Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I. I honestly don't. I don't remember how I got back to the barracks. I don't. I don't have any memory of ever seeing those three people again ever in my life from. From that moment on.
And so weird. And that's one of the infuriating things is I just have no recollection of my life for a long period.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: You can find a full episode summary with a trigger warning list by clicking the link below.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: I. I knew if I went to college, my parents really couldn't afford that I'd be taking loans out, and I didn't want to burden them. I went to keggers and I did the things that I wasn't supposed to be doing so much.
I'd be doing more of that if I. If I went to college, and I wouldn't be as studious as I needed to be to be successful. And my best friend was joining the army, and he was Greg Ho about it. That's all he had ever wanted to do. And.
Okay, yeah, it sounds like a great idea. I get three hots in the cot. I get to go become a man. And. And really, that's.
That's why I did it. We both went and took the asvabs. We learned later when. When my friend Gary went to college, that he had severe dyslexia with numbers. And so he did really, really poorly on the asvabs. I.
I was lucky. I did really, really well.
And so I could have done, like, anything. And he could basically do combat arms. And so he chose infantry. And I said, well, I'll choose infantry too. I got a really nice bonus, like a huge, you know, cash bonus for doing it. Yeah. So I wound up going in the infantry with my best friend Gary. I kind of got him all through math in high school. He sat next to me and kind of cheated off my papers. And so, you know, that wasn't so good for him in the.
Because when he finally got to college, he had to basically do, like, learn math all over again. So.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think that one. That's called Discalcula. Right. If you're. It's like dyslexia for numbers.
I don't think many people know there is the numbers version, but it exists.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it was definitely him. Like, he got. He sat down. I think he's, like, scored as low as possible on the numbers part of it, so he was behind the power curve there. So. Yeah.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Ouch.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: So how old were you guys when you made this decision together?
[00:02:33] Speaker A: We did delayed entry, so I'm Pretty sure I was like, 17 when I made that decision.
This was in 1985. 84, probably 85, I would imagine, because I went in active duty to basic training July of, of 1986. So, yep.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Fresh out of high school, did you feel like you kind of knew what you were getting in yourself into at all or this was completely new?
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Not at all. And yeah, I had no clue other than my. My father was in the Coast Guard. But.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: You know, my mom and dad split when I was 12, and, you know, I really wasn't around all that, that much around my father from that time on.
And I just remember one of the things I asked him because, you know, I. I was nervous, said, hey, you know, am I going to be able to do this?
And. And he gave me some great advice. He said, look, millions and millions of other young men have done it and been successful at it. You're. You're as good as any of them. You're gonna, you're gonna do great. You're gonna be just fine. And so that was kind of my attitude going into it was just like, all right. And, yeah, it was a, it was a complete shocker for me. Um, you know, I grew up in very small towns in Oregon, and.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: I hadn't even.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Seen a person of color before I went in the military. So, yeah, if you can imagine that. I mean, like, and there were a lot of. A lot of black kids, a lot of brown kids. There's kids from everywhere. When I, when I finally got to Georgia and I was like, okay, well, we're gonna, we're gonna learn a lot.
So it's all brand new and, and the heat of Georgia, July 22, when I got there, was again, growing up in Oregon, where it's relatively cool and there's no humidity where I'm at, and to just go to where it's 90, whatever and 80 some odd percent humidity was. Was really shocking.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's like breathing soup almost. That's a big, big change.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. The first day we got to our barracks at Harmony Church, they were doing the old dump your bag out and fill it back up trick repeatedly. I passed out, and I was in great shape, but I passed out. So they drugged me into showers, threw me in the showers, and turned the water on me and woke me up.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: So what was it like encountering, like, there's all these new people, there's the gelling, there's all the structure. All of a sudden, this crash course of military life.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: I kind of had fun, to be honest, with You.
I eventually kind of befriended some of the, the drill sergeants because I had a. A real knack for PT and like, they would make me do a zillion push ups and I. I'm just like, you're only making me stronger. They had a fast group and a slow group for runs, and. And I would. I was like, good. Get lucky enough to be in a fast group. And drill sergeant was a.
A really good runner. He's a little. A little.
