Those first two or three steps felt like knives. Someone would punch, just stabbing me in my knees with knives. And I literally buckle and go down to the floor and my wife would jump out of that bed. That's a humbling feeling. I actually have to use furniture to take my 1st 10-15 steps. That's what did it for me and everything else was just magnified.

They said everything I wrote down was extreme in how I was making it. But I told him I was having panic attacks in my chest the whole time. And they just didn’t... go through with it.

But I think the biggest thing is that he was on edge. He snaps at every little weird thing that normally a person wouldn't snap at. A little bit paranoid about everything. Paranoid about the dark, paranoid about loud noises, paranoid about, just everything. Like it's very nerve wracking for the spouse because you're always going like, what the heck is happening and why is this such a big deal? I think the men try to keep it a lot of a secret and to keep it close, so that they don't often share what's going on with them because of I think mostly pride. And because they're taught in the military that you don't do that. You don't share your problems.

I had done so much research. I walked into a VA clinic, I handed them medical evidence, watched them put it in a manila envelope, wrote it up for intakes and you know, that evidence never made it to the VA.

Well the initial rating I got, I kind of resigned myself to for many years. I didn't think that they rated me fairly. But I didn't fight it because I knew there were guys, you know, a lot worse off than me. But eventually it got to the point where I was like, you know, I'm starting to have issues and knees and back and I was on jump status at Fort Bragg for four or five years and that kind of beats you up a little bit. Then you know, just issues surrounding lower back issues, herniated discs in my cervical region, causing all kinds of numbness and pain. Things just started to get worse and worse.

I mean I couldn't do anything I was able to do before, like I said my son was still young, I couldn't pick him up, I couldn't play with him. Even if I wanted to you know the pain was so bad. It was sporadic. I couldn’t actually do anything with him and then eventually, you know the pills they had me on took control of my life.

At night he kicks me so hard when he's sleeping because he's having such bad dreams. So, yeah, because he had very vivid dreams and I don't know if that's also a symptom as well, but the dreams were like out of control. So I just feel like the wives go through a lot that they never get to share. You know, that you may not even take that into account that or maybe they think they're masking it so well that the wives don't even notice what they do.