Obviously not everyone gets to be up onstage or in front of a camera. But as fun as that stuff was, it’s really not necessary for what’s important. All I was doing was being myself, sharing my story as honestly as I could. Whether you’re doing that in front of a camera or a crowd or to just one person doesn’t make a difference; what’s important is how you feel and how you make others around you feel.
But all that sharing-emotions crap is hard. Talking about your fears and disappointments can make you feel vulnerable. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with that. When I was a teenager, I never really opened up about myself much. I was more of a listener than a speaker. A lot of people used me as their sounding board. I always liked to think of myself as a sympathetic person, but I was a total pushover. I would sit and listen forever to anyone’s and everyone’s sob stories. Looking back, I suspect it was just easier for me to listen than it was to talk about myself.
A lot of things happened to change my outlook. My military training was part of it; it gave me the confidence to talk frankly and to the point. Unfortunately, I still didn’t know much about getting other people to talk. The Army didn’t seem interested in training me to help people get in touch with their feelings. As an MP, if I wanted information from a suspect, I knew how to beat it out of them. That’s not a bad tactic in a war zone, but it’s not much help when you’re trying to figure out how to help a friend or colleague get through a divorce or cope with being laid off from work. Most people don’t respond well to being told, “Stop crying or I’m gonna punch you in the throat.”
Getting blown up was part of it, too. It certainly gave me an interesting story to tell. But the most important part of the equation, without a doubt, has been the traveling I’ve done.
In my younger days, even when I was in the Army, I never had many opportunities to visit different cities or countries. By the time I was discharged from the Army, I’d hardly been anywhere, and as a result I rarely met new people. That changed when I started working for Quantum Rehab. Thanks to my job as its national spokesperson, I travel almost all the time, and I’m always surrounded by new faces, which is great—I love meeting new people.
When you’re surrounded by the same people every day, it’s all so familiar. Even if something interesting happens, all the people know just as much about it as you do. That all changes when you meet someone new. They know nothing about you. You’ve had different experiences. As I traveled, it became easier to feel interesting and reveal my personality to strangers.
I was lucky in that after I finished rehab, I was able to talk about my pain in ways that advanced my career—first as part of the HBO documentary and then in news interviews and on All My Children. Not many people get paid to talk through their issues; I imagine even fewer get offered full-time jobs that encourage them to bare their soul as part of their duties. I know exactly how lucky I am for the opportunities that have come my way, and I realize that most people won’t have access to these kinds of resources. But we can all find something that works for us. You just need to find the right audience.
Offering the obvious recommendations—go see a professional therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or a trusted member of the clergy—tends to rub some folks the wrong way. Maybe it’s because going to these sorts of professionals for help feels like admitting defeat. If that’s how you feel, I’d suggest you’re looking at things wrong. Think of those folks as resources that are there to help you cope with the problems you face; as I’ve said before, use the tools you’re given.
If the thought of sitting on a couch or in a confessional is just too much for you to take, though, it doesn’t mean you don’t have options. You can reach out to your family or your friends. After all, that’s supposed to be what they’re there for, right? No one else cares more about you or knows you so well as those who are closest to you, so in a lot of cases they’re the best equipped to give you advice. Sometimes all you need to do is ask for it.
Maybe the problem you’re dealing with is too personal to bring up with your nearest and dearest, though. Or maybe those people are the problem. What do you do then? Improvise. Go to a bar you’ve never visited before and never plan to set foot in again, and after a few rounds, spill your story to the bartender. Odds are, it won’t be anything he or she hasn’t heard before. If you don’t drink, find a barber or a hairstylist and talk their ear off while they cut your hair. No hair? Go to a coffee shop and wait for some unsuspecting, sympathetic soul to make eye contact. Go to a support group, where the other people have been through the same shit you have, where they already understand what you’re going through. You won’t have to explain as much to them. They’ll get you right away.
When you’re coping with important situations, it’s important that you talk to the right person and find the way that works best for you to get your feelings out into the open. This is part of the reason why people who work in gruesome jobs—such as soldiers, cops, firefighters, doctors, nurses, and EMTs—have reputations for indulging in gallows humor. When I was in Iraq, the other troops and I would crack jokes about everything, no matter how sick or twisted. That was just our way of coping with the stress of being in combat situations, day after day. We thought we were just being funny, but in hindsight I can see how badly we all needed to vent—to talk about what we were going through—and the only way we could do so was by making sick jokes.
If that works for you, go for it with my blessing. Sign up for open-mike night at your local comedy club and tell them Bryan Anderson sent you. You might not think your problems are so funny when you’re neck-deep in them, but other people might. Hell, when all else fails, you can always talk to a dog. They never interrupt you, and they never betray your secrets. Now that I think about it, maybe we should all start with a dog.
