I've heard the "thrown out by wife" bit all too often.
Physically, I have a tinitus, ear canal disease (recognized by VA as a 0% service connected disability...for now), a chronic cough that I have never been able to get rid of, the VA cannot explain it at all, a red discoloration on both legs from the ankles up to my knees (does not breakout or itch), I had rapid weight gain within a year after we left the desert. I ache from head to toe 24/7. I have a torn meniscus in my left knee that the doctors say was most likely the result of an earlier injury (I got hurt when I fell off a duece and a half in the service), I've had hypertension for the last 17-18 years. I have suffered from sleep apnea since about 2 years after I left the service as well, I did not seek tratment for that until about 10 or so years ago, now the VA covers me for that.
Mentally, the VA classified me as having depression and PTSD and I take 2 head-meds as well as a sleep aid through the VA. I am a real ass to my family all too often. My kids are always afraid of me yelling at them, my wife resents me to the point that she wants a divorce but I refuse to give it to her because I love her and I depend on her just being there so much and because I refuse to not be able to see my kids anytime of the day or night that I want like when they wake up or go to sleep.
If I could only DX my body and get a new one!!!
I only recently filed for disability and finally got my paperwork back and now I need to gather letters from my wife and others around me documenting how I changed from when I went it. I need medical records as well and my civilian doctors office wants to change me 25 cents per page. My file is like 3" think.
Most of my pictures were lost as well when I took them into a developer in Saudi just outside Khobar Towers to get them developed and he never gave most of them back to me. I had 40+ rolls of film. Because of that, a fellow soldier in my unit allowed me to copy the few he had. Its a shame because I had so many great photographs over the span of 5 months. I took some of me in port waiting on our tracks, my buddies as well, many as we moved across the desert, many of our TOC setup and those who worked inside it, me and my equipment I had to operate between jumps, lots of the destruction you guys and our two armored battaliions did like the T-tanks blowing their tops, the EPWs, undetonated ordnance, trenchs & bunkers, burning oil fields, me holding some of the AKs and sniper rifles we came across, me sitting on a T-72 abandoned on the highway, an Iraqi supply warehouse prior to it being blown sky high by EOD, and quite a few from the Hiway of Death (highway 80 between Kuwait and Al Basrah just outside Safwan). I do have some from Safwan and the airfield that survived in my camera, time has taken its toll on them though.
Just typing this reply brings back so many memories just like most fo my other replies do.
_________________ Dagger X-Ray - ARMY (12/91 - present) - miss the service (9/90 - 12/91) 2nd Bde 1st Infantry Division - Desert Shield / Desert Storm Combat VET (9/88 - 9/90) C-17th Signal Battalion of 22nd Signal Brigade - Sachsenhausen Bar Scene VET (4/88 - 9/88) AIT Fort Gordon, Ga (12/87 - 3/88) Basic Training Fort Jackson, SC
"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -George Orwell
"I am a soldier, I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight." - General George Patton
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