Tour of Duty

Inside the mind of a vet

by Russell Carr, M.D.

Desperateness

Desperateness comes during combat when it is clear that you will die. You aredisconnected from everyone except those around you. But then you survive and return home to a world that does not understand. Then the real desperateness begins. Read More

The Need to Return

A veteran's desire to return to combat may not always make sense to friends or loved ones. It might be patriotism, but it can also be a loss of connection to others, a feeling of no longer fitting into a peaceful place, or guilt. I explore these and other possible reasons here, so that family and friends might better understand. Read More

Separateness

There is not much discussion about how the world now seems to traumatized people. What does the world look like to them? People who have survived horrific trauma experience the world differently from others, and differently than they did before the shattering experience of trauma. From my perspective, they experience an intense sense of separateness. Read More

Silence and Trauma

From my perspective, a fundamental part of healing from trauma is feeling understood by another human being. Read More

What Is Trauma?

I could feel his never-ending accounts of killing after killing shattering what was left of my sense of a just, sane world. I couldn’t bear hearing anything in those moments. I could not understand such madness. I froze and became numb. Read More

Empathy and Combat Trauma

We all want to help veterans bear the unspeakable experience of combat. But how do we open ourselves up to that? How do we help them bear experiences that few of us have to endure? I examine how combat veterans and their supporters can find ways to bear the darkness of combat trauma together. Read More

Russell Carr, M.D., is a naval psychiatrist who heads up adult outpatient psychiatry at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

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