They are isolated desert outposts usually hours
away from the closest military base.
--This is a true story of the camps. The “sea
stories” told
are completely imaginary, as are the characters and names of the
camps. This story is written omitting or changing names in order
to protect companies and contractors, foreign and Iraqi alike,
from insurgent retaliation. Two chapters in this work describe
the life of those contractors who lived and worked in these remote
desert outposts.
--During my first tour in Iraq, I noticed
that many of my fellow co-workers exhibited symptoms of Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD). I also suffered from PTSD and have been
treated for it; therefore, I decided that an explanation of the
disorder, from a patient’s point of view, would help people
recognize and cope with the disorder.
-When I read about the “demons” that
our military and civilian contractors were battling, I realized
that few people know what battling demons really means. Therefore,
I’ve related
my own experiences battling them and how I was able to overcome
the disorder. Many may not even know they are suffering from it.
And for others, the symptoms may not surface for years to come.
--(Recently
a television documentary on UFOs recorded the experience of a man
claiming to have been abducted by aliens and transported to their
spaceship. The most profound statement, and most terrifying aspect
of the experience for him was that he was “paralyzed” by
the aliens and therefore couldn’t protect himself. That is
an eerie resemblance of the nightmares that PTSD sufferers have;
they are so realistic and three dimensional that if they didn’t
wake up in their beds, instead of a war zone, they would have believed
it to have been real—they too were paralyzed and helpless.
That is a natural feature of the development of the primal brain;
it has the survival purpose of
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