We're a Rican guy. And I would just get around his heels and say, come on, old man. Towards the end, when I could. When I could talk a little smack, but because in the beginning you're too afraid and you wouldn't want to because they would have. They would have smoked you to death. But I could talk a little smack by the end of it and encourage the old man around a little faster. I'm sure he was in his 30s, but to an 18 year old, he's an old man. So. Yep.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it just. It flies. Especially.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: When trauma is involved and. And it seems like there's just these blank pockets in your, you know, memory and timeline, because personally, I pushed a lot of stuff down. So finally putting all those pieces together, it was like, well, I've lived a life. It's. It's surprising sometimes things that just come out of the blue and just like, oh, yeah, that did happen.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Right.
It's always interesting to me to be around someone who's really good at remembering all of their past, and I'm certainly not one of those people. And I can probably attribute that to my trauma. I'm just not great at it. I'm just kind of a move forward person and bury stuff. Right. And move forward.
And that's not always the best way to do things. And so. Yeah, Right.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: It works until it doesn't.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Mm, that's right.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: So in getting through graduating your basic training and getting really fully immersed in military culture, how did that feel? Were your parents able to go to your graduation ceremony?
[00:07:04] Speaker A: No, but my.
So my best friend dated a gal. She eventually went in the military too, and she showed up for us at graduation there. So that. That was. That was cool. And again, because I was lucky and the drill sergeants liked me, we flew in on a helicopter, dismounted with machine guns for the ceremonies and stuff. So I got to do the whole battalions, like graduations. And because we had to train for that too, I had. I got to miss the bivouac, which was kind of nice because it rained like crazy and they were all hating Me, because I was eating peanut M M's in the barracks while they were out there in the rain. And I was just training in helicopters, having fun.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Oh, wow, what an amazing experience.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
We went basic advanced individual training, and then they asked for volunteers for airborne school. And of course Gary and I, my buddy, we raised our hand and so we did. We did an airborne school. And so it was almost.
Was getting pretty close to Christmas by the time we got got back home. And so, you know, a little bit of leave and then we were supposed to be on the buddy system, but when we got to Germany, they separated us, so that kind of sucked. But yeah, and that's where. That's where the military got real.
I just remember being in this top bunk and it was lights out and there were, I don't know, 50 other guys in there. I didn't know any of them because they. And it separated Gary and I and I was holding back tears, to be honest with you. First time really away from home without my best friend and he'd just gotten shipped off somewhere and I just learned that we're not going to be together in Germany. And so that was a becoming a man moment right there, for sure. Yep.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Understand. Yeah. And that's, that's military life in a nutshell. There you think one thing's gonna be a certain way and then.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Next thing you know.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the old, the old recruiter. Right? Recruiter. Jazzy. You guys. Will you guys do everything together? Oh, yeah, I guess. I guess that.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: I do remember someone telling me they went to the recruiter's office and they were like, yeah, you could be an astronaut. Like maybe.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah, well.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Whatever gets you to sign the dotted line, right?
[00:09:31] Speaker A: I guess they've all, they've all since become used car salesmen. Not to give used car salesman a bad, bad rap.
Or recruiters. I got a job to do, I guess. But yeah, I think they should be a little more truthful with, with what the reality of, of joining is and what's going to happen once you're in. I think it would, it would help young soldiers adjust. You're still kid when you're going in there. I was 18 years old. Barely 18.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And you're in a whole new country. So what, what was it like to get adjusted and kind of make it home?
[00:10:05] Speaker A: I don't know if I ever made it home. You know, it. It was always just foreign to me. I got assigned to a.
A mechanized infantry units, personnel carriers, and.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: I really didn't, like, I didn't like the idea of that very much.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Wasn't high speed enough for me. It was a good unit. First of the 52nd. We were close to what was Czechoslovakia at the time, part of the ussr.
You know, we'd have these alerts where just the middle of the night all the alarms and sirens are going off and you got to run out to your track and have all your gear ready to go and jump in there and, you know, you go out to some point and you just wait. The Iron Curtain was still like a thing then when they were all, we're all afraid of the Communists. I got in the flow. It was, it was good. I still enjoyed pt.
I enjoyed being in the field.
Not. I've never, I've never been great. Back in, in garrison, I, I hated shining my boots. I. I hated pressing my uniform.
I just.
That stuff drove me crazy. Seems silly to me.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Military discipline. Yep. Can't get away from it.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's like paint. Painting rocks and basic training. Right. Turn them over, paint the other side. Turn them over, paint the other side.
