PTSD proves trial for DE warriors

Two grown men spent their morning Friday at the Delaware Children's Museum among screaming, scampering kids, and for all their common experiences the day's effect on the soldiers couldn't have been more different.

Christian Giraldo lives in Dover and Kevin Brackney in Wilmington, and while they've both been all over the world, one of the places they have in common besides Delaware is Iraq. Both came home from deployment with post-traumatic stress disorder. Wives, children and service animals joined them Friday as part of a Wounded Warriors Project expedition that included the museum trip, lunch and mini-golf.

Both of the recovering soldiers said they've made progress putting their disorders behind them, exactly the order of the day for an outing designed to connect wounded veterans with their brothers and sisters on the homefront and to put family time front of mind.

Whether they knew it or not though, their few hours in the museum painted a picture of the complexities of PTSD.

"Honestly, I didn't want to come," Giraldo said. "It's kind of a conflict. I love my children and I love to spend time with them. They're every reason to be alive and fight. They're little miracles. To be entrusted with them, that we were able to have children, I feel very blessed in that aspect but I just have days, and it sucks. I hate it. It's like a roller coaster."

Giraldo served as a combat medic with the U.S. Navy, and he has deployed with the U.S. Marines in Iraq, served on humanitarian missions in the Philippines and toured Southeast Asia as part of his service. His crisis came in 2013, a combination of mental stress and traumatic brain injury from a concussive blast, and by 2014 he'd been medically retired, ending his plans to make the Navy his lifelong career.

Since coming home to Dover, he has completed two years of nursing study at Wesley College. In March, he acquired a service dog from the Florida organization K9s for Warriors, which he said has helped him on the road to recovery. The fistful of pills he takes every day works, Giraldo said. He's got a fellow veteran with whom he plays guitar, and that's taken him a long way as well.

But the PTSD is still there — invisible and unpredictable.

"That's the thing, it's so sneaky," Giraldo said. "You can wake up feeling like crap because you had a bad dream. Or maybe because you didn't sleep because at night when it's quiet your mind is just flooded with racing thoughts. It's like you can't find any peace, any breaks. Sometimes it could be anything that would trigger a flashback."

A few days ago, Giraldo was cutting the lawn with a mower he borrowed from his neighbor. Without a guard to displace the yard debris, grass and sand flew back against his body and face, "and I was out there by myself with my headphones and I just went into a panic state."

At the children's museum Friday, during a time designed for respite, the over-stimulation of the setting was almost too much. He relished a few minutes in a quiet room reserved for the soldiers' families around lunchtime.

Brackney managed the museum, kids and service dog in tow, because the commotion of it all served a soothing purpose.

"In my journey with PTSD, quiet was my trigger. As a heavy machine gun turret operator, I found when there was a hustle and bustle throughout the town you were safe because they would notify the locals when there was going to be an attack," Brackney said. "When there was quiet, you get that Spidey Sense. There is normally a hustle and bustle out in the town and now there's nobody — that's my alarm bell."

His service dog, Brackney said, helps quiet that unease the same way children do. Seeing them active and happy dispels internal disquiet and keeps his mind from racing back to the silent streets of Baghdad. Likewise do his studies help him.

"PTSD has actually been a benefit to me in a way. It's allowed me to focus on a number of different things. I'm going to school full time going after a second master's, working full time. I am able to focus on several different things and not be overwhelmed," Brackney said. "Because of the military training and the PTSD and the things along those lines, my brain wants to be occupied. It thirsts for activity. I find it difficult to sit down and do nothing."

Giraldo and Brackney both described their trials with PTSD as a journey, and both know there's a finish line that can be reached through self-determination along with family, community and medical support. But neither believes they'll ever be the same as they were before.

The Wounded Warriors Project doesn't maintain a field office in Delaware, but people like outreach coordinator Katie Kilby make special trips here regularly to organize events like Friday's outing or the 30-family dinner they hosted in Dover the night before.

"My job is to make sure our wounded warriors are connected with the organization but also with each other," Kilby said. "A big part of what we do is that camaraderie piece, the transition from military service to civilian life is incredibly hard on any service member. You add an injury and potentially isolation to that and it's even harder."

Five families were invited to the museum and mini-golf day in Wilmington Friday, but veterans on the project's email list are given schedules weekly so they can sign up for local events that interest them. Kilby said the events are purposefully diverse so they can reach as many as possible.

"It's no secret this is definitely the longest conflict we've ever fought. A lot of people kind of forget we still have service members overseas fighting this war and serving their country and still coming home injured," Kilby said. "There will always be warriors and families to serve."

Contact Adam Duvernay at (302) 324-2785 or aduvernay@delawareonline.com.