Delaney Bob - Surviving the shadows: a journey of hope into post-traumatic stress

Post-Trauma Pathways

Dont let life discourage you; everyone who got to where they are had to begin where they were.

Richard Evans

It is impossible to walk the long halls of the Al-Faw Palace in Baghdad without reflecting on the extreme pain and suffering that the man who lived within the marble walls perpetrated.

The sprawling structure rises from placid blue waters that give no hint of the unfathomable terror that festered here under the reign of Saddam Hussein. The surrounding waters not only once served as a protective moat for the compound but also, in accordance with Saddams beliefs, hid the sin inside from the eyes of Allah.

When I arrived at the palace in the summer of 2010, memories of that evil lingeredalong with faded stains of blood in rooms where Husseins henchmen tortured, beyond imagination, those whom they deemed enemies of the regime. But this is where the top U.S. Army command was operating, under the name Camp Victory, orchestrating the battlefield and urban combat strategy for our brave men and women in the armed forces.

I had come on a goodwill tour to the heart of the desert war zone to meet with U.S. troops and officers, just as I had done one year earlier when Id been embedded with ground forces in Mosul. My personal missionwork that has become the guiding force in my lifewas to reach out to people grappling with an unseen enemy from within, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

I knew the ravages of this condition firsthand from my undercover duty in the 1970s for the New Jersey State Police, before my second career as a referee in the National Basketball Association. And for nearly twenty-five years, Ive never stopped speaking with and counseling members of law enforcement, the military, and others who have endured psychological trauma in their lives.

That is what brought me into a room that August morning in an upper chamber of the palace, the headquarters of General Ray Odierno, top commander of U.S. forces in Iraqan imposing six-foot-five presence who shares my Jersey roots. The meeting included military staff and Deputy Commander General Robert Cone, who became known to the nation as the commander of Fort Hood during the tragic massacre in 2009.

In less than a week, Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would meet with General Odierno and announce the historic drawdown of U.S. troops in a phase dubbed Operation New Dawn.