Okay. Yeah, just. Just brainwashing is all it is, you know, so. So when they tell you to charge that hill, you'll charge that hill. Especially in the infantry, like, you have to follow orders. And that's part of the problem with the trauma that I experienced, to be honest with you. Like, that's why MST in the military is such a, such an insult to me as a moral injury. Because as young, young boys and girls at 18, 19, 20, whatever years old you're and all your trained throughout basic AIT, whatever schools you're in training, when you get to your unit, it's like you will follow orders.
These people that you've signed your life away to potentially be killed. As an infantryman, we're supposed to trust these people implicitly as parents of these kids.
We're trusting our children to the United States of America. That should really mean something.
As I've learned about.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: The numbers of MST injuries.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Annually, it. It sickened me. And I lived a long time thinking I was one of the only ones. And that's what probably drove me to attempt suicide a couple times, is you think you're the only one and there's just no way you can say anything to anyone because it was in the military, for God's sake. You know, like, it's infantry, it's all men, it's all males. That sort of thing is never supposed to happen there.
But there's monsters everywhere is kind of the lesson. There's monsters Everywhere.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: This section includes being drugged, loss of consciousness and memory, physical assault, coerced sexual acts, and blackmail.
Skip forward to 25 minutes 48 seconds to your level of comfort if you want to take us through what came to pass.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I would like to because we're kind of there. I wasn't in Germany very long when, when, when things, when things happened. And my military career significantly suffered from there, which I'm sure any MST victim can associate with. It basically kills the innocence in you. And I'm not going to name names because it's just not worth it to me. I was in 2nd Platoon. I was pretty successful. I was really good at pt.
I was really good in the field. I, I excelled at those things.
I'm a competitive person. I wanted to rise in the ranks.
So this third platoon sergeant, I could just tell the guy hated my guts.
And I never knew why, but I, I think it's because I was a decent looking young kid. I was athletic and did really well at pt, better than him. And I don't think he liked that. I have no idea to this day why the guy didn't like me. Those are just all assumptions. But I knew in my gut this guy had it in for me. When a platoon sergeant has it in for you.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Don'T ruffle those feathers because they have total control over your life. They can make your life miserable.
Even if it's the third platoon sergeant, they can find ways to make your life miserable.
And I'm not about that. I don't want my life to be miserable. So I was, I was a good soldier. So he invited me and another pretty good looking, athletic young guy who was also a private, but he was in 3rd Platoon and he and I were friends. He invited, he invited the both of us over to his house for barbecue, which was really weird to me. Like, why is this guy invited me to a barbecue? He hates my guts.
But being the, the young soldier I am and the people pleaser that I was, I thought, well, this is a great opportunity for me to show him I'm a good guy, I'm a good troop, I'm a good soldier. Grab a, some, some food and a beer, you know. And I was raised that, you know, breaking bread with somebody is, is, is a way you, you, you make friends with, with people. And so me and the other private showed up and there was another corporal over there. He was looking to be an E5 soon along with the platoon sergeant. And it was just those two. I kind of thought it was going to be like A barbecue. I. I knew the platoon sergeant was married because they lived off post, so that was odd.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: My gut was just telling me, like, this. This is weird. Like, I don't. I have. I have no clue what's going on, and stuck it out. We sat down in the living room. The platoon sergeant's like, well, let me pour you guys a beer. You want a beer, right? I'm like, sure, yeah, okay, I'll have a beer.
I'm still only 19 years old, but we're in Germany, so it's legal. It's fine.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Most of the time. We drank beer out of a bottle over there.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: He went in the kitchen and poured it into cups, which I also noticed that I was like, well, that's weird, but okay, whatever. We're at his house. He wants us to drink out of a glass like a civilized human. I'm like, we're grunts. We're infantrymen. Like, we save your glassware. We'll be fine. But.
So.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Drank a beer, started feeling funny.
The corporal came across the room and started attacking me. Just out of the blue, I stood up, and as I stood up to fight back.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: I started to black out. And I.
This was hard for me. 1. For me to get out. My. My last thought was, and I think this is why the trauma just stuck so.
So succinctly in. In. In my soul.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: I just thought, this is how I'm gonna die. Yep, I'm dying right now.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: I'm. I'm 19.
I don't want to die. And. And I literally thought, like, I won't be able to defend myself.
I'm. I'm blacking out, and this guy's pummeling the crap out of me.
So obviously, I was. I was out. I didn't know what all was going on.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: I remember waking up in the bathroom naked.
