Eric Fetty: Youngstown, OH
Army Specialist (E4) 13th Foxtrot Fire Support Specialists attached to 3rd Howitzer Battery 2 Armored Calvery Regiment Green Zone Baghdad, Iraq
I am going to talk about one of the events that is connected to my PTSD. I am going to talk about a bombing that happened at Assassin Gate at the beginning of 2004. This was one of the main entrances into the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. It was a very busy gate. We would use this gate regularly to go on our patrols outside of the Green Zone.
I was an Army E4 Specialist, part of the 13th Foxtrot Fire Support Specialists. My unit dealt with artillery but we didn’t have many pieces in Iraq so I was part of the infantry unit. I was a patrolman. The unit I was attached to, was the 2nd ACR (Armored Calvary Regiment) out of Fort Polk Louisiana. I was on this deployment for sixteen months, arriving in the country on April 24, 2003. I didn’t leave the country until July 9, 2004. I turned twenty-one and twenty-two while I was there. What a way to spend my birthday.
At the beginning of 2004, a bombing occurred at Assassin Gate. No Americans were killed but there were probably two to three hundred killed or seriously injured. I was at the Hotel Al Rasheed when this happened, which was about a mile away. I was part of a QRF (Quick Reaction Force). When we got the call to respond, shrapnel was showing up at the hotel. When we arrived, we were given the job of seeing if there were any survivors left from the 100-150-yard explosion.
There was no movement when we got there. It was like in the movies when everything was on pause. Everything was still. No movement, no sounds, and there probably weren’t even any ants on the ground.
We started to walk through to see if there was any life. All we could really find were charred bodies. The people were dead; their bodies were still on fire. The smell (pause) was atrocious, the smell of burning flesh and the skin and the bomb. It was probably the worst smell I have ever smelled. I still smell it on occasions, when somebody burns a steak too much or I leave my food on the iron too long.
One of the scenes of that day that sticks out the most and torments me nightly is when I came across the woman holding the baby. The woman was melted into the seat of a car. There wasn’t much left of her face, just a scorched skull. She was holding a baby and the baby was toasted. There was a large section of the baby’s face that was untouched, unburned, just a beautiful baby. I think the mother heard the explosion and squeezed the baby close to her. After she passed out from the burns or the extreme heat or the compression from the explosion, who knows, I guess her arm had given way and the baby fell forward. You could still see the unburnt face of the child.
I helped put 50 or so people into body bags. You know, it was to the point where you weren’t even putting whole bodies into the bags anymore. You would just grab an arm, two legs, a torso, and a head—throw it in a bag. Whatever pieces you could find of whoever, a finger, a toe, a piece of leg—as long as it had something in the bag it was considered a grave, a person. Not one of those people had anything to do with anything. They were just trying to get through the gate to get home or to work.
The only reason the American soldiers weren’t killed was because whoever had the bomb panicked. They let it blow up early or else there would have been many soldiers dead, at least four or five of them at the gate, two or three of them that were in the tower, maybe the people running the radio, you never know. That’s just something you never forget. I see it every night when I go to sleep, every time I open my eyes, every time I singe the hair on my arm. I go right back there to that spot, the same spot I was standing. I’m standing there, every time that smell hits my nose, every time I hear a loud explosion, a loud boom. I am standing right in that spot, smelling that smell. Watching the flames burning the people, the steam rising off of their bodies from being overcooked.
During this deployment, there were many other incidents. I was on top of the Hotel Al Rasheed when it was hit with thirty-three rockets. One of my very close friends died in my arms. My friend Tomas Sotello was only nineteen years old. His vehicle exploded when it hit an IED. We went over there as a band of brothers, we were family. After some of these incidents, they would lose it and then end up being put out of the military and sent home. I went over there with a group of brothers and halfway through they were all gone. I was pretty much by myself. I mean, that fucks you up, when they decide in the middle of a deployment your brothers don’t need to be there anymore but you do. They take away your family during the war. I don’t think that was right and it messed me up.
In 2005, I was forced out under a medical chapter because they didn’t want to send me to a medical board so I would get disability. Now I only get ten percent disability, which is only $127.00 a month. I know females who never saw any action, never fired a weapon, and never were shot, they get 50 percent because they heard a mortar round blow up. Shows you how unfair the military is.
