Ltdan's blog post - so miracles do happen

i have shared my issues with PTSD. most, but not all, of my issues can be narrowed down to one incident we had with a young marine. the damage he sustained will ALWAYS be with me. it always bothered me because we did not know his name and had little interaction with his unit, so there was almost a sense of not having closure.
we had this "young" marine in the other day. he only came to us because he could not get an appointment for bethesda (the navy hospital where marines usually go) for a trial of a drug to treat an abnormal heart beat. he is a realtively healthy young man with no battle injuries. we started talking a little and sure enough he was deployed to iraq at the same time i was. we talked a little more and i told him where i was, he was just west of us in falluja...ok, he was close. then i told him about my experience with this young marine..........and can you fucking believe it??????, he was this kids commander! i now know the young marine's name. i know how he was injured. i also found out that he and the medice who was first on scene have suffered many of the same issues with this young man as i have had. i was in turn able to provide him with information regarding his treatment and about how hard we worked on him. of all the stuff he has seen in his deployments, that was the most devastating for him as well. i had a dream last night where we were treating him, but this time i was able to call him by his name and tell him that everything will be ok. i do not feel "cured" by a long shot, but i feel as if i have suddenly taken a large step forward.
he has promised to send me pictures of him when he was alive and we will keep in touch.
miracles DO happen....of all the gin joints.......lol