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WHEN THE FIREWORKS COME OUT, MANY WAR VETS SEEK

A PEACEFUL PLACE -- As Americans stock up on Fourth

of July fireworks with battlefield themes, those with actual

war experience are adopting safety plans instead.

Story here... http://www.oregonlive.com/livin
g/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/living/12146181
1424800.xml&coll=7&thispage=1

Story below:

-------------------------

Too many fireworks; war veterans seek peace

While some Oregonians head for noisy displays, stressed and traumatized ex-combat troops look for a quiet spot

JULIE SULLIVAN
The Oregonian Staff

The "Minefield" explodes with glittering red tips. "War and Peace" unloads alternating rounds of color and fire. "The Torrent" promises "360 degrees of pyro " in a spectacular barrage.

As Americans stock up on Fourth of July fireworks with battlefield themes, those with actual war experience are adopting safety plans instead. Combat veterans in Oregon and southwest Washington say they are heading to quiet campsites, small family gatherings or the basement with earphones. They'll pre-stage their dreams before bed, visualizing different endings.

Depression, anxiety and drinking all spike around the Fourth of July, counselors say. "This time of year is stressful -- period," says Jim Sardo, a two-tour military psychologist who manages the PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) Clinical Team and Substance Abuse Services at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Unexpected bursts of noise, summer heat, crowds, traffic, forced gaiety and coolers of cold beer all contribute.

But the Fourth of July also stands as a collective reminder of both the patriotism and pain in military service. Many veterans are bothered less by the booms, Sardo says, than the deeper questions the displays raise about what it means to go to war and lose a limb, friends or a view of the world as a healthy place.

"I hear patriotic music or the Pledge of Allegiance, I start crying," says Ken Kraft, a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy who earned a Bronze Star in Iraq. "It's a respect and reverence for the rights we have and the really good people trying to defend this country. But I'm not pro-war, and anyone who is, has never been to war.

"War changes who you are and how you are and how you react to things. My wife still grieves for the person who went there.

"Because somebody else came home."

On the last family vacation before he deployed, U.S. Army Capt. Kraft drove his wife, Brenda, their children and grandchildren to Disneyland for the Fourth of July. The next fireworks he saw were over Camp Slayer, the former Al Radwaniyah Presidential complex and Baath Party enclave near the Baghdad airport.

As the operations officer in charge, the Army reservist was responsible for 2,000 people, including the weapons inspectors and forensic specialists exhuming mass graves of people Saddam Hussein tortured and killed. Kraft oversaw security, coordinated defense and intelligence agencies' needs, and at one point, helped local Iraqis open a shopping mall.

The job was 24/7, and Kraft was so focused he never paused, not after a near-disastrous helicopter landing, not after mortar attacks.

It wasn't until he got off the plane in Puerto Rico en route home in 2005, that doctors discovered the pain and swelling he'd masked with Motrin were caused by four herniated discs and extensive blast damage to both knees. Kraft returned to the Portland area and underwent 22 surgeries, including two full knee replacements. After one surgery, his heart stopped. He had to be resuscitated.

He spent nearly a year in a hospital bed. The soldier who once bench-pressed 300 pounds and ran two miles in under 14 minutes, walks somewhere between a shuffle and a pause. The aftershock came when he learned he had to medically retire from the Army -- and Multnomah County.

The military had defined him, from the tattoo of Uncle Sam on his shoulder to the tattoo under that of the placard on all coalition vehicles, inked in English and Arabic: "Caution. Stay 100 feet back or you will be shot."

Having to leave the Army and then the sheriff's office was "hard to wrap your mind around," the 43-year-old says. "One loss after the next."

With a master's degree in counseling, Kraft understood that he needed tools to cope. But even with counseling, he couldn't stand the school bus blocking the driveway and thus, his exit. He gave his mystified wife massive garden stones for her birthday -- strategically placed to defend against an attack. He installed a $30,000 electronic fence and gate, and drove the biggest Dodge pickup.

Finally, "I realized I had to find something positive." Raising Victorian bulldogs, a rare vintage breed, gave his days some joy and structure. But he found peace being with other vets, joining the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and running a vets group for the Elks Club. He drives to the veterans home in The Dalles to volunteer. And he's joined the Welcome Home Project, a retreat program founded by an Ashland couple that uses art, storytelling and conversations to help combat soldiers therapeutically re-enter Oregon life.