The bottom line is if you really want to unburden yourself, there will always be a way, and I think you should do whatever you need to in order to find it. Why? Think of bad feelings as a can of beer that’s been violently shaken. That’s a lot of pressure built up inside something that can barely hold it. So what do you do when life leaves you all shook up? You have two choices. You can talk about whatever is bugging you—easing the can open and letting out the pressure one tiny bit at a time—or you can wait until life comes along and pops your top and you explode.
Your choice.
At first, the talking is just for you. Let that pressure out. You’ve got to do this before you can accept your situation and begin whatever healing—emotional, physical, or both—you need to do in order to move forward. But as you get better you can discover, like I did, that what you’re going through can also be a tool to help someone else. Just think about that. Even when you’re feeling a lot of hurt, when you’re feeling helpless, you still have it in you to help someone else. It’s true, although it might be hard to believe, for both you and the people around you.
Like I said, before the bombing, from when I was a teenager, I was used to people opening up to me. What always surprises me, though, is that there are people who know me but for whatever reason don’t see me as someone who can give them advice or sympathy. Some people look at me and think that my life is worse off than theirs, or that I have more problems than they do—which is not necessarily true—and because of that they think that they shouldn’t complain to me. When they’re around me, they think they aren’t allowed to feel bad about their problems just because I’m in a wheelchair. But this isn’t true.
I’m as capable of helping people as I ever was, maybe even more than before, after what I’ve gone through. Not only does talking about things help me, helping others helps me, too. So talk to whoever you’re comfortable with, and don’t cut off anyone just because you think they’re more tragic than you are. I don’t want people to think that just because I’m in a wheelchair I can’t help them with their problems. My disability isn’t some kind of holier-than-thou badge of honor that makes my problems more important than anyone else’s. I’m just a guy. If I want to help,
let me. We’re all in this together, right?
13
I’M NOT SPECIAL
It always makes me uncomfortable when someone describes me as a hero because I don’t think of myself as one. The way I see it, I’m just another soldier who got hurt in Iraq. It’s not as if I charged a machine-gunner’s nest or jumped on top of a grenade. I was driving at five miles per hour on an empty street and got blown up. I don’t call that bravery, I call that hitting the jackpot in the Iraqi Shit-Luck Sweepstakes. It could’ve happened to anyone.
And it does happen to anyone. Tens of thousands of U.S. and allied soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hit by IEDs. Some of them were lucky enough to escape unhurt or with minor injuries, but most of them weren’t. Lots of them were killed or maimed as I was. More than seventeen thousand veterans of the Iraq War have been sent home because they were wounded too severely to continue on active duty. If you want to applaud my service, I won’t argue with you, but I want you to remember that my fellow veterans are heroes, too.
I’ve heard some folks say that we deserve to be honored not just because we were wounded but because it happened while we were serving our country in uniform during wartime. “Okay,” I say, “but when a soldier gets hurt, what does it matter whether it happened in a war or during peacetime?” That usually gets people thinking for a few seconds.
Most often, the answer I get back is “It doesn’t matter. If they were wounded while serving their country, it shouldn’t matter where, when, or how.”
That’s a good answer, I think, because if you accept it as true, then you can say the same thing about police officers and firefighters who get hurt or killed in the line of duty. They wear uniforms and risk their lives for all of us every day. They’re heroes, too, in my book.
So why revere soldiers, cops, and firefighters who get hurt in accidents but not civilians? After all, losing a leg hurts just as much whether you wear camouflage fatigues or faded blue jeans. What makes one person’s injury heroic and the other one’s ordinary? Is it just a matter of perception? Do we salute wounded soldiers, cops, and smoke jumpers simply because it makes a better story for the evening news? Does wearing a uniform make that much difference?
Yes, it does.
A uniform is more than just clothing. It’s something that has to be earned. To wear one is to tell the world that you are part of something greater than yourself. The idea behind having a group of people wear a uniform is that they’ve put aside their individual personas—their wants, needs, and agendas—and taken on a shared identity. By wearing a uniform, a person becomes just one of many. This is the same reason that new recruits have their heads shaved when they first arrive at basic training. As much as possible, all the recruits are made to look the same, with identical haircuts, clothing, and boots. It sends a simple message: “You are not special. You are all equal. You are all in this together.”
To wear a military, police, or firefighter’s uniform is to accept risk. People who see you wearing one know immediately that you have pledged yourself to the service of others and willingly put yourself in danger. You’re telling them that you are willing to give it all—to fight, kill, bleed, and die—to defend them, the way of life they enjoy, and the freedoms they cherish.
When you think about what it really means to wear that sort of uniform, you begin to understand that simply putting one on and going to work each day is an act of courage. That’s what makes such persons’ sacrifices and injuries in the line of duty inherently heroic. So when I say, “I’m not special,” I don’t mean that I think I’m not a good person. What I’m trying to say is that I’m just one of many. If I’m a hero, so are all the others like me.
