shareEditor's note: This is the second of two parts about the challenges that local soldiers and their families face during combat deployments. Today's story addresses the effects of post traumatic stress disorder.
Howard Rooks is proof that post traumatic stress disorder can be overcome.
After losing his family, his job and his sobriety, the Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran is now sober, reunited with his wife and a proud new father to a 4-month-old son.
The witty 39-year-old from Kyle laughs easily during a break from his job with the Oglala Sioux Tribe Highway Department. He's willing to talk candidly about his struggle with PTSD, mostly because he wants others to know there is help. He believes the treatment he received at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Hot Springs literally saved his life.
Rooks served with the United States Army from March 2003 through March 2004, during the first days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
He jokes that he was the old man of his unit. At age 31, only one soldier was older.
Rooks had always wanted to serve in the military, but his father discouraged it. Rooks' grandfather had returned from World War II with severe PTSD, then called shell shock. It destroyed his life. Rooks' father didn't want the same for his son.
When his father died, Rooks decided to join anyway.
"I just wanted to see how it was ... follow in my grandfather's footsteps," he said.
He never imagined how far he would follow those footsteps.
Rooks' army unit went into Iraq in the first days of the war, traveling through Kuwait, into Baghdad and up to the Syrian border.
As a recon driver and radar operator, Rooks and his unit were at the forefront of fighting. The things he saw there changed his life.
At first, Rooks will say only that he saw "a lot of bad things."
Later, he recalls seeing bodies beside the road, bloated and swollen in the Iraqi heat.
"You just absorb what you see and just keep moving on because you have a mission," he said. "When you have down time, you end up thinking about them. It's something I wouldn't want other people to see."
While those images were horrific and hard to forget, his duties as a soldier were even more difficult to reconcile.
Rooks distinctly remembers his first kill and the emotions that came with it. Iraqi soldiers were hammering American soldiers with artillery and had been for most of a day. Rooks and another soldier struggled to track the origin of the assault. At 2 a.m., they finally pinpointed the position and mortared the enemy fighters, killing eight men.
"The exhilaration lasted about 15 minutes," Rooks said. "We were all excited. Then we smoked a cigarette. That's when the reality set in. ... We just killed eight people."
He tried to talk about the experience with his buddy, but his friend didn't want to talk about it, encouraging Rooks to forget about it. But Rooks never could. Neither could his friend, who is struggling with PTSD as well.
"I was just thinking I killed these people. I'm going to hell," Rooks said. "Every day I think about it."
Other experiences added to those feelings of guilt, remorse and confusion. When he and his fellow soldiers were ordered to shoot a truck driver speeding toward a road blockade, Rooks did the best he could to deal with the reality of his job.
"After I shot that guy, I went back to my cot and pulled out a magazine and started reading like nothing happened," he said. "It's a feeling of numbness."
Despite a concerted effort by the military to acknowledge and address
PTSD, Rooks admits that the culture of soldiers still encourages a quiet courage.
"It's like an atmosphere of ‘Let's not even mention it.' ... It's hard core," he said.
He didn't talk about his feelings with his fellow soldiers, some of whom he refers to as his brothers. The feelings were shoved down.
When he returned, those feelings refused to stay down.
After his discharge in September 2004, Rooks returned home a changed man. He couldn't tell his wife of 16 years that he loved her. He suffered nightmares almost nightly, swearing, thrashing and reliving his time in Iraq. Sometimes the dreams were of his experiences. Other times, Rooks dreamt he was being killed.
He lost his first job as a water technician in Kyle after only five months.
Prior to his deployment, Rooks drank an average of about two beers a month. After his return, he began drinking daily.
"It was unusual for me," he said. Drinking was often the only thing that would stop the nightmares, he said.
Rooks said he realized things were going nowhere pretty quickly, and even discussed the problem with military personnel. They offered him help, but he refused.
"I thought I could deal with it myself," he said. "I toughed it out for four more years."
Eventually, Rooks left his wife and the couple divorced. He stopped seeing friends and family. Rooks said now he realizes he was isolating himself. For two years, he didn't work and drank every day.
"I was going downhill pretty quickly," he said.
Eventually, he returned to the military life, joining the South Dakota Army National Guard. It was through the Guard that he began the road back.
"One day, I was like, ‘I can't do this anymore,'" he said. "I knew I was really screwing up. I wanted my family back and my life back."
A fellow Guard member helped enroll Rooks in an alcohol treatment program for veterans. While waiting for the program to begin, he called his ex-wife, Misty. She came for him immediately, giving him a place to stay while he waited.
Rooks went through treatment for a drinking problem in March 2009. While there, he recognized that he desperately needed help for post traumatic stress disorder, too.
After taking a break to earn a little money, he joined the PTSD program in January 2010. It wasn't easy, he said.
"The first three weeks weren't too bad," he said. "It did get tough around week five. ... I almost walked out, but I toughed it out and it really helped."
Rooks finally began to see his work as a soldier in a different light.
The treatment helped him understand that by doing his job, which sometimes required him to kill enemy soldiers, he had saved his fellow soldiers' lives.
He also took comfort in the other soldiers going through treatment.
Before, Rooks never talked to anyone about what he did and saw. During treatment, he could talk and he knew that the others understood.
"We all shared the same thing," he said. "There's a bond there. ... It's not like you're out there alone."
Rooks completed treatment and began building his life again. He and Misty reunited, and, though they had struggled with infertility for years, discovered they were going to have a baby. Howard Jr. is 4 months old now, doing well after a recent bout with pneumonia.
Rooks continues to serve in the National Guard and works full time in Pine Ridge.
Though thankful for his own treatment and recovery, Rooks can't help but think about his grandfather.
"I wish they knew about it a long time ago ... back when they used to call it shell shock," he said.
He continues to have contact with the military buddy who assisted in the bombing that killed eight Iraqis. Rooks said he plans to visit him soon.
"He is going through the same thing," he said. "He was thinking about suicide."
Rooks wants him to know that he can have his life back and that treatment is the first step.
"You deal with what you did out there," he said
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