In a roundtable at the Dayton Daily News, six combat veterans shared their experiences in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and describe the toll it has taken.May 26, 2012 - Justin Weis spent his days in Iraq serving in a Marine Corps mortuary affairs platoon, tentatively identifying and fingerprinting his fellow soldiers who had been killed in battle.
The experience left him with nightmares, mood swings, depression and anger. All symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“A lot of the condition stems from survivor’s guilt,” he said. “Why did I get to come home and they didn’t.”
Everyday things trigger him.
“It took me forever to figure out why I was getting mad while I was doing dishes, but it was because I could smell the bleach from underneath the counter,” the 31-year-old from Huber Heights said. “We used it (in Iraq) to clean up after what we were doing.”
To cope, Weis meets with other veterans living with PTSD weekly at the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center. In a roundtable at the Dayton Daily News, he and five fellow veterans shared their combat experiences in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and describe the toll it has taken on them emotionally, physically and mentally. Not everyone wanted to be identified because of the stigma attached to post-traumatic stress.
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