A Continuing Battle
    By Kristi L. Nelson
    Knoxville News Sentinel

    Monday 05 February 2007

Don't try fighting post-traumatic stress disorder alone, urges retired Knox soldier.

    Sometimes, when he's driving down the street, Jullian Philip Goodrum smells diesel fuel and, just for a moment, his mind flashes back.

    He's again in Iraq, driving in an Army convoy in underequipped and ill-maintained vehicles, with no radios, maps or heavy-duty ammunition.

    When Goodrum feels his mind going in that direction these days, he has a quick trick: He grabs a little bottle of lemon juice from the glove box and squirts a shot on his tongue.

    "My mind reacts; it brings me back," Goodrum said. "Something that simple. It's amazing."

    Since leaving Iraq in 2003, Goodrum - like many soldiers - has been gradually overcoming the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He's struggled with deep depression, sleeplessness, nightmares. He has "flashbacks," times when his mind unwittingly takes him to places he doesn't want to be. Like watching as a British military convoy runs over a small Iraqi girl, killing her. Since they're told insurgents sometimes put children in the road to stop conveys, he said, military leaders "really get put in moral and ethical situations."

    Shortly after Goodrum returned to Knoxville, his three-year relationship with his fianc e ended, another "casualty of war," he said. Though she tried to be understanding, he said, spouses and partners of military personnel just aren't equipped to deal with the mental crises that sometimes arise with a return from combat.

    But 2003 also marked the end of another important love relationship in Goodrum's life: his 16-year military career.

    Goodrum's records up to 2003 show an exemplary military career. The son of a veteran of the Korean War, he joined the U.S. Navy at age 18, for money for college. When he'd served his time, he transferred to the Army National Guard while attending the University of Tennessee. In 1999 he was commissioned as an Army officer. He was deployed during the Persian Gulf War. Now 36, he has received awards, including the combat action ribbon and a 2001 "Officer of the Year" award for the 176th Maintenance Battalion. He withstood high pressure as a gunner's mate in the first Gulf War, when the Navy battleship on which he served was fired on by an Iraqi missile. Coming up through the ranks, the junior officer had a reputation for being a "soldier's soldier": He took care of his men.

    But with his last deployment, to Kuwait, Goodrum couldn't always do that - and he blamed the Army.

    "There is no greater honor and privilege than leading soldiers into combat," Goodrum said, "and there is no greater burden than being responsible for human life."

    Goodrum was "cross-leveled" into a unit he had no experience with. He didn't know the soldiers' capabilities. He felt the upper leadership wasn't there, the soldiers were ill-trained. And he knew for a fact that they were ill-equipped, being sent on what they dubbed "suicide missions" with no radios, maps or heavy weaponry, in trucks that were neither armored nor well-maintained.

    Such "incompetence" from the top down, Goodrum believed, resulted in the death of a soldier from his unit, 22-year-old Sgt. Kenneth Harris, who was killed when the truck he was riding in - which was in shoddy shape, Goodrum said - was in an accident.

    Goodrum was Stateside at the time, seeking medical treatment for a physical injury, and he decided Harris' death warranted a complaint to his state representative, William Jenkins.

    Later, he was quoted in a United Press International article about appalling conditions at Fort Knox, Ky., for the soldiers in "medical hold" there. That article sparked congressional investigations of the treatment of injured soldiers at two bases.

    "I don't question why we go to war; I take my orders and go," he said. "But I do expect that if a soldier's injured serving his country, he should be taken care of."

    But his outspokenness appeared to make Goodrum an enemy of the Army. When he began experiencing mental problems consistent with PTSD, he couldn't get treatment. When he sought treatment at a civilian psychiatric hospital in Knoxville, the Army took away Goodrum's paycheck and insurance and, even though his doctor was in communication with the military, declared Goodrum AWOL - Absent Without Leave - an offense punishable with up to six years in prison.

    Goodrum said it was only after he went to fill a prescription and learned he no longer had insurance that he found out the Army was charging him with desertion. What followed were weeks in lockdown at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, months of legal wrangling and $40,000 in legal fees that Goodrum said culminated in the Army retiring him at the rank of captain and letting him retain his insurance.

    But feeling betrayed by the Army - once his "family," he said - contributed to his depression and other mental problems.

    Now, four years later, he's made progress, he said, thanks to hard work and psychotherapy. He's learned to talk to himself, remind himself he's in Knoxville, not in Iraq. He tries to be more social, not isolate himself. He's sleeping better. He avoids watching the news.

    Still, he worries about his fellow veterans; everyone who returns from Iraq, he said, has at least "a touch of PTSD," even if it's just during the first few months of readjustment.

    Dr. Catherine Zook-Bell, who treats Goodrum at Bearden Psychological Center, said she thinks she should be treating more veterans for PTSD. There's quite a stigma attached to mental illness, especially in the military, she said.

    "People are embarrassed or afraid" to get help, she said. But PTSD "is a normal reaction to an abnormal experience."

    Yet, unlike in the days Vietnam veterans were told PTSD was something they'd have to suffer with for the rest of their lives, treatment is available - and it works, she said.

    Zook-Bell treats PTSD in three stages. First is helping the client build coping resources and understand what's happening to him or her. This includes wiping out "self-defeating" behaviors (alcohol or drug abuse, for example).

    Next is working through the trauma, helping the person process what happened.

    Last is rebuilding and moving on with his or her life: "You can decide what direction you want your life to be from now on," she said.

    But treatment takes time - and recognizing symptoms, she said.

    Goodrum warns fellow veterans, "Do not let an unseen injury develop into a 'walking wounded' casualty of war."

    "Per G.I. Joe, 'knowing is half the battle," he said. "Obtain medical knowledge and become familiar with symptoms of PTSD. Seek out qualified medical providers for medical support or readjustment support in your area that specializes in PTSD. PTSD is a risk of injury during service in a combat theater of operations. Have in place a course of action to implement if you begin to experience symptoms of PTSD or (have) readjustment concerns."

    And, he's sad to say, don't depend on the military to take care of it. Goodrum is full of stories of military personnel who tried - and failed - to get mental-health services through the Army.

    "I would never, ever have believed it, if I hadn't witnessed it myself," he said.