Winter Soldier

by Iraq Veterans Against the War

  I served on the USS John F. Kennedy and deployed to the Persian Gulf in 2004. I worked as an aircraft director on the flight deck. I was one of those guys with the yellow vest and the orange sticks that helps direct the planes on take-off and landing. But in the fall of 2004, I was pulled off my ship and was sent to take part in the second siege of Fallujah, which we called Operation Phantom Fury.

  Fallujah was declared a “free-fire zone” in November 2004 and we told the civilian population that they had to leave because the entire city was going to be deemed hostile territory. Some of them left. They carried TVs or food and sat outside the city and waited for the firefight to be over so they could go home. Some of them didn’t leave. At the time, that possibility didn’t even enter my head, that some of these people wouldn’t leave.

  We are all trained to kill, and we do it well. The standard procedure that we followed in Fallujah whether written or unwritten was to leave dead Iraqis in the streets to be buried by their own. This presented a problem because the sewage system was shut down so sewage started to back up into the streets. There were dead bodies floating in sewage. The smell, I’ll never forget the smell. I can smell it right now.

  We would just leave the dead Iraqis in the streets and they piled up. It was disgusting. We ended up sighting in our weapons on these dead bodies. We’d been trained to keep our weapons “on point.” You always want your weapon to be sighted in. So when we didn’t have a target to shoot we sighted our weapons on dead people and dead animals. That happened a lot at the tail end of Operation Phantom Fury.

  Later on I was discharged with no assistance getting into the VA system. The processing of my application for VA health care took at least three months. When I was finally able to request mental health over the phone, I was told that I could not get an appointment for three more months, and I did not make an appointment. A few days later I looked up the law, and the law says that the VA only has a thirty-day maximum to provide an appointment for someone requesting an appointment. So I called this wonderful organization back and I cited the laws of our wonderful country, and I was given an appointment, and like every other appointment that I’ve ever had from the Veterans Administration it was thirty days later.

  So I went and I showed up at this appointment, and I was inducted into what is a processing system set up to deter people from seeking help. I was spoken to with no compassion. Every single phone call I make to the VA I’m asked if I’m going to kill myself or somebody else in the most inhumane way you could imagine, by the most inhumane people you could imagine.

  So after going through this process, the first thing they tried to do was medicate me. No therapy was recommended. Medications were recommended. They gave me three different medications. The first was Trazodone. The second was Paxil. And the third was gabapentin, a generic form of Neurontin. My doctor did not give me any information on these medications. He told me that PTSD treatment is not a science and that there is no science to it, and that you can mix and match these medications, and something may work for you that doesn’t work for another vet.

  So I left my appointment that day, and I went home and I did research on the medications that I was given. And I found out that the main side effect of all three medications is suicidal thoughts and suicidal tendencies. And that’s disgusting, and that man should be disgusted with himself, and every doctor that does that should be disgusted with himself.

  So upon deciding not to take the medication, I decided I would try therapy. Once again I called the VA and requested therapy. I was told that I couldn’t get an appointment for several months, and I cited the law again, and I was given an appointment thirty days later. So now I get to go to a fifteen-minute therapy session once every thirty days. And when I show up to my fifteen-minute therapy session, there’s fifteen other Vietnam vets that have the same 8 a.m. appointment that I do, and we all wait around in the lobby.

  Every single one of these vets is there seeking help and treatment for the same thing that I’m seeking help and treatment for, and they’re all thirty years older than I am. They’ve been in the system thirty years longer. They’ve been taking the same medications for thirty years, the same therapists for thirty years, and they’re still there and they still have the same problem. So obviously it doesn’t work. There’s no solution with the current situation.

  When I’m not at the VA and I’m around town, everywhere I go I see homeless vets, because one-third of the homeless population is veterans, and that’s disgusting. It is so detrimental. It is so frustrating. It is so angering to me and I’m sure to every single vet in this room that has ever walked into a VA hospital on their own accord to seek treatment or to somehow comfort the people that are trapped inside of these establishments.

  My name is Zollie Peter Goodman. I’m a proud warrior and a prouder patriot, and that’s my problem with the VA.

  Eric Estenzo

  Corporal, United States Marine Corps Reserve, MOS

  Deployments: March 2003–September 2003, from Kuwait to al-Hilla

  Hometown: Los Angeles, California

  Age at Winter Soldier: 32 years old

  Within the final three weeks of our tour, I had a non-combat back injury. The battalion aid station officers told me that if I was injured in country, I would have to stay in Iraq or go to Germany for medical care. They said it would be in my best interest to not say anything until we get back to Camp Pendleton. So I waited, injured, without even my command knowing that I was injured.

  When I got back to Camp Pendleton, I immediately sought care with the Navy Medical Center, and their response was outstanding. The day after I reported my back injury I was actually seen. I was getting therapy, and I thought that this was great. “I served my country. I did my tour in Iraq, and I’m being taken care of.” That is exactly what I expected. I expected a two-way system, where I serve and then they support. I thought that everything was working out for me.

