![]() ![]() As Gamal puts it: "You have a mental illness? Get a straw and suck it up."īut untreated mental wounds don't just fade away. ![]() The culture doesn't allow it." A broken Marine is not only useless, he's morally suspect-a malingerer, a nonhacker, a shitbird, a broke dick, a 10-percenter, a light-duty commando, one of the sick, lame, and lazy. "As soon as you put the uniform on, you're expected to be a Marine, and Marines are not weak-physically or mentally. "When you earn the title Marine, the expectations of toughness are inherited," Matt says. They call themselves the shit's shit other soldiers call them bullet bags and bullet sponges. The Marines are the "first to fight," the "tip of the spear" they take the land, and then the Army rolls in and holds it. From the moment they enter boot camp, they're taught that nothing is stronger than the will, which can push the body through heat, mud, fear, exhaustion, and pain. ![]() The Marines, or Many Americans Running into Endless Shit, as they refer to themselves, are notoriously stoic. Marines don't suffer from PTSD a private or lance corporal may occasionally, reluctantly, suffer from "combat stress." But Marine officers? They don't even get head colds. Three years ago, a veterans' advocate called to tell me he knew of a Marine major who was willing to go on the record about suffering from PTSD and, after being charged with misconduct, had been drummed out of the Corps. to say, "You know what you should call your story, the story of me and Matt and Gamal? 'The Lost Convoy.'" Many months later, once we'd all gotten to know one another, after hundreds of phone calls and e-mails and interviews, Justin phoned me at 2 a.m. 'Tomorrow will be a better day'? There's nothing to say but 'Things are fucked-up.' And he knows things are fucked-up and I know things are fucked-up, so…" "What can you say? 'I'm here for you, buddy'? He already knows that. When the doc arrived, Gamal swung to his feet and, taking one last look at Matt, walked away. There were questions, and Gamal answered for Matt, occasionally turning to him: "Is that accurate? That pretty close?" Then they sat waiting for a doctor. They'd all been in and out of psych wards they knew the drill. ![]() He'd already called his "li'l brothers"-former Marines major Gamal Awad and sergeant Justin Inabinette-and they were standing by, ready to take him to the VA in San Diego. This would be his fourth trip to the psych ward, and no, he didn't need her to drive him. #The few the proud the marines logo tvThat winter afternoon when his wife saw him standing silently in the bedroom doorway, she turned o` the TV and asked what was wrong. His only foothold, the bit of steel inside: He had to stay alive for his two sons. Dreams from the night before leaked into the day-young Marines beheaded or impaled on spikes, he himself trapped in a car under the ocean, his 11-year-old boy caught and killed in crossfire-dreams that appalled and exhausted him. He used medication to put himself out at night and sheer willpower to get up in the morning. Nothing, not even sleep, came naturally anymore. His depression, which he likened to quicksand, had him by the balls, and each day he was being pulled down deeper. By January 2008, former Marine gunnery sergeant Matthew Hevezi was just trying to hold on. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |