Army Surgeon Shares PTSD Struggles to Help Others

By Lisa Daniel

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2012 – As the Army conducts a worldwide stand-down today to draw attention to preventing suicide within the force, those who have survived attempts to take their own lives may take notice. One is Dr. Tara Dixon.

Army leaders and military officials, overall, say there are multiple reasons why service members commit or attempt suicide. Some are combat-related, but at least half are not. Many involve personal problems with love, money and the law, some that simmered for years before they even entered the military. The problems are complicated by each person’s coping abilities, or resilience, and other factors, they say.

Dixon’s story is less complicated; it is the story of one soldier’s struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder that eventually left her feeling so hopeless that death seemed the only way out.

Dixon, 38, of Georgia, was in her medical residency to become a trauma surgeon when she enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2004 after hearing that the military needed surgeons in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She deployed as a trauma and critical-care surgeon to Iraq with forward-deployed units in 2008 and 2010 -- “me and some guys in a tent,” she said as part of a Sept. 13 panel discussion at the annual Warrior-Family Symposium, sponsored by the Military Officers Association of America and the National Defense Industrial Association.

“We got bombed routinely,” she said. “This was not a Geneva Convention war. We had to take the big red cross off the top of our tent because that’s where [insurgents] aimed.”

Dixon described the stress of treating “the guy I had breakfast with that morning” for critical injuries, and of having to make split-second decisions about whether to amputate a limb or risk transporting a soldier hours away to a Baghdad hospital. Then there were the abused Iraqi children brought in as decoys for insurgent attacks on the unit and the female soldiers who needed treatment for sexual assaults -- crimes she was legally bound not to report at the victims’ request, she said.

Dixon said she coped with the stress through the only outlet she had: running, sometimes 80 miles each week.

Still, she said, “It messes with your mind a bit.” And even though she felt the strain of post-traumatic stress from her first deployment, she soon returned for a second one.

Dixon returned to the United States in the fall of 2010, but the war was still with her. Among the many problems, she said, was returning as a reservist to a city without a military base and no means of support. “I was very much an outcast, and I felt very much alone,” she said.

She described the frustration and embarrassment of post-traumatic stress, of dropping her bags and running to pick up patients at the sound of a helicopter, only to realize she was at her local grocery store.

“It was very embarrassing and frustrating to me that I was nervous in crowds, that helicopters bothered me,” she said. “When you get back to a normal place, somehow your body and your brain don’t shut off” from the survival instincts of war.

“If we didn’t hit the ground when we were in Iraq, if we didn’t duck when someone shoots at us, we would be dead,” she said.

Even when she was fully aware of being thousands of miles from the war, Dixon said, she couldn’t stop from reacting instinctively. “If someone drops the communion plate in church and you hit the ground, that one part of your brain knows you’re in church, but you’re still going to react,” she said.

Dixon said she sought counseling, but her problems seemed only to get worse. Six months after returning from Iraq, she tried to end her life with an overdose of pills.

“I felt lost,” she said. “I was without hope.”

After struggling to find an inpatient facility through TRICARE and the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dixon said her family found a private treatment center where she would spend the next nine months recovering from PTSD. “They gave me my life back,” she said. “They gave me hope back.”

Today, Dixon says she is much improved. She has learned to understand PTSD as “a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.” And she has learned important tactics in treating flashbacks, skills known as “dissociation” and “reorienting.”

“In treatment, they teach you to look around,” she said in an interview with American Forces Press Service from Ocala, Fla. “Here in Florida there are big, beautiful oak trees. There are no oak trees or anything lush in Iraq.” Similarly, she said, “If you hit the ground and you look around and see Starbucks, you know you’re not in Iraq.”

Dixon is processing out of the reserves, and is using some of her medical skills as a veterans service liaison for The Refuge -- A Healing Place, in Florida, where she works with veterans and their families and helps them find treatment. She gets lots of calls for help, she said, including Vietnam War veterans who still struggle with flashbacks and nightmares and even a World War II veteran whose post-traumatic stress surfaced more than 60 years after he left the battlefield.

“Sometimes it helps knowing others have been through the same thing,” she said.

Dixon said she hopes her work will prevent the 9/11 generation of war fighters to not repeat the hard times so many Vietnam War veterans have had with post-traumatic stress.

As for her own struggles, Dixon said, “I’d like to say it’s curable and it’s done and it’s fine,” but she said she doesn’t know when she might stop reacting to things like fireworks.

