jerry Murphy , Regimental Combat Team 1

Habbaniyah, Iraq —

Habbaniyah, Iraq (May 27, 2008) – When he first had thoughts of joining the military, 42-year-old Petty Officer Second Class 2nd Class Adam F. Kinney, a hospital corpsman with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, was laughed at by recruiters because of his age and doubted by many who thought he couldn’t physically do it.

Through determination and triumph, Kinney overcame the odds and proved to all doubters he wasn’t just some wannabe trying to fulfill a childhood fantasy.

“I had a lot of doubters,” said Kinney, a resident of Elizabethtown, Ky. “But when someone tells me I can’t do something, the first damn thing I’m going to do is prove them wrong.”

Growing up, Kinney wanted to become one of two things: either a lawyer or be in the Military. After spending four years in the Army’s enlisted commissioning program in the 1980s, he had to choose whether to take a full commission in the Military or take the offer to attend Law School at Samford University in Alabama.

“In the small town where I am from, attorneys were very respected,” Kinney said. “So I decided to become a criminal attorney. I didn’t really understand the concept that doing something you love will eventually make you money as opposed to doing something just to make money, so I did what I wanted to do then.”

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Kinney wanted to do his part, but thought his age would deter him from joining the Military.

“After 9/11, I wanted to do something but I thought I was too old,” he said. “So I became a volunteer fireman, went to emergency medical technician (EMT) school and got in great shape.”

For Kinney, that was not enough.

“I felt like I owed something to the Military. I regretted not finishing,” said the Appalachian State graduate. “As you get older, you have regrets and doubts about yourself and one regret of mine was not finishing out my military commitment.”

So in 2004, Kinney weighed through his options and decided that the Marines would present the biggest challenge for him and stepped into the recruiter’s office.

“I know this may sound a little moto, but I wanted to join with the best and the Marines are the best, but when I stepped into the office, the first recruiter just laughed at me because of my age,” he said with a smile. “There was this (gunnery sergeant) in the back who overheard the conversation and he pulled me aside and said ‘You’re too old to join the Marines, but there is another way.’ He said that I could be a Navy Corpsman and go green-side, which is being a doc for Marines.”

Upon hearing the decision that her, then 38 years-old, husband had decided to join the Navy, Kinney’s wife LeaAnn did not understand but supported him.

“From the first day we met, I knew that this was an unfulfilled obligation he had,” said LeaAnn. “I am so proud of him and what he’s doing, but I always tell him that it is so hard to be proud of something I hate so bad and by hate I mean being away from him.”

Not only does Kinney’s being away affected his wife, but also his two sons Trevor, 16, and Jackson, 9.

“I hated to see him go but I am proud of him serving his country for us,” Jackson said.

Trevor agreed, saying: “Personally, I couldn’t stand it. Every night, my mom cried herself to sleep. At first, I couldn’t comprehend why he did it, but as time has passed, I have come to realize that this was not a choice but a privilege for him to defend something he loves.”

Upon graduation from boot camp and graduating second in his class at the seven-week field medical course at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Kinney reported to the 4th Tank Battalion located at Fort Knox, Ky., where he begged and pleaded to deploy to Iraq.

“I asked anyone and everyone if there was a unit I could deploy with and it just didn’t seem like it was going to happen,” Kinney said. “Then HM1 Winkle from Echo Company, 2/24 showed up at the drill center and we hit it off. He mentioned that 2/24 was deploying and he said he would see what he could do for me. Literally two weeks later, he called and told me ‘Pack your bags, your going to Iraq.’”

With the news that her husband was deploying to the war-torn country of Iraq, LeaAnn could not believe it.

“I thought my world had come to an end. I was devastated,” she said. “How could this happen? How will I ever make it without him?”

Though it has been painful on his family, LeaAnn acknowledges that his experiences have changed him for the better.

“He has learned a lot about himself since he has been gone and has found strength that even he didn’t know he had; physically, mentally and spiritually.”

More than half way through his seven-month deployment in the al-Anbar Province of Iraq, Kinney is more than excited to return home and begin his “new life” with his family.

“This experience has turned my entire life around. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I get home, but whatever I decide to do, it will be something that I love. I can’t wait to get home.”

When asked if he would do it again if he could go back, he replied by saying: “I can’t wait until my second pump.”

Docs keep Marines in fight

By Cpl. Erik Villagran, Regimental Combat Team 5

HIT, Iraq — Corpsmen know they are responsible for keeping Marines in the fight. The corpsmen in 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5, relish the idea of being depended on.