  When I was honorably discharged in 2005, I looked forward to a new chapter in my life. I was in garrison at Camp Pendleton. They told me what was going to happen. They told me that my medical records would be transferred and the VA health-care system will take care of me. There was all of this good information that led me to believe I would be taken care of. I really trusted the system.

  When I got out of the military, I became a full-time student. At that time, I enrolled in the Long Beach VA Healthcare System. Today, three years after returning from Iraq, I haven’t even gotten past the paperwork. I’ve gotten X-rays and MRIs, but that’s where it ended.

  I don’t understand why there is such a delay. What’s the issue? It doesn’t make sense. I just got paperwork and talk about how I should conduct myself now that I’m a civilian, and that’s where it ended.

  From 2005 until 2006 they sent me letters while I waited on my disability claim. I had adjustment issues. I needed to see a psychiatrist. I needed to get some kind of counseling to figure out what was going on with me, because at the time I didn’t think PTSD was an issue. They informed me that I had two years’ worth of free medical care, but with appointments one or two months apart, two years’ worth of free medical service is nothing. And because I was a full-time student, it was even harder because they wouldn’t schedule appointments around my schoolwork.

  I began to realize that adjusting to civilian life was going be challenging. I tried to be optimistic about my future, but even after I got my AA degree I was still dealing with the VA health care system, which was more of a roadblock than anything else.

  After graduation, I couldn’t find a job. The jobs I did find wouldn’t pay enough. I left the military with $17,000 in the bank and good credit. But the $17,000 I saved went to zero. My expenses were overwhelming and I couldn’t pay them. I was having adjustment issues with jobs. My credit score went very low. I couldn’t believe it. This must have been how Vietnam veterans felt when they came back home.

  I heard about Iraq Veterans Against the War through a friend of mine, Jef
f Key, who served with me in the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance. We touched base when I didn’t think I was going to be able to help myself. He told me if I went over to his place in Hollywood I’d be able to stay there, but it wasn’t immediate. Jeff was traveling and no one was there. So this was considered couch-surfing. I didn’t consider myself homeless.

  So I ended up sleeping in my car for one day. I was in Hollywood. I decided to walk around, see if I could find a job. I reached this corner, I can’t remember the name of the block, but there was a food wagon that was serving free food to homeless people. I decided to take that opportunity to eat some free food. At first I was thinking, “I’m just hungry and this is free food, and I’m gonna go for it.”

  I stood in line and noticed the Friends Helping Friends organization was there with a video camera documenting homelessness. As I stood there watching everybody else around me, I looked at myself and I thought, “I’m now an Iraq War vet. I’m standing in a line with homeless people, being served free food and this is actually happening to me.”

  At that moment reality hit, and it hit so hard that suicidal thoughts began. I broke down several times. I cracked the day after that. Once I was able to get back to Jeff’s place, I told him many times about ending my life because this is not exactly how I wanted it to be. I lost dignity, self-respect. I was in a very dark place for a considerable amount of time.

  I had a relationship with a girl. That went away as well. She couldn’t understand the situation I was in, so I ended that relationship. The school situation never picked up, and I ended up having to find a job that barely paid anything. It was through Jeff Key that I found my way back into life. He introduced me to Iraq Veterans Against the War, and through them I found a place that helps vets recuperate and continue their lives after the military.

  As I pulled my life back together, I was again surprised that the VA system wouldn’t help me, even at this time of need. I was reluctant to go back to them, but I was told if I didn’t go back then they’d never know, and I’d be another casualty of the system. So I did go back and, unfortunately, I’m back at square one. They still want me to fill out more paperwork. That’s where I stand to this day.

  Eli Wright

  Sergeant, United States Army, Medic

  Deployment: September 2003–September 2004, Ramadi

  Hometown: Denver, Colorado

  Age at Winter Soldier: 26 years old

  This is my own experience. These are my beliefs and my opinions. I’m not speaking on behalf of the military or the chain of command. I’m not representing anybody’s opinions or beliefs but my own.

  I’m currently awaiting a medical discharge from the army for injuries sustained in Iraq and after I came home. I don’t have any glorious war story, no Purple Heart for my injuries, and I think that’s the reason it’s been so difficult for me to get treatment. I was in a vehicle accident in Iraq. It wasn’t anything hostile. It was just a driver not paying attention. I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. We didn’t have functional seat belts. We didn’t have a functional lock on the door either.

  So when we were hit I was ejected from the vehicle. I sustained a back and a neck injury. I hit my head pretty hard. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet. My adrenalin level was pumping, so I wasn’t in a whole lot of pain at the time, and I was able to just continue mission. “Charlie Mike,” as they say.

  So I kept at it, but I started having problems, chronic back and neck pain. After coming home from Iraq I sustained another injury. It was just a football injury during unit physical training, nothing spectacular there. I had dislocated my shoulder and had torn cartilage in it, but I was only given a quick X-ray and some Motrin. Those of you in the military know how much they like to give out Motrin.