“I know it’s a lot better,” she said.

Dixon is proud of her work in combat. “I never lost a coalition force in two tours,” she said. But the PTSD has made her career as a surgeon uncertain.

“I really enjoyed what I did,” she said. “It’s something I was very good at. That part is sad to let go. We’ll just have to see how time progresses.”

Paralympian Soldier Pioneers Prosthesis, Hopes to Inspire Others

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.

American Forces Press Service

LONDON – A sharpshooting Army sergeant who helped to usher in an innovative prosthesis that has helped countless wounded warriors has brought his sharp eye to compete in the 2012 Paralympic Games here.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Olson, a member of the 2012 Paralympic shooting team and of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit helped to develop an advanced prosthesis for wounded service members.

“[In] October 2003, I was wounded in Iraq by a rocket-propelled grenade during an ambush,” Olson said. “From there, I was medevaced to Landstuhl [Regional Medical Center in Germany], and I was there for about eight days.” After that, he said, he woke up at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he spent about 18 months.

“In my stay at Walter Reed, there was an outdoor event every day in occupational therapy – shotgun shooting,” he said. “I went out and shot sporting clay one day. I hit my first 49 out of 50.”

Olson said his shooting acuity caught the attention of the program director at Walter Reed, who put in a call to the Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, Ga., to see if a position was available for a competitive shooter or marksmanship instructor.

“I went down to Fort Benning from Walter Reed, had a tryout and was very successful,” Olson said. “[I] got along great with the coaches and the other shooters on the team.”

The Army sergeant said he was assigned to the marksmanship unit in June 2005 and “slowly, but surely, started shooting.”

“And I'm here today,” he added.

Olson noted that been many troops in his position have wished to stay in the military despite their injuries, but were unable to.

“There's a lot of guys that have been wounded that want to continue to serve,” he said. “I'm very blessed and very fortunate to be able to do that.

I hope I inspire, not even [just] wounded soldiers, but other soldiers,” he continued, “just to [let them know], 'Hey, you might be going through something tough, such as [post-traumatic stress], but if you work hard and give yourself goals to work on, it helps you get out of bed every day [and] helps you work hard and overcome things in your life.”

In discussing the origin of the “Olson Socket,” the Army sergeant is quick to note he didn't invent the prosthesis himself.

“I was just the first guy to wear it and help make it work,” Olson explained. “In late 2004, I went down to Orlando, Fla., where Prosthetics and Associates is, and [met] a gentleman by the name of Dennis Clark.”

“Those guys got together [with] myself and the actual designers, and originally drew it up on a bar napkin,” he revealed. “And we tried it out, and we put it together and made it work.”

Olson said as soon as he got back to Walter Reed with the prosthesis, officials there immediately began sending service members down to Florida to be fitted for the same prosthesis and socket system.

“I was very fortunate and very blessed they named it after me, but I just happened to be the first guy to ever have one,” he said.

Olson credited his military service for the discipline that got him here to compete in the Paralympic Games.

“Military service has prepared me for the Paralympics by teaching me determination, patience and just overall hard work,” he said. “My goal for the Paralympics is to be able to perform my best – to perform at the level I know I can. If I do that, I should be on the medal stand.”

The key to his success, Olson said, is practicing, staying focused and concentrating on the fundamentals of his sport.

“For me, my biggest challenge is the ability to stay focused during the entire match,” he said. “So I do some mental exercises, a lot of imagery and some visualization exercises. This sport is 95 percent mental and 5 percent physical.

“I've been training a long time for this,” he added. “There's really no shooting drill, no mental exercise or anything you can really do to prepare for actually sitting there.”

Olson’s next Paralympic Games shooting event is scheduled for Sept. 4 at the Royal Artillery Barracks.

Horses for Heroes Program Helps Wounded Warriors Heal

By Erin Wittkop

American Forces Press Service

CROWNSVILLE, Md. – Army Sgt. Jonathon Biddle never imagined that the challenge of learning to ride a horse would help him recover from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and severe anxiety. A program called Horses for Heroes, however, is helping the wounded warrior do just that.

Biddle joined the Horses for Heroes program in the fall of 2011, following a month-long hospital stay at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. It was Biddle’s wife, Jackie, who encouraged him to try the program after he brought home a flyer from the Warriors in Transition Unit. The program, started in 2009 by Maryland Therapeutic Riding Inc., is designed to help wounded warriors relieve stress so they can focus on healing.