The battalion corpsmen are spread throughout the area of operations in Hit and Haditha, Iraq. Having such a large area to cover has increased the responsibility of each corpsmen and added pressure to provide the same level of service to the Marines with a decreased staff.

“It’s a big billet to fill,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher J. Cook, 23, from Oakland, Calif., a corpsman with 3rd Bn., 4th Marines “It’s a lot to ask of from a small group of people, but the training we got prepared us.”

The battalion aid station handles on average 12 patients a day. This high level of service requires everyone to do more than their part.

“The experienced corpsmen really take the young guys under their wing,” said Navy Lt. j.g. David M. Viayra, 36, physician assistant, 3rd Bn., 4th Marines, from Norwalk, Calif.

The junior sailors have really benefited from the experience of the senior, more knowledgeable corpsmen.

“We have two objectives,” Viayra said. “One, we’re a force in readiness. We’re open (all the time) for the Marines. Our second is to support the command; however they see fit to use us as an asset.”

Corpsmen have treated civilian contractors, Iraqi Army and Police, Marines and in some situations Iraqi civilians. They have worked on everything from sprained ankles to a gunshot wound, Cook said.

“IPs and some Marines have had (staphylococcus) infections,” Viayra said. “For those, you have to cut them open, dig (the infection) out and start them on antibiotics. That seems to be the biggest problem out here right now.”

Despite having to see some nasty infections and bad symptoms, these corpsmen don’t mind. It’s all in a day’s work.

“I love what I do,” Cook said. “I changed jobs to become a corpsman.”

With the battalion’s corpsmen dedicated to their work and ready for anything Marines are reassured that they will be taken care of if anything goes wrong.

“We take care of Marines and they take care of us,” Cook said. “That way everyone’s happy and we all make it home.”

Article from “THE GLOBE“

Ring Ring…. Ring Ring….VA to call Iraq, Afghanistan veterans

WASHINGTON — Iraq and Afghanistan veterans: Get ready for a phone call.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said Thursday that on May 1, it will start calling 570,000 recent combat veterans to make sure they know what services are available to them.

The first calls will go to about 17,000 veterans who were sick or injured while serving in the wars. If they don’t have a care manager, the VA says they will be given one.

The next round of calls will target 555,000 veterans from the wars who have been discharged from active duty, but have not reached out to the VA for services. For five years after their discharge from the military, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have access to health care at the VA.

The effort will cost about $2.7 million and will be handled by a government contractor.

The agency has faced complaints that a backlog in claims and bureaucratic hurdles have prevented some recent veterans from getting proper mental and physical care. Earlier this week, two Democratic senators accused the VA’s top mental health official of trying to cover up the number of veteran suicides and said he should resign.

Campaign stars approved for Afghan, Iraq deployments

Staff report

Posted : Saturday Apr 19, 2008 6:52:31 EDT

The Department of Defense approved on April 16 the wearing of campaign stars. Information on applying to wear the stars is pending.

One campaign star can be worn for participation in each of the campaign phases designated by DoD:

For Afghanistan, the phases are:

* Sept. 11, 2001 — Nov. 30, 2001

* Dec. 1, 2001 — Sept. 30, 2006

* Oct. 1, 2006 — To be determined

For Iraq, the phases are:

* March 19, 2003 — May 1, 2003

* May 2, 2003 — June 28, 2004

* June 29, 2004 — Dec. 15, 2005

* Dec. 16, 2005 — To be determined

The 3/16-inch diameter campaign stars can be worn on the campaign ribbon and the cloth suspension of the medal. The first four should be bronze; a Silver Star will be worn to signify five campaign stars.

To qualify for an Afghanistan or Iraq campaign medal, a troop must have been “assigned, attached or mobilized” to units working in the area of eligibility for 30 consecutive days 60 non-consecutive days. Those rules have not changed.

Source:

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/04/military_campaign_medal_stars_041808w/

Iraq Campaign Ribbon

Afghanistan Campaign Ribbon

FIRST NAVY WOMAN IN THE HOSPITAL CORPS

Women had served in the Hospital Corps since January, 1943, but all were members of the Waves, or Women’s Reserve, U. S. Naval Reserve. Most of these women had previous medical experience and were not sent to one of the Navy’s five Hospital Corps schools.

A sixth school specifically for women was then opened in Bethesda in January, 1944. The four-week course was followed by three weeks of practical ward duty at a Naval Hospital. Subsequent to their initial training, the women reservists were eligible for almost all of the advanced training and occupational specialties available to men.

It was not until the enactment of Public Law 625 that women were permitted to enlist in or convert to the regular Navy. Hospital Corpsman First Class Ruth Flora became the first female Hospital Corpsman to do so on July 12, 1948.

