A soldier's story of brokenness

Posted by Melissa McEwan at 1:42 PM on April 5, 2007.

There's an absolutely heartbreaking story in the New York Times today about Sam Ross, an injured Iraq veteran who was injured in an explosion during a munitions disposal operation in Baghdad on the 54th day of the war. At 20 years old, he was blinded, deafened in one ear, and lost his left leg below the knee. And that was only the beginning.

“I came home a hero, and now I’m a bum,” Mr. Ross, whose full name is Salvatore Ross Jr., said.

…Overwhelmed by severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including routine nightmares of floating over Iraq that ended with a blinding boom, he “self-medicated” with alcohol and illegal drugs. He finally hit rock bottom when he landed in the state psychiatric hospital, where he is, sadly, thrilled to be.

“Seventeen times of trying to commit suicide, I think it’s time to give up,” Mr. Ross said, speaking in the forensic unit of the Mayview State Hospital in Bridgeville. “Lots of them were screaming out cries for help, and nobody paid attention. But finally somebody has.”

But Ross, now 24, still faces charges of attempted homicide, assault, and arson for burning down a trailer where his father had murdered his stepmother—an act done after a protracted period in which Ross self-medicated for post-traumatic stress disorder with alcohol, heroin, crack, and other drugs. Like so many other stories of Iraq veterans, Ross fell out of the overtaxed veterans' services system—because the system is broken, because its scope is limited, because his body was given more attention than his mind, because of a lot of things.

Because seeking and asking for and accepting help is not what a career in the military prepares a person to do.

Jill says: "[E]very returning soldier should receive a phone call or a visit once a month 'just to see how you're doing and if you need anything.' The military breaks a soldier down to turn him into a killing machine. It has an obligation to put him back together if he's lucky enough to make it home." That's absolutely right. One of Ross' biggest problems was loneliness. He moved away from an area with more readily accessible services to be nearer to family. He blew through his injury settlement footing the bill for parties with local yokels, just for the company. He went from peak physical condition in a unit of men all willing to die for one another to physically challenged and all but alone. The surprise is not that he snapped, but that he held out as long as he did.

Tagged as: iraq war, veterans, veterans care

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.