“I feel more confident and less intimidated when talking to people,” Biddle said after a recent riding session with his wife and sons at the Maryland facility here. “It’s been therapeutic for the whole family.”

Suzie Stricker, an MTR Horses for Heroes instructor, said the riding lessons “are an opportunity for the service members to relax and forget about their stresses for a while.”

Kelly Rodgers, MTR program director, developed the idea to provide horseback riding opportunities for wounded warriors after talking with retired Army Col. Ken McCreedy, an MTR board member who actively works with the Warriors in Transition Unit on Fort Meade, Md. The program began with six wounded warrior riders, and currently has 50 wounded warrior riders who take part in eight-week horseback riding sessions.

Family members are welcome to participate in the program , which is what attracted Biddle and his family. “I’d always wanted to learn how to ride and thought it would be a good way to bring our family together while Jonathon was recovering,” Jackie Biddle said. “I really value the downtime [that our lessons provide]. It’s one hour out of the week that our whole family can stop, relax and just enjoy being together. It’s my release.”

Biddle’s progress has been notable, said Chris Lewis, social services coordinator for the Fort Meade Soldier and Family Assistance Center and the liaison to the Horses for Heroes program.

“When Jonathon started the program, he was very shut-in. He was very non-communicative outside of his immediate family,” Lewis said. “He’s more outgoing now and willing to interact with other people.”

Lewis said he has worked with MTR since Horses for Heroes began in 2009. “Troops who ride at MTR undergo a change in their whole demeanor after participating in the program,” Lewis said. “Individuals who struggle with PTSD and traumatic brain injury find new ways to cope with their symptoms. They suddenly become more outgoing and open to new ideas, which propel them to try new programs [that would also help them heal].”

Biddle said he now encourages fellow service members assigned to the Fort Meade Warrior Transition Unit to join the MTR program. “I tell them to try it -- even if they’ve never ridden -- and to make it a family affair or social activity,” he said.

Like Biddle, Army Sgt. Thomas St. Maur struggled with recovery after he returned from a four-month deployment in Afghanistan. St. Maur, too, has found help in the Horses for Heroes program.

He said he is amazed at the new dynamic the riding lessons have brought to his life. “I started the program a month-and-a-half ago and was very wary of horses. I had no previous riding experience at all,” St. Maur said. “It didn’t take me long to realize that they’re just big puppy dogs, and I didn’t have to be anxious around them.”

A combat veteran of multiple deployments, St. Maur said Horses for Heroes has helped him manage his emotions and focus on having new experiences.

St. Maur strongly encourages other troops to get involved with the program, especially those like him without previous experience around horses.

“If given the chance, service members should definitely give it a try,” he said. “It’s been a great experience.”

President Hosts Troops, Families for Independence Day Party

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 5, 2012 – President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a Fourth of July party for hundreds of service members and their families on the South Lawn of the White House yesterday.

The partygoers enjoyed traditional holiday food and a concert by country music star Brad Paisley before taking in the fireworks display that lit up the nation’s capital.

In remarks during the festivities, the president singled out one guest from each service for special recognition.

“We salute our soldiers, like Sgt. Alan Ruehs, who, in the midst of an enemy ambush in Afghanistan, risked his own life to save the lives of four others,” he said. “We salute our sailors, like Petty Officer Taylor Morris, who suffered terrible wounds while serving in Afghanistan on an explosive ordnance disposal team, but who inspires us all through his incredible recovery. We salute an airman: Col. Charles Barnett, who led close to 200 combat missions in Afghanistan and still serves his country by volunteering to care for our fallen heroes at Arlington National Cemetery.

“We salute a Marine: Cpl. Alex Nguyen, who sustained serious injuries when his vehicle struck an IED in Afghanistan, but who carries on stronger than ever,” he continued. “We salute a ‘Coastie’ from my hometown of Chicago: Lt. Cmdr. Michelle Watson, who was one of the first African-American women to graduate from the Coast Guard Academy and went on to perform exceptional service in Operation Enduring Freedom.”

All of the invited service members represent a generation of heroes that has earned its place in history alongside the greatest generations, Obama said.

“Because of your service and sacrifice, all of our troops are now out of Iraq,” he said. “Because of your service and sacrifice, we took the fight to al-Qaida and we brought Osama bin Laden to justice. Because of your service and sacrifice, we’re transitioning out of Afghanistan. We will remain ready for any threat. That is all because of you.”