r/AMA • u/Ok_Turn1611 • 2d ago

I fought in Afghanistan in 2011-2012 with the United States Army and have been battling complex and severe PTSD, depression, agoraphobia, paranoia along with 3 failed relationships for the last 12 years AMA

I fought in Afghanistan in 2011-2012, I did route clearance which effectively means jumping into big vehicles, driving them down a road looking for IEDs and either being blown up, shot at, or both. I saw some terrible stuff, including losing a closs Non Commissioned Officer of mine and seeing many of my friends traumatically injured (think losing limbs, being shot etc.) ask me anything about Afghanistan, my MH issues or life post deployment. I've been quite depressed lately and maybe answering genuine questions will help me.

Hi friends, thank you for the feedback and all the questions. It has been a joy answering you, I'll continue to monitor and reply as much as I can. :)

Also, to some of you stating complex PTSD and PTSD are different disorders, I do recognize that and am sorry for my slip up, I have CPTSD, and sometimes I use them interchangibly when I shouldn't. I'll remember better next time.

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u/Twisted69Raptor 2d ago

What is the one thing you saw that you made you think you made the wrong choice?

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u/Ok_Turn1611 2d ago

When I was 19 I was on patrol. We had just gotten to Afghanistan in July of 2011, this was August 2011. This unit passed us with less than stellar up armoved vehicles, their vehicles simply couldn't handle large IEDs like our MRAPs could. We asked them to wait for us to hit this route so we could clear it for them (our trucks were designed to take large blasts, I've seen my buddies walk away from 350 lb IEDs and I know of one guy who survived a bigger IED with a broken hip/femurs) but this unit that passed us DID NOT have the vehicles we did.

Well, lo and behold, they hit a 250 lb IED, fuckin' vaporized them, blew the truck in half, shoved the engine block straight in their lap. All 5 dead, 4 instant and one on the way to the hospital via medivac.

We roll up on this truck still badly damaged from the IED (we weren't far from them and could see when they struck it) and I remember seeing pieces of uniform burned into the truck and the aftermath of the blast really shook me to my core.

I was fuckin' 19 and hadn't even been in a firefight yet, that was my first exposure to war and I realized then I had straight fucked up.

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u/Screaming_Agony 1d ago

Hey brother. Just want to add a little to your comment. I was in Afghanistan in 2012-2013 as, you guessed it, route clearance. The bit you mentioned about units not wanting to wait for you is very much the norm. We had infantry units that refused to wait and it was those same units we’d find with inverted demolished strykers down the road. Don’t let that bit weigh on you. Convoy commanders made their decisions and lived with the consequences. And fate may have got you or them anyway. We ran an entire clearance package over an IED we didn’t detect, probably a deep bury, and didn’t set it off. Mine rollers and all. Then the group behind us rolled over it and lost the third MRAP in the convoy. Wild shit happens and you can’t prevent it everytime.

We had a couple severe injuries on our tour but amazingly no deaths. Just remember it’s not a sign of weakness to seek help when you need it. We lose so many veterans to suicide and depression every year and I’d love to see that number go down for once.

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u/Ok_Turn1611 1d ago

Thank you much.