I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. I had a lot of family but I don’t associate with them anymore. They don’t understand me. They kind of pushed me away because I’m not the same person. I know I am not who I was. When you take people’s lives, it changes who you are inside. If you have ever seen some of the things I have seen, it gives you a different outlook on life that people just don’t understand. I mean, a lot of people, hell everybody, take the small things for granted—opening the refrigerator to get a cold drink, turn on a light, or even take a shower. I went twenty-three days without a shower and six days without food. I went three days without water in the desert, that’s all stuff you’re not supposed to do. When you’re in those situations, your supply truck was hit in a convoy to bring you your water, and you find out they’re not coming, what are you supposed to do? You live with it, adapt and overcome it, and try to survive.
I joined because if I had stayed here in Youngstown, I would be either dead or in jail. Over half of the people I grew up with are either dead or in prison. The ones who didn’t end up there are selling drugs or are on the streets. I didn’t want to live like that. I was tired of seeing my friends die, get killed, or blown up. I wouldn’t have to worry about getting killed in the streets, instead, I had to worry about getting killed in war.
My life isn’t any better now than before. I lost out on the quality of life. It doesn’t mean as much as it did before. If you ask somebody what is important to them they will probably tell you, family or friends, having a house or having this or that. If you ask me, I’m going to tell you, sleep, peace of mind, being able to close my eyes and not see the people I have killed—what’s important, being able to cook a steak and not smell burnt bodies. Before I went into the military, I’m not going to say I was a happy–go-lucky person, I had a rough life before, but I could sit back and enjoy myself. I could go to sleep and not have a problem. I’m lucky now if I can get ten hours of sleep a week. About once a month, I crash on the weekend and I’ll sleep for like twelve hours. I guess my body just shuts down or something. Other than that, I don’t get a peaceful sleep.
This affects me every day, every day of my life. From being over in Iraq, it kind of gives me a superhuman awareness. I can feel the movement behind me, the people walking around me; I can feel if someone is around the corner and if people are watching me. I can sense it all.
I have been back since 2005, almost ten years now and I can’t turn it off. Every noise in my house, whenever the door opens to the apartment building —I’m up—grab my gun and go to the door, see what’s out there. It’s every time I’m walking somewhere at night and I hear a noise. I look, I have to find out what it is. I’m not secure with myself until I do. I don’t sleep at night. Most nights I sit there, with my pistol on the table, just waiting for that moment, for that explosion to happen again.
This affects the people in my life. The minute you say you have this you can see the change in their disposition. It’s something they don’t understand. They never will until they have walked in my boots and carried my pain. I don’t tell people anymore. I don’t tell people that I have PTSD. I don’t tell them I have put a 45 in my mouth on many occasions, deciding whether or not to pull the trigger. They get a completely different look at you, a different opinion of you because of one word, one little statement, one little saying, “I have PTSD.” Then they don’t want to call as much or hang out as much—they don’t know what my triggers are. They don’t know whether or not I’m going to snap. It makes people afraid, they don’t know.
I have been on about 20 to 30 different medications, they haven’t worked, they didn’t help. The best that they do is make me feel like I’m a zombie. I just walk around and don’t even know what’s going on. I’m not going to be able to function at school or hold down a job with as much medication as they were trying to put me on. I went to therapists for ten years, but that did no good. They always find some reason as to why they cannot do anything. They’re not going to give me anything, they don’t care.
Right now, I’m attending Youngstown State University for civil engineering, I eventually want to be an architect. I’m supposed to get paid for school but my money always gets delayed. For whatever reason the post-911 GI Bill always gets delayed. When I finally get paid, I will be going to school full-time. I want to better my situation so I can get back to my daughter. Jayla, my daughter lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her mother. I get to see her once a year. It’s hard getting down there, but when I do my spirits get lifted. Everything doesn’t seem to be so bad. I love her and don’t know what I would do without her. She’s the drive that keeps me going.
*Please note that these are the actual accounts of the event from the veteran’s viewpoint. These stories were written by them and I am only sharing them with the art that I created. To learn more about this project, read the Seeking Solace post.
Please reach out if you need help.
If you know someone, or you need help, the links below are good sources to get that help.
https://www.va.gov/health-care/health-needs-conditions/mental-health/suicide-prevention