For me, though, this raises an important question: Why don’t we treat all our veterans like heroes? Why should some of them be given less credit or fewer rewards just because they were lucky enough to come home without serious physical injuries? Some soldiers who have never been wounded still suffer as a result of their combat experience. Many have memories that haunt them and psychological illnesses that go untreated for years because not enough people take posttraumatic stress disorders seriously. Why are there no parades for them? Why don’t they get interviewed by HBO or photographed for the cover of Esquire?
Call me crazy, but I thought we were all in this together.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying the government didn’t do right by me, because it did. Army doctors saved my life, and I received the best care and rehabilitation at Walter Reed that anyone could ever hope for in my situation. On top of all that, shortly after I came home I was informed by the Army that I would be receiving a very generous, tax-free pension for the rest of my life. I have never felt that I was shortchanged or taken for granted by my country.
One of my favorite memories from my time at Walter Reed was the day that I received my payout from TSGLI, which is the Traumatic Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance fund. Basically, they pay onetime lump sums to soldiers like me who have lost limbs in combat action. The more you’ve left on the battlefield, the bigger a check they cut to you.
Well, I maxed out and got the whole enchilada—the maximum payout.
The day that money was wired into my bank account, my mom saw it first, because she had been taking care of my finances for me. When I came back from therapy that afternoon, she had a big smile on her face. “Come here,” she said, beckoning me.
“What is it?”
“I pulled up your account,” she said. “Y’know, just to check what was going on.” She pointed at the screen of the laptop computer we’d been using, and I looked at it.
I saw all those zeroes, and my jaw dropped open against my chest.
“Oh my God,” I said, like it was all one word. “Holy crap!”
That was a fun day—we went to the mall. We didn’t go crazy or spend a lot of money, but it felt good to know that we could if we wanted to.
Money alone would not have been enough to get me through rehab, though. Cash is nice, but it doesn’t hold your hand while you’re learning to walk. It doesn’t gently pat the sweat from your face while you lie awake all night, unable to sleep. Maybe you can use money to hire people to do these things, but you can’t pay them to really care. That’s why I thank God that I had my family with me when I woke up at Walter Reed.
Emotionally, my getting blown up hit my family much harder than it hit me. At the time I didn’t understand why. Now I get it. All they’d ever wanted was the best for me, and they felt like there was nothing they could do to help me after I got hit. Of all of them, I think it was worst for my brother. Seeing what had happened to me really devastated Bobby. Of the two of us, he’s always been more of a rebel and a troublemaker, and I’ve always been the good twin—the nice guy, the dependable one. So when he saw me lying in that hospital bed, it shook him up.
“It should’ve been me,” he said to me once. “This doesn’t make sense. It’s not fair.”
He kept asking me if there was anything he could do, but there wasn’t. I didn’t know how to make him understand that it was enough that he and the others were there—that their presence was all I needed. Just showing up was what mattered. Waking up surrounded by my family had made me realize that no matter what happened for the rest of my life, I would have them behind me. That’s what really pushed me forward and kept me motivated during rehab: knowing that they were there, waiting for me to come out on the other side.
My mom showed me that by coming to live with me at Walter Reed. Just her being there would have made me feel better, even if she hadn’t done anything (though, of course, she did everything and more). Having her with me made it possible for me to tell myself each day, I’m gonna get through this, and it’s gonna be all right.
The truth is, no matter how many times I tell my story, I never feel like I give my mom enough credit.
Look around. Who’s in your corner—helping you, encouraging you, just there for you? Your family? Your friends? Doctors, nurses, co
unselors? Whatever you do, don’t take them for granted. It’s easy to dump on these people. You can hold it together all day long, put a smile on your face for the rest of the world, and then come home and explode. You had a crap day at work but you can’t yell at your boss, so you come home frustrated and angry and have no patience for your kids. You struggle with whatever it is you’re struggling with but keep all your feelings bottled up inside because you don’t want everyone to know your problems; you’re sure they won’t even care. Then you let it all out to the people closest to you. They see you at your worst: angry, crying, full of despair . . . and guess what? They’re still there. And you know why? Because they care about you. They think you’re special enough that they put up with all your crap.
So yeah, look around. Those are the people who make you special.
If anything in my life makes me feel special, it’s my family. No medal, parade, twenty-one-gun salute, or anything else I can think of even comes close.
But as special as they make me feel, I really do think of myself as ordinary. However, sometimes people treat me as if I’m anything but.
Early in my rehab process, I was taken on a tour of the Pentagon. If you’ve never been there, let me tell you, that is an amazing place. If you’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about. My mom and I were with a group of other wounded vets from Walter Reed, and we all were led down this incredibly long main corridor. Lined up on either side of the hallway were all these people, military and civilians, who worked there. As we passed by, everyone had tears in their eyes as they clapped and cheered for us. I had never seen anything like it in my life. The raw emotion flooding that space was electric—I could feel it.
Near the end of the line, I met Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who shook my hand and thanked me for my service. That blew my mind—me, a simple MP sergeant, shaking hands with the secretary of defense. It was like something out of a dream.
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