Forum Post: The life of a veteran family

I feel i can speak to veterans. In fact I know i can. I live with two veterans. My wife and I.

I'm lucky... I only have PTSD. I suffer from degrees of insomnia, depression and constant hyper-sensitivity. I feel constantly alert. I'm rarely a few feet from a firearm or weapon. In fact I'm never away from a weapon. A pen is a weapon. I'm always figuring out escape scenarios and routes. I cannot sit with my back to a door, and I stand to one side before I exit an elevator.

Quite frankly, I'm not normal. And neither are my multitude of brethren that suffer as I do. But we're lucky. I know people who lost a limb, lost their sight... I know people that lost everything and are not with us anymore.

Yet we stand by you, those that can, at #OWS, because we cannot do much else.

I said earlier that I was the lucky veteran... And it's true. A soldier decided to try and rape my wife, while she was on a combat tour in Iraq. My wife, being the fighter that I married, fought back, refused to become a victim. Instead her attacker beat her head against a concrete K-Bar rail and left her for dead when she fought his onslaught and refused to be raped.

As of today, he walks free, and my wife suffers endless treatments for her brain damage, mental torment and condemnation by her command.

It took us over 2 years to finally get some level of meaningful treatment for her. 2 fucking years, within the military system, to care for an attempted rape victim.

I'll be honest. My first inclination when I was told what had happened was to hunt down and kill the perpetrator. I have the training and means to do this... but my wife chose another route.

She started a non-profit organization to help victims and survivors like herself called Walk Against Rape (W.A.R.). She has since conducted walks on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. and has been awarded a NAFE award for her achievements, as well as appearing on ABC2 News.

We stand with #OWS, as veterans and victims of a system that can so openly allow abuse of the weak and obedient.