Editor's note: Today's story is the final report in a three-part series.
FARMINGTON — The roar of machine guns echoing in the jungles of Vietnam was silent for more than 30 years before Dennis Vaughn stopped hearing it.
The Vietnam veteran was suffering from the symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, but he didn't know it.
"We just thought that's the way life was," he said. "For 30-plus years, that's just the way it was."
Vaughn, 60, joined the Army in 1968 and spent nine months in Vietnam behind an M-60 machine gun.
Thirty years and three marriages later, Vaughn came face to face with reality — in the form of a make-believe village. He was on his honeymoon in Disney World with his third wife, waiting in line for a safari ride.
The line went through a little bamboo forest and passed a miniature Montagnard village, just like the villages Vaughn had seen in Vietnam.
"Disney doesn't do anything halfway, so this was perfect," he said. "I was hyper-alert, looking for snipers, watching for ambush
Vaughn was diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in 2001, more than three decades after his military service ended.
"I can look back on the 30 years and pick up incidents almost on a daily basis," he said. "And that's a lot of days."
Vaughn's symptoms included nightmares, a sense of hyper-vigilance and difficulty with interpersonal relationships. He's one of about 25 million United States veterans to be diagnosed with combat PTSD. He's also one of a growing number of people to seek help for the condition that affects as many as 40 percent of combat veterans.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is a physical and psychological condition that occurs when a person goes through any experience that threatens a life or the integrity of a person's life, said Diane Castillo, trauma clinic coordinator at the Albuquerque Veterans Affairs Hospital. Usually, the traumatic incident is accompanied by feelings of terror and helplessness — feelings that persist until the person is treated.
"Everyone who has been traumatized will have symptoms," Castillo said. "In the majority of people, the symptoms will lessen with time, but there is a percentage that will continue having them."
Living with PTSD
Every aspect of a veteran's life can be influenced by the disorder, said Dawn Snuggerud, trauma specialist at Presbyterian Medical Services. If left untreated, the nightmares, flashbacks and exaggerated startle responses typical of people suffering from the disorder only worsen with time.
Trauma causes a "short circuit" in the brain, she said. When a person is reminded of the trauma, the brain is aware of the stimulus, but it fails to place it in proper context. For example, combat veterans who dropped to the ground during air raids will scramble for shelter during fireworks displays or other unexpected explosions.
"They're making decisions as if they were in the middle of the trauma," Snuggerud said. "They have to learn to pull themselves back to the present."
Living in the present can be a full-time job, Vaughn said. War-time strategies are not necessary in civilian life, but many veterans find themselves stuck in the routines of battle, and balancing those routines with their everyday responsibilities.
Vaughn checks the locks on his doors 10 times before he can go to bed, he said. He's constantly aware of his surroundings and always watching for danger. The amount of energy he expends can translate into irritability, anxiety and anger.
"Our fuses are a little shorter than most folks'," he said. "We have to guard and control that along with everything else. What you see on the outside is a lot of hard work for me on the inside."
Not all the symptoms can be concealed, Vaughn said. He can pick out another person suffering from PTSD from a mile away. He's looking for the vigilant posture, the constant awareness of surroundings and a certain look in a person's eyes — what Vietnam veterans call the "1,000-meter stare."
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is compounded when a veteran begins avoiding that which triggers a memory of the initial trauma, Castillo said. For example, combat veterans may associate smells, tastes or sounds with the traumatic event and begin avoiding any reminders of the incident.
"They start avoiding day-to-day situations because everything is terrifying," she said. "The world starts to shrink."
Vaughn avoided certain smells and sounds, he said. He changed the radio station when songs came on that triggered memories. Before he sought counseling in 2001, he even avoided times of the year he associated with traumatic memories, holing up in his house during March and October.
"I wanted to go to my cave and pull the rock over the door and not ever come out," he said. "I felt like I had to hide during those times of the year, and I didn't know why."
Three years into his therapy at the Farmington Vet Center, Vaughn decided to vacation in Puerto Rico.
If he'd gone three years earlier, the climate on the island, the smells of the jungle and the humidity in the air might have sent him packing.
"I learned to prepare ahead of time," he said. "I learned to be aware of how things may affect me and how to use tools to deal with it. I breathe deep and remember where I am, then mellow out and regain my senses and move through it."
There is no cure for the disorder, said Robert Udero, readjustment counseling therapist at the Farmington Vet Center. But the symptoms can be managed, and veterans can go on to have fulfilling lives, marriages and careers.
"In the background, there still will be PTSD," he said. "The trauma is difficult to erase, but the feelings can be diluted to where people can be functional and go on with life."
Life after trauma
For decades, Vietnam veteran John Collard slept only one hour per night.
When he did sleep, recurring nightmares haunted him, transporting him back to the medic table where he spent 13 months covered in blood.
"My family learned not to wake me up if I was asleep," he said. "My mother didn't understand, and she came up and leaned over me, touched me. I came up and had her by the throat without even thinking, and this was my mother."
Collard, 60, battled the symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder for more than 30 years before seeking help. By then, his marriage had dissolved and working was nearly impossible.
"For the longest time I didn't go anywhere that I didn't have at least one weapon and probably two," he said. "My thought processes weren't normal. There was extreme anxiety all the time, and there was an extreme amount of fear and mistrust. I watched everybody and everything, or I stayed home, holed up in my bedroom."
Collard checked into the Veterans Affairs hospital in Denver about five years ago, where he started therapy. He continued the healing process at the Farmington Vet Center, where he receives Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy.
The technique is highly recommended by trauma experts, Snuggerud said. The therapy uses the technology of sleep to calm the brain and repair the short circuit that generates inappropriate responses to stimuli.
Traumatic memories often are improperly stored in the brain, and they come forward when a patient is most vulnerable, she said. If patients learn to focus on an external stimulus while experiencing the memory, trauma can be tolerated and desensitized.
"The body has a natural way of healing outside wounds," Snuggerud said. "It only makes sense that it could heal psychological wounds."
Another popular treatment is exposure therapy, which encourages a veteran to talk through a traumatic memory over and over until it no longer causes difficulties, Castillo said. This therapy especially is effective for veterans whose initial traumatic memories have been compounded.
"They identify their worst trauma," she said, "then they go through it in their mind over and over until they remember all the feelings they shut down in order to survive. They slowly desensitize the memories until they realize the trauma is not going to kill them."
Lives can be ruined by trauma, but they don't have to be, Snuggerud. She estimates that 20 percent of veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder will have the condition for the rest of their lives, and all combat veterans will experience symptoms at some point. She encourages every soldier to seek help.
"It won't be like the wounds were never there, like the trauma never happened," she said. "We can clean up the wound, but you will have a scar."
Collard has his scars from the battlefield in Vietnam. He also has scars from his decades-long battle with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. But Collard also has a future.
"At 60 years old, I'm about to get my life together," he said. "It's been since 1969 that I've been dealing with this, and to this day, I look back and it's still hard to make sense of it. But I'm 60 years old and I have a future."
Alysa Landry: alandry@daily-times.com
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