03/31/2025
PTSD HAS KICKED MY ASS THESE LAST 2 WEEKS.
I thought I had it under control. I thought I had a handle on it. But the truth is, all I really had was the ability to hide it—stuff it down so no one knew. My wife was probably the closest to seeing how much it was affecting me, but even then, I tried to keep it under wraps.
I joined the Army at 18 and went to war shortly after. Going to war changes you. Saving lives, taking lives, changing the course of families forever, delivering news that no one should ever have to hear—it takes a toll in ways you can’t even imagine. For the longest time, I believed the answer was to compartmentalize it. Tuck it away. Keep it separate from my life and just keep moving forward.
Then I chose to go into the fire service. I was so proud of my dad, who just retired as a chief, and I wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but he did an incredible job of bringing home the good of the job. He never talked about the house fires where victims couldn’t be saved. The babies who coded and never came back. The car wrecks where he spent hours cutting out bodies just to give families a chance at closure.
The academy doesn’t prepare you for your first trauma code. Nothing prepares you for the moment a family is screaming over their loved one who isn’t coming back. And we deal with this every single day.
I don’t think the general public fully understands what first responders carry with them, and honestly, I pray they never have to. But I’m writing this because part of my healing is being open about it. Venting. Sharing here. Talking to my incredible wife. Leaning on my incredible crew.
If you take anything from this, please—just have a little compassion. The next time you see an ambulance crew grabbing lunch, they might have just watched a baby die on the way to the hospital. That fire crew at the gas station might have a rookie who just saw his first body. We don’t do this for recognition. We don’t need a thank you. But kindness and understanding? That means more than you could ever imagine.