As he heads into a quiet Fourth of July with his family, Kraft looks forward to Labor Day and an event to bring metro-area soldiers together.

"We can either come home and drink or drug ourselves to death, or try the best to 'ruck up and march on,' " he says. "That's the route I'm going to take.

"We have to find a way to come back."

Brian Van Horn loved fireworks, especially lighting them. For years, he loaded up the family and headed to Oaks Park or the woods for his own show. But on his first Fourth of July back from Iraq, he couldn't face the noise and crowds. The chief warrant officer stayed home.

A cardinal symptom of post-traumatic stress is avoidance as veterans isolate themselves to handle the adrenaline spikes, startle reflex, anger and sadness triggered by images around them. When the 48-year-old returned from Iraq after nearly 11/2 years, he rushed back to work and raising a busy family.

But he couldn't sleep. He was irritable for the slightest reason. He blew up in traffic. After eight months, he called a Portland Vet Center outreach worker he heard speak when his National Guard unit demobilized. Counseling has helped him find old joys, like riding his Harley, "Pearl." Last year, he attended a private party with his wife, Pamela, and children to watch the Vancouver fireworks. "I really enjoyed it."

But it hasn't erased his war experience.

"I compare it to having a traumatic accident or losing a family member," Van Horn says. "It's going to take a long time, and maybe you're never it over it. That's where I am. It's going to take a long time -- maybe never."

Linda Rotering, a clinical social worker at the vet center who spent a year in Vietnam, says she expects current vets to have a healthier future than their Vietnam counterparts -- in part because of lessons and support from those PTSD pioneers.

"Men and women are coming in now rather than waiting 40 years," she says.

"So I am optimistic. I see healing every day."

For Scott Kaney, the Fourth of July symbolizes not only images of war, but also the way home. As a squad leader and then a platoon sergeant in the 3rd battalion, 1st Marines, the Milwaukie High School graduate served seven overseas deployments. After 9/11, he was among the first into Afghanistan, the first into Baghdad on Highway 1 and the first to Fallujah. He volunteered for everything, he loved the pressure. He didn't know about the "ghosts in the closet that hang there afterward. That linger."

He married Amber Alford between combat tours -- on the Fourth of July. Both were passionately patriotic. "When things affect our country," Kaney says, "they affect us personally." Amber wore a red dress and carried red, white and blue daisies. He wore his dress blues as they stood alongside the Clackamas River. They later named their son after nearby Carter bridge. But Amber began to realize that the carefree man she fell for was changing.

After three combat tours, he returned with a helmet crushed by an IED blast, unable to talk about the "ghosts" that followed. "We all get in this stupid macho mode," he says. "The hardest thing is just facing the emotion of it all. I didn't want to feel."

But he also didn't want to end up like the "Marlboro Marine," a colleague whose emblematic war photo was followed by news of post-traumatic stress and divorce. Finally, after a particularly rocky New Year's Eve 2006, Kaney agreed to visit the Salem Vet Center.

"It wasn't comfortable," the 28-year-old admits. "But every time I went in, I felt better, like I'd accomplished something." He still has nights. He watched a creepy TV program recently and was up until 4:30 a.m. fixating on every entrance of the house and how someone would enter.

But Amber, "this amazing woman," is always there. When Kaney felt as if he were falling apart, she'd say, "We'll work through it." When he blew up, she'd say, "Let's sit down and talk." Often she stood silently rubbing his neck.

"I never considered leaving," she said. "I didn't feel like what had happened was ever his fault. And I knew it would get better as soon as he got help."

This Fourth of July, they'll celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary by returning to the river. In a mind often pocked with memory gaps, he sees their wedding clearly: the sun slowly setting, casting light on the Clackamas. The serenity. The peace.

"War hurts people," Kaney says. "When you get out, you come to a crossroads where you have to say, 'Am I going to let this break me? Ruin me? Or can I move past it?'

"Honestly, family was the driving force saving me."

Julie Sullivan: 503-221-8068;
juliesullivan@news.oregonian.com 

-------------------------

posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org

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