IVAW member, Jeremy Bergren, has a blog post up on the IVAW website in which he defends his bout with PTSD. Like most of the IVAW members, Bergren never deployed. His unit deployed, but he was legally absent – and that, apparently is the source of his PTSD;<\/p>\n
I will not get too much into the guilt and shame that goes through a marine’s, or probably any servicemember’s, heart and head in a situation like this, but it is at a disturbing level to be stuck stateside while your friends, your peers, and unit are gone. Throughout my unit’s deployment I had a difficult time sleeping, had nightmares about what they were doing, but this made me feel more alienated so I never talked about it and just bid my time and got out as soon as my contract allowed me to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yeah, his unit was a mortuary unit, so I’m guessing his nightmares were somehow related to ninja zombie mutant robots. If his unit was infantry, or engineer, I might understand crediting his discomfort to survivor’s guilt, but they were pogues in the rear with the gear.<\/p>\n
I don’t usually comment about others’ PTSD, but let’s recount what IVAW members think cause their PTSD. We had one, whose name slips my mind for the moment, who got PTSD while guarding a gate at 8th and Eye in DC in the weeks following 9-11. We have Matthis Chiroux who claims his PTSD stems from listening to others tell war stories in the barracks and finally, Bergren, who claims he suffers PTSD because he DIDN’T deploy – he got it from his dreams and imagination.<\/p>\n
I guess that about covers everything, doesn’t it? Everyone who ever put on a uniform for more than a day suffers from PTSD. Hell, I pulled gate guard while I was at the reception station at Fort Polk on day four of my active duty time. All of the prior service guys at the reception station were Vietnam vets in 1974, and they loved to tell us their war stories – shit, I guess I had PTSD right from the get-go. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"