  I started working in the neuroscience ward at Walter Reed, treating a lot of patients with traumatic brain injuries. I’d been back from Iraq for almost a year, but I was still trying to get treatment for my back and neck injuries. I had recurrent dislocations throughout that time. I started having memory loss, headaches, and dizziness. That’s when I started recognizing that I was having a lot of the symptoms of mild TBI, but I couldn’t get a screening for it. There really was no screening process for it then and in large part there still isn’t.

  Fast forward. Over the last year, I’ve been stationed at Fort Drum. When I got there I was given orders to deploy. By that time I’d become fed up with not being able to get treatment for my injuries. I wasn’t capable of doing my job. One of my biggest concerns was that if I couldn’t do my job, other people might die.

  I addressed those concerns to the medical screening team. Over two years after the injury, they finally looked at my shoulder injury and agreed I wasn’t fit for deployment. I gave them my MRI results and they said, “You should have had surgery a long time ago.”

  They did the operation, and then I went through six months of physical therapy. After that, they told me I had plateaued. I’d gotten all of the good out of the physical therapy that I was going to get, but my shoulder is in worse shape than it was prior to the surgery. Because they waited so long, my shoulder is disabled for the rest of my life.

  I was supposed to be medically discharged but nothing happened for almost six months. I was waiting for appointments for both psychiatric and physical issues. I asked questions but didn’t get answers.

  I know my problems aren’t the only ones. My problems are minor compared to the stories of other soldiers for whom I’ve provided peer counseling. This is a systemic issue, and it’s not any one doctor’s or any one commander’s fault.

  The only recourse that I was able to find was speaking to the media. Two days after I spoke with the media I saw a traumatic brain injury specialist. A physical therapist rescreened my shoulder, diagnosing more problems. After six months with almost no progress, I got proper care two days after my story was published in the New York Times.

  We all know how many problems there are with VA health care, but military health care doesn’t get much attention. Soldiers are afraid to speak out. It’s time soldiers become proactive and demand proper health care. We enlisted. We stepped up to serve our country and we haven’t asked for a whole lot in return. Proper health care should be, at a bare minimum, what we’re entitled to. The fact that we’re not getting it makes me sick, because I have seen too many of my brothers and sisters suffering, and we are tired of suffering. We need to demand that we be taken care of.

  Adrienne Kinne

  Sergeant, United States Army Reserve, Voice Interpreter

  Deployments: Classified

  Hometown: Augusta, Georgia

  Age at Winter Soldier: 31 years old

  I served on active duty in the United States Army from 1994 to 1998 as an Arabic linguist and military intelligence. I then transferred to the United States Army Reserve, where I served from 1998 to 2004. I was activated and stationed stateside right after 9/11 for about two years. I went through this system twice, once before 9/11 and the current wars and once after, and I personally witnessed a complete transformation in the way the process was handled. In 1998 I received a complete and thorough end-of-service physical. As part of the out-processing system, a VA representative sat with me and reviewed every single page of my medical file and filled out a VA disability claim for me.

  In 2003, with thousands upon thousands of Reserve and National Guard servicemembers being deactivated through Fort Bragg, they told us if we wanted an end-of-service physical we would have to wait at Fort Bragg for six to eight weeks or longer, in these run-down World War II barracks out in the backwoods. The message was clear. Don’t ask for an end-of-service physical. In addition, there was no VA representative helping people file a claim or reviewing our medical files. There was nobody telling us that we were eligible or how to get into the system. When a soldier is leaving the military, you have a window of opportunity to get into the VA system, but if you miss that opportunity it’s so much harder to get in afterwards.

  When I left th
e Reserves, I finished my education. I really wanted to continue serving veterans, so I decided to work at the VA. In 2004 and 2005 I did internships at the VA in Georgia. After I graduated I got a job at the VA in Richmond, Virginia where I worked as a research assistant on a study looking at Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and traumatic brain injury, because the symptoms of these two illnesses are incredibly similar.

  The research group wanted to develop a mechanism to screen returning soldiers for traumatic brain injury. There were a lot of incredibly educated, well-informed people establishing this traumatic brain injury screening. Before we could make it happen, I was on a conference call when somebody said, “Wait a second. We can’t start this screening process. If we start screening for traumatic brain injury, tens of thousands of soldiers will screen positive. We do not have resources to take care of these people. We cannot do the screening.”

  Medical ethics say that if you know somebody has a problem you have to treat them, so they didn’t want to know about the problem since they didn’t have the resources to treat it. But I think it’s incumbent upon all VA workers to find every area that we need addressed, and to demand that we get the resources to meet those needs.

  Former VA secretary Jim Nicholson said that to meet the needs of returning veterans, they wanted to prioritize OIF and OEF veterans, which sounds great. Prioritizing always has a nice ring to it. But if you prioritize one group of veterans, another group has to do without. The VA needs to address the fact that we have hundreds of thousands of new veterans entering a system that has not grown to meet the demands of these two occupations. No veteran should have to go without.