Broken hearts and nightmares

I realize I haven't gone into enough detail of what caused Josh's PTSD and how the army treated us when we asked for help...

Josh's PTSD stems from his first deployment and his second did nothing to help it... The further into treatment we're getting the more I'm finding out about his second tour and I'm finding its as traumatizing as the first... I don't want to go into too much detail of what happened on here for many reasons...

-OPSEC
-I'm not sure what the Army told the family of the Soldier who was KIA
-Its not my story to tell

The trauma on his first tour is his... his to remember, his to own, his to deal with, and if and when he wants to tell his story, he will...

All you need to know is my husband witnessed the death of a fellow American Soldier and was actively engaged with the enemy on more then one occasion

His symptoms started while he was in country still... He wasn't sleeping, was angry and his behaviors changed... friends of ours who were with him said he changed the day the death occurred...

When he got home he started drinking... a LOT... a WHOLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE lot... He blew through $25k in 6 months (I'm sure it was fun I once spent $3000 in Target in one day and it was a BLAST) sadly he put a stripper though college and killed a nice chunk of his liver during his $25k bender where as I just furnished an apartment haha

It was odd, as quickly as he started drinking, he stopped... and he hasn't started again... it only lasted about 6 months and that was 4 years ago...

After he got into K9 things changed quickly... It was hard to tell what was a symptom and what was just stress from being completely over worked

The months between finishing K9 school and him leaving for his second tour went quickly and are horribly fuzzy for me, he doesn't even remember them

We had 1 big fight that I remember... it changed me and it changed our marriage forever... I don't think I'll ever forget it... It was a few day before Christmas of 2009 and Josh was on CQ... I was pissed (as I was quite a bit back then) We got into a war at the Kennels and Kevin walked in... I didn't know Kevin yet at this point, I just knew he was the new Kennel Master at the time and Josh was not happy at all that he walked in on his screaming match we were having... Kevin pulled me into his office and what he said changed me... It changed the way I saw K9 and saw Josh's health...

He handed me a calendar and said "Your husband deploys in 90 days." and I was like "uh no he is leaving in April" and thats when he pointed to the calendar and said "I know. Your husband leaves in 90 days. If your fighting like this now with him in the US how are you going to hold your marriage together when he deployed?" He then took the time to explain to me what Josh's dog did, something noone had taken the time to do up to that point...

Thanks Kevin, you saved my marriage that day and I doubt you knew it...

While deployed the second time his symptoms got worse...

Nightmares, mood swings, panic attacks...

and then he came home and shit just hit the fans...

I'll add more to this tomorrow... Theres a handsome man standing in front of me asking me to cuddle before he goes to sleep :D