References:

Press Release, “Hospital Corps,” BUMED, 12 JUL 48.
Press Release, “First Hospital Corps School for Women Opens at NNMC, Bethesda,” Navy Department, 12 JAN 44.

PT INSTRUCTIONS, OPNAVINST 6110.1H

So you always have questions about the PFT program. Why not educmate yourself so you know what is what instead of going by word of mouth? PT is serious business during this war climate. I myself have fallen off the wagon since I got out 1 year ago today. Why do I write this? Because I am getting back on the wagon and starting PT today.

The Navy has always (In the past) had a culture of being portrayed as “FAT & LAZY”, unless you were a DOC who has served with the FMF. Those days are over especially since the IA (Individual Augmantee) program has kicked in. We now have quad zero’s with boots on the ground in IRAQ as well as Afghanistan and Africa.

Our culture itself has made us fat and lazy with the ease in which we can do things. When I was young as my son is @ 6 years old, I would have been outside all day long playing Cops and Robbers, or Cowboys and Indians (Now Native Americans of which I am one). I would come in after the day hot, dirty and sweaty and complain that I needed a bath.
Not anymore since the advent of Cable, Fast Food, and Video Games, Kids are now couch potatoes. Why? Look who is sitting next to them. Who are they emulating?

Well I myself even though I am retired am going to read this instruction, and am going to incorporate PT (Good for you, Good for me) in my daily life as are my kids. I even have convinced my kids principal to start a Daily PT Program each day with 30 mins of exercise next year. Yours truly will be leading it. Who knew?

Anyways, You can download OPNAVINST 6110.1H and the change to it OPNAVINST 6110.1H/CH1. I would advise highly reading it regardless if you are going to PT more as you are a DOC, and we always get questions about this program from shipmates in other rates, and I would bet you will see it again on your advancement tests.

To Important not to post … PTSD Story from Stars and Stripes

A Soldier’s Struggle With PTSD

March 29, 2008

Stars and Stripes|by Tracy Burton

Army Spc. Brandon Garrison looks fine. He pulls his wife, Lily, close. He gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and wraps his hand over her stomach, carrying their first child.

Inside, Garrison fights a rage that consumes most of his days since returning from 17 months of combat in Afghanistan. It’s a demon that shows no mercy and interrupts even simple routines like eating and sleeping. At any moment, halfway through a football game or in the middle of the night, he can lose himself to this evil.

This is his war now. A war that started on a battlefield a half a world away and has now embedded itself in his mind. Through nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety and fear, he battles this beast each day.

Garrison is among thousands of troops experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as they return from Afghanistan or Iraq. The 21-year-old from northeastern Kansas is also part of a growing number of servicemembers whose well-being has been compromised in a system that’s supposed to take care of them.

The most troubling challenges facing these troops include:

Psychological trauma and mental health care not always receiving the same priority as physical injuries.

Army claims of pre-existing personality disorders, which in many cases slash disability benefits and long-term mental health care for otherwise eligible combat veterans.

The enemy Garrison encountered daily in combat still haunts him. He sees the faces of his fallen brothers. He smells the dirty air, amid the blood. Screams of panic broken with hums of moaning pain lingers and the dust ensues yet another storm inside him.

That is until he finds his way back to Lily, and back to the life he knew before war.

“Without her, I seriously wouldn’t be alive right now,” Garrison said.

Garrison’s platoon from the Army’s 10th Mountain Division based in Fort Drum, N.Y., specializes in fighting in harsh conditions. In northeast Afghanistan they were stationed in Pech Valley Korengal Outpost, one the country’s deadliest valleys.

Now that Garrison is home, he belongs to one of the Army’s Warrior Transition Units, which provides command and control, primary care and case management for servicemembers receiving treatment for wounds suffered while fighting in the war on terror. The unit works to “promote their timely return to the force or transition to civilian life.”

Here is his story.

Shortly after Garrison returned from Afghanistan last June, he headed home on a 30-day leave to Leavenworth, Kansas.

“That’s when my nightmares began,” he said. “I remember waking up in the middle of the night. I’d sit straight up in bed and it was just hard to breathe and I was panicking and I remember my wife Lily asking me if I was OK and I remember crying in her arms several times because of horrific visions that I had, and the memories and the mass casualties that we suffered.”

Nothing in particular triggered the attacks. He would hear a song or a report about the war and before he knew it, he was reliving it.

Garrison started drinking almost daily. It was the only way he knew to escape.

In August, he left to regroup with his unit in Fort Drum. Lily stayed with his folks because Garrison was going to be reassigned to a new base, so it didn’t make sense for her to go right then.

