THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011
PAGE 13
Chris Bronson/KANSAN
veteran's days in the armed services. With projects like the college after their time in the military.
Chris Bronson/KANSAN
Ethan Harris, now a student at KU, is a veteran of the United States Armed Services. Harris was deployed and served in Iraq in the United States' most recent conflict.
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Contributed photo
Combat medic Ethan Harris poses in uniform in Iraq. Harris is pursuing a master's degree while living with injuries sustained during his service.
n from sleeping as much as he would like.
Harris was diagnosed with PTSD, an anxiety disler that can develop after exposure to a terrify event or ordeal in which grave physical harm curred or was threatened, according the National titute of Mental Health.
PTSD occurs in up to 20 percent of veterans who ved in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the . Department of Veterans Affairs' National Cenfor PTSD.
Veterans experiencing PTSD commonly feel pressed or frightened even when they are no longer the high intensity environment of combat. Many experience intense anxiety, flashbacks, fits of anger and nightmares.
Not everyone who is involved in trauma devells PTSD. Like depression, it operates according to grees and the severity is unique to each person, d John Wade, licensed counseling psychologist at unseling and Psychological Services on campus. Onset of stress-induced behavioral health issues as PTSD typically occurs months after re-ening a peacetime setting. Wade said the effects can l uncontrollable and perplexing.
Army Staff Sgt. Zedrick Glisper, combat medic and warrior in transition at Fort Riley's Warrior transition Battalion, is a 10-year soldier dealing with ISD under the care of Army health professionals. He planned on serving 20 years before PTSD set in order to five months into recovery from Hepatitis C and changed his mind. Now, he's focused on getting well and getting out of the military.
"The hardest thing was the nightmares. I didn't think I was the kind of person to have that type of aff affect me," Glisper said. "The anger, the bitterness of being a totally different person half the time on what I normally would be, trying to adjust and still not being able to would be the hardest part. Nowing what you were before and how you are we is totally different and you're wondering how you got to that stage."
Experiencing those intrusive symptoms in a college setting can be difficult.
On a campus filled with more than 30,000 students, Harris' tendency to seek isolation — a common symptom of PTSD — is challenged every day. It manifests in irrational decision-making and impulsive acts.
In class he prefers to sit in a seat where he can observe every one and everything in the room and develop a sense of security through a consistent routine. On days that seat is taken, his reaction is extreme. Anger and disbelief fester and usually he'll walk back out the door, he said.
He knows his behavior might appear inappropriate, but for him it feels acceptable.
"I can't help that behavior," Harris said. "There's a hyper vigilance needing to know everything in the environment that's going on. All of that is a disruption of that personal space that is highly valuable to someone who tends to isolate themselves."
The need to observe and feel in control can be challenging in a classroom full of, for the most part, socially active students. For students with PTSD hyperarousal symptoms such as being easily startled can surface.
For Hultman, set to begin his second semester this fall, adjusting to life on campus provides similar challenges. He's never been officially diagnosed with PTSD, but has experienced anxiety attacks in situations that feel threatening, unfamiliar or out of his control.
"You become super, crazy aware," Hultman said. "You try to tell yourself: relax, relax, you're OK, but I know instantly when I walk through that door I'm going to figure out the best place to sit. I don't care if I can see the board."
When he gets to class he notes the exit routes and mentally lays plans in the event of a dangerous situation.
When someone walks directly behind him on campus, a vulnerable feeling creeps in his stomach. He crosses the street to assess and avoid any potential threat, assuring himself he's safe before lowering
his guard. Chances are the 6-foot, 220-pound man with a background in jiu jitsu could defend himself, but for years in Baghdad he was a target every second of every day. Modifying that mindset is a gradual process.
One afternoon, during mid-tour leave, Hultman was napping on the couch in his parents' home and had a nightmare in which he was back on patrol. He leapt to his feet and ran up and down the hallway, still in a sleep state, yelling at the top of lungs: "turn the lights off! why are the lights on?" He explained that on night patrol in Iraq, having lights on in the truck was a death wish, giving away position and endangering their lives. Hultman's mother, Karen, was terrified and later told Hultman what had happened.
Even after more than a year since combat, where the enemy want you dead and you want the enemy dead, it's contrary to one's nature to feel safe even when your life is no longer at risk.
Wade said of their situation: "It's making the transition from living in this heightened state of arousal, from needing to be hyperly aware of the environment, to being in a situation where it's really not adaptive to that."
BRIDGING THE GAP
After years of training, months spent traveling half way around the world and a lifetime of memories from the trails of war,the comparatively slow and predictable life of a civilian can present a troubling disconnect.
A 10-month deployment can feel like a 10-year maturation. While the lives of friends and family moved forward, veterans return feeling out of tune with the world they left.
Hultman, now set to begin his second semester, struggled to accept that while his life as a civilian was more or less on hold, peers went about their lives. Most friends his age graduated.
"Life was going on without me. It felt like I had to find new friends, which sucks," he said. "They don't
understand you, you're disconnected. It's not that I don't want to find new friends but it's hard."
He said calling old friends felt intrusive. Crowded bars and public places were overstimulating and produced anxiety. While he had stories about time in the Army, his friends shared stories of weekend benders and classroom mishaps. The experience of service is impossible to empathize with, he said.
"I think an experience like going to Iraq, whether you're a paper pusher way way back or a trigger puller way way up front, you come back and you've been shaped by those experiences, Harris said. "It's not necessarily war, it's just that you've had a different experiential path than someone else. It's hard to relate to those things unless the other person was there."
For Harris, 41, making friends is not as much of a concern; he has a wife, five daughters and a 3-month-old son. As an older student, his perspective comes from a different standpoint.
Wade said perceptions are changed during such a unique and meaningful experience and that swapping roles from being charged with the task of bombing a village to living among young people on campus can be a hard adjustment.
The age difference might be small, but the maturity level feels immense. The life experiences of veterans, especially those with service-connected disabilities, are not compatible with students a few years removed from high school.
Dehnke is also an older veteran but hasn't married or had children. He didn't know if he would ever be able to relate to people socially the same way. While no one wants to be coddled, especially the disabled, conveying that message is trying.
"Yes, you're changed forever, but you're still a person, you're still a human however you want to put it," Dehnke said. "If you can step back and realize not everyone's had the same life experiences you had, I think you'll be able to relate to them better."
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