Halloween 2004 is one night that Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Brad Ziverk, 43, of Springfield, will never forget.

“That was my first night in Iraq. Everything about it – the sights, sounds, smells, the heat – just blew me away,” he recalls. “There is no sewage or plumbing system, and the people there have a very different attitude about life than what we’re used to here. They leave their dead on the side of the road. Then the insurgents come along and hide their IEDs (roadside bombs) inside the bodies.”

Ziverk spent the next 11 months in Iraq working security and training Iraqi soldiers. He completed more than 1,400 successful security missions. During one mission, a 10- or 11-year-old boy threw a grenade at him, and he was hit with shrapnel. On another mission, Ziverk and others in his convoy were injured in a roadside bomb.

A few months into his service, he began having difficulty sleeping. Ziverk was referred to an Army psychologist, who, after counseling him, prescribed some sleeping pills with the request that Ziverk continue counseling.

“After working an 18-hour day, you’re wired anyway. When you know what you’re doing and where you’re going on a security convoy the next day, you can’t stop thinking about it the night before. Your life and the lives of those you’re protecting depend on you doing your job right, so you go over it again and again in your mind the night before,” Ziverk says.

The prescription sleep aid helped “a lot” he says, and he continued seeing the psychologist throughout his time in Iraq. During his last visit, the psychologist formally diagnosed Ziverk with post-traumatic stress disorder and recommended he continue counseling after he returned to the U.S.

“He (the psychologist) thought I had had PTSD since I served in Beirut over 20 years ago as a Marine,” Ziverk says.

A Marine for nine years, Ziverk served in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 and Panama in 1989. He joined the Army Reserves as a drill sergeant in 2002 after his oldest son, 21-year-old Scott, joined the Army. Scott has also served several tours in Iraq and returned from his latest one in September.

Coming home

“When I first came home, I was having nightmares, flashbacks, was jittery and couldn’t sit still, and I’d flinch at loud noises. I avoided driving over things and I’d duck when driving under an overpass, just out of instinct, because that’s what I had to do in Iraq,” Ziverk says. “I was home for about six or seven months before I started getting counseling. My wife Lynne and our family doctor, (Naomi Purdy, M.D.) thought it would be a good idea for me to talk to someone here, and Dr. Purdy referred me to Mike Groves, LCSW, at St. John’s Behavioral Health.”

Ziverk says Groves, who is a former U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) licensed clinical social worker, assured him that what he has experienced are normal reactions to his service in Iraq, and is helping him readjust.

“Mike understands all the military terminology and has a lot of experience with vets,” Ziverk says. “It’s good to have someone who understands what I’m going through.”
Groves says most vets with or without PTSD have readjustment issues upon returning home from military service.

“When military men and women leave here, they have access to e-mail and some have cell phones, but their civilian life really stops until they get home again, which may be a year or more. People change, kids grow, people die, but they come home expecting things to be the same as when they left, and life here has gone on without them,” Groves says. “It can be very difficult for them – they feel alienated. This is all on top of dealing with the often very troubling things they saw and experienced while fighting a war.”

Encouraging others to seek help

While many are reluctant to get psychological help because of a stigma in the military about mental health problems and/or a fear of being demoted, both Groves and Ziverk encourage anyone having trouble readjusting to talk to a counselor and seek out the camaraderie of other vets by visiting a Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post, Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Post or other veterans’ services organization.

“The military has become a lot more sensitive and aware of post-combat stress,” Groves says. “They want to keep people in service. The reports I’m getting are that the military is much more open and willing to help people with these problems.”

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, about 30 percent of men and women who have spent time in war zones experience PTSD. Nearly one out of five combat soldiers is leaving Iraq with a mental health problem, such as PTSD, says a study published in the June 30, 2004 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. Most servicemen and servicewomen aren’t getting treatment, and a key reason is fear of stigma, says the study’s authors.

“It’s hard, if not impossible, to come home from war and be the same person as we were when we left. I’ve talked to a lot of vets and have encouraged them to get help before it really causes problems in their lives,” Ziverk says.

While alcohol abuse hasn’t been a problem for Ziverk, he says he knows vets who drink to escape the memories of what they experienced at war and to “turn their brain off” at night so they can sleep.
“We call that ‘self-medicating,’” Groves says. “The destruction PTSD causes in daily life can be intense, and time alone doesn’t cure it.”

Marriage can also be a casualty when a vet doesn’t seek help for mental health or readjustment problems. Groves provides marriage counseling to military couples and often counsels spouses of vets who won’t seek help themselves.

Ziverk says he’s glad he got help when he did, and he’s lucky to have the unflinching support of his family during his readjustment period.

“I couldn’t ask for anything better as far as my wife, Lynne, goes. She’s been so understanding and doesn’t push me to talk when I don’t feel like it,” Ziverk says. “I’m still adjusting to my life back here. When I’m not working, I try to keep busy with hobbies, like fishing and building models. I am now a person who appreciates the little things in life, like green grass, fresh air, a clean bed and saltshakers, and I’m doing better and better every day.”

Symptoms of PTSD

• Sleep problems
• Depression
• Irritability
• Increased feelings of aggression or even violence
• Feeling detached or numb
• Feeling jittery or “on guard”
• Being easily startled
• Loss of interest in things they used to enjoy
• Trouble feeling affectionate and avoidance of certain places or situations that bring back memories.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
If you or a loved one are having trouble adjusting after time in Iraq or other military service, please call St. John’s Behavioral Health at 417-820-7447 to schedule an appointment.