Garrison was OK when he was working. But the second he was alone, the flashbacks returned. It was terrifying and always zoomed back to one event. On this day in Afghanistan, Garrison was watching soldiers patrol a valley below him. It was almost time for them to return when the enemy launched rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire into their path.

Garrison and other soldiers helped the injured until medics arrived.

Blood was everywhere.

Garrison went to his friend, 24-year-old Spc. Christopher Wilson, and held a pressure dressing tightly against his stomach, but his young life was slipping away.

Wilson, whose greatest fear in this war was not coming home to his little girl, died a short while later.

“He was a very good soldier … a good friend,” Garrison said. “He was very brave through it all.”

Garrison needed help. He and Lily fought to where they didn’t know how much their marriage could take.

He was never much of a drinker before war. Lily wanted to understand, but she couldn’t.

“To know I had pushed a woman so close to me that far away just because of the trauma I was experiencing … that really just made it worse,” Garrison explained.

He started to hate himself.

“At the time I had been denying God and spirituality was always a big part of my life and I was actually cursing God himself and that’s when I knew that my life was taking a big downfall,” he said.

In September, Garrison went to the behavioral health clinic on base and met with a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

He agreed to meet with Garrison every week or two and prescribed Trazodone and Ambien to help him sleep.

“I was calling out for help … but I was afraid to say ’suicide,’” Garrison recalled. “I was afraid to tell them what I was truly feeling because that puts a label on you and they patronize you.”

He kept it far from his command.

But by mid-September, Garrison couldn’t take it. He returned to doctors on base and told them he was feeling suicidal. They told him he had to see a regular doctor because they were booked.

The next day he found a doctor off base who prescribed Valium, which helped desensitize his reality. He heard a couple guys who committed suicide from their unit overdosed on Valium.

He was afraid to take it, but he was desperate.

It was football season. Garrison thought it would be good to get out, so he started going to the local bar to watch the games.

For weeks he did this. He was now mixing prescription drugs and alcohol. It seemed to help.

But on September 29 it all caught up.

That morning, he woke with the horrors of Afghanistan. He swallowed four Valium.

Later on he went to the bar. He took two more Valium and started drinking beer.

As he watched the game, he started getting excited. His adrenaline was pumping. Then he saw blood. Dirty air seeped in his senses and screams of horror quickly replaced the cheers.

It felt like iron weight settled in his chest. It was hard to breathe. His hands and feet throbbed. His heart was beating faster and faster and faster, like a hamster spinning a wheel.

Garrison rushed outside to his truck and blasted the air conditioning.

He could barely hold his cell phone as he struggled to dial 911. He blanked out off and on as the operator on the other end told him to keep breathing.

Within minutes ambulances and military police arrived. Paramedics strapped a plastic oxygen mask over his face and rushed him to the closest hospital in Watertown, N.Y.

He woke up several hours later with a man from the hospital’s intensive mental health unit next to him. He asked Garrison if he was suicidal.

“I broke down and cried right there,” Garrison said. “I told him I didn’t want to live anymore.”

The man said he served in Vietnam, and there was no shame in crying.

“I have a wife and a child on the way,” Garrison said through sobs. “I love them very much. I don’t want to be like this anymore, but I don’t want to live when I have these attacks, when I blank out, when I have these flashbacks.”

“I’m trying to be a good soldier. Please don’t tell my chain of command,” he pleaded.

Garrison was admitted into the psychiatric ward.

“That was the most traumatic part, but at the same time it was a relief because here I was in a place now where it was nothing but civilians,” Garrison explained. “I was away from the uniforms.”

After intense medical evaluations, Garrison was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and depression, according to his medical records.

For about a month, he attended group therapy and met with doctors daily.

These doctors were different. They didn’t judge him, or compare their story to his. No one said, “Suck it up, soldier.”

They listened to his every word. They sympathized with him.

He let everything out.

In late October, the military transferred Garrison to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. There he was spun through another cycle of psychiatric tests. Military doctors at Walter Reed diagnosed Garrison with PTSD and a borderline personality disorder.

Over the last six years, Defense Department records show that more than 22,500 personality disorder discharges have been processed.

A number of reports from servicemembers, veterans’ service organizations, and the media claiming ‘personality disorder’ discharges have been implemented inappropriately has spurred mental health professionals and political leaders into action.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif. “If they have a personality disorder, why didn’t the military know about it before? Why did the soldier get into the service to begin with?”

Filner, who chairs the Veterans Affairs Committee and has met with soldiers overseas, said he’s talked with military doctors who told him that they were directed to misdiagnose.

“I think it’s a purposeful diagnosis to save money,” he said.

An amendment in the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization Act limits the Pentagon’s use of personality disorders. The act, signed into law Jan. 28, also calls for a full accounting by April 1 for the thousands of servicemembers discharged on the basis of personality disorder.

Dr. Charles Goodstein, a psychiatrist at the New York University Medical Center and former military psychiatrist, said that in the Vietnam era, “personality disorder” diagnoses were the rationale for separation from the service.

He explained that an individual’s underlying personality disorder could have easily eluded detection at the time of entry into the military, but in time would become very evident and therefore incompatible with further service. Goodstein, who has been in the mental health field for 44 years, also volunteers his time counseling troops.

“Psychological services have taken a back seat to the more obvious medical services for these men and women coming home from war,” he said. “It’s amazing that anyone could return without experiencing, to some degree the symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.”

At Walter Reed, Garrison feels like he’s not entitled to be an injured soldier.

“Once you get down here and you get around the uniforms again is when the stress starts again … like a slap in the face - wake up, you’re still in the Army,” he said. “You’re treated like a soldier here and you have the expectations of a soldier and the stress of a soldier.”

And you must act like a soldier.

“I’ve had my commander and my first sergeant here look me in the face and tell me ‘You look fine to me,’” Garrison said. “They told me: You look like a squared-away soldier. You don’t look like there’s anything wrong.”

For three weeks at $71 a night, Garrison and Lily stayed at the Mologne House, a 280-room hotel located on Walter Reed’s campus. If Garrison were alone, he would’ve stayed in an old dorm-style building with other troops with mental or psychiatric trauma.

These troops must pay out of their own pocket if they want family members by their side while they recover at facilities such as Walter Reed.

Servicemembers with physical injuries are more likely to receive “Invitation Traveling Orders,” which provides family members rooms at the Mologne House. Or if the hotel is full, which it typically is, they can stay at area hotels including the Marriott or the Hilton, which cost a paying guest $119 to $289 a night.

The Army also pays an average of $64 a day for food and travel.

Garrison was told Lily could stay under an “ITO.”

“Then they told me no because I’m not handicapped and that it’s only psychiatric and that I don’t need somebody there,” Garrison said. “But any psychiatrist will argue that someone who’s going through this treatment and working through the medications and the stress … they will tell you we do need someone there.”

The night before Thanksgiving, Lily found Garrison in the bathroom.

“He was banging his head on the wall … over and over,” she said through tears. “I can’t leave him like this.”

The horror held on for several more minutes until Garrison came to with Lily at his side.

Lily is his saving grace.

“This is what connects someone back into life,” said Dr. Judith Broder, founder of The Soldiers Project, a nonprofit organization that offers free mental health counseling to veterans and their families.

“There is hope for these men and women,” Broder said. “The human being has a lot of resiliency, but it’s very important to be connected with family … girlfriends, wives, parents, grandparents, anybody close to that soldier can be a bridge that gradually brings them back to themselves.”

In late November, Garrison planned to start an intense therapy program at Walter Reed, but the day it was supposed to begin his command gave him new orders: He was to return to Fort Drum later that week to prepare for medical discharge.

“I’m scared as hell to go back there,” Garrison said before he left Walter Reed in early December. “I feel like I’ve been pushed aside … like I’m on my own to get better.”

Garrison was told he would return to Walter Reed sometime in February to continue treatment.

It never happened.

Garrison worries about his future. He’s accepted that he can’t be a soldier in war ever again.

“That terrifies me and it hurts me at the same time because here I was a soldier that volunteered for deployment,” he said. “I loved putting that uniform on every day and now when I put it on all I feel is the ulcerations in my stomach and the sickness and the anxiety and the worries, because it’s constant memories of what happened and what I’ve been through after wearing it.”

For now, his cell phone ring tone plays “Home” by Daughtry:

“Oh, well I’m going home,

Back to the place where I belong,

And where your love has always been enough for me.

I’m not running from.

No, I think you got me all wrong.

I don’t regret this life I chose for me.

But these places and these faces are getting old.

I said these places and these faces are getting old.

So I’m going home.

I’m going home.”

To Garrison, the lyrics could be summarized in one word.

Lily.

Today, she remains at his side, now joined by their new son, named in honor of a warrior who has gone home.

Christopher.

Garrison and Lily currently live in an apartment in Watertown, N.Y. Garrison is waiting to present his case before the Army’s medical review board. Lily gave birth to the couple’s first child Wednesday.

Original Article From Stars and Stripes but hosted @ military.com  http://www.military.com/news/article/a-soldiers-struggle-with-ptsd.html?ESRC=eb.nl#