The other private was naked in the bathtub, and they were trying to get me to put my man parts in his mouth, and.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: And the corporal was in the background with a camera.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Because it was. It was illegal to be gay in the military at that point. And. And they knew that that was like blackmail.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: And so I came to. And then the. The platoon sergeant beat me unconscious again. You know, because I'm. I'm still groggy and all this stuff. Like, I'm. I'm in no condition to fight. I.
You know, I had hell beat out of me already, you know, So.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: I. I honestly don't. I don't remember how I got back to the barracks. I don't I don't have any memory of ever seeing those three people again ever in my life from. From that moment on.
And so weird. And that's one of the infuriating things is I just have no recollection of my life for a long period of time. I started smoking hash. I started drinking all the time. I got into a ton of bar fights. I got two article 15s over there, another article 15 feel great and, well, feel great over there.
I just got in trouble all the time from there, you know, because I was fighting and. And.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I just started fighting. The promise I made to myself with. With within a day or two was if anyone ever tries that again, they're dying or I'm dying. That's what I lived with forever. I did bury it so far that I had even forgotten at times. Like it would come back to me once in a while and have some night terrors or.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Some kind of blow. Like I'd lose a great job because I blew up at my boss and I got other fights and things like that. All that stuff's like out of character for me. I was a pretty happy young guy and still tried to be a happy young guy.
I'm not a mean, cruel person. It's. It's not. It's not who I ever was. As a boy.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: The name of my book is the Monster Inside of Me. And that's how I felt like. I felt like, what the frick is wrong with me? A. Why am I so defensive half the time? Because it's not me. I'm a social, outgoing person, and I'm an optimist. I've never identified with being a victim, and I didn't understand why.
I would go through some of these periods of, like, severe depression where I had crazy suicidal ideation. And as a man, I just hit it. I would. I would suck it up, right? As a. As a boy, I was always told, shut up or I'll give you something to cry about. I don't know how many times I heard that. And I'm sure that still goes on. Unfortunately.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: We'Re just not taught to process emotion. You know what I mean? And a lot of people, I think, think emotional intelligence is being emotional. It's. To me, it's the direct opposite. It's actually being able to process the emotions that you're feeling in a. In a. In a healthy way.
And. And that's what your lizard brain does, your fight orf flight brain. When you're in hyper vigilance, which is all the time you're not processing emotions. You're just going to do, I gotta fight this person or do I need to run? You know, and.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: And so it makes, it makes civilian life or any life really, really hard. It's. You're just making bad decisions.
You're not, you're not, you're not processing things. You're not, you're not taking the 10 seconds or maybe even 10 days to think about something you need to think about.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: And truly you can't because you're, you're in that fight or flight state and it's this heightened stress is just always in your body and you never really get an opportunity to have a second to say to yourself, wait, I should think about this. You just, you can't.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: After you started, you know, showing all these different behaviors, did anyone ask, are you okay?
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Or you know what they did? They sent me to put me on gate guard for a while.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: They sent me to platoon confidence training with the Special Forces and bad tolls twice.
Most people don't even get to go once. I was chosen for it. Again, I was really good in the field.
I guess that, that they knew because literally from that point forward, they gave me every special assignment they could think to give me.
Probably because they didn't want me back in Garrison because I was getting drunk and either beating the hell out of someone or getting beat up.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: I couldn't cope.
I couldn't be normal.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Couldn'T rationalize what happened to me.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: How could you? I mean, like you had mentioned earlier, when you, when you sign up to serve, that's number one thing, is trust the person next to you. Take care of them, whether they're your battle buddy or wingman or whatever the service calls it. And to have that ripped away, it's shattering. It truly is.
I went through something similar because I grew up in the military. So anyone in a uniform was somebody that I could trust, like immediately. Like that was family to me.
And then having a similar experience, it just, it turns everything upside down. Especially back in the 80s.
None of that was ever discussed like therapy.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Even like pop psychology stuff wasn't talked about. Like people talking about boundaries or gaslighting or any of that stuff. Like it seems normal now. But then.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: No one talked about ptsd.
No, there was, there was shell shock from World War II and what do they call it? The Thousand Mile Stare from Vietnam. And those, those poor people.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just the ultimate betrayal.
This isn't to knock combat pts, but I found that MST.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: And combat, I.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: I'm Hoping that the VA starts to develop some different tracks.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: Of how to help people who've experienced PTs, different ways.
If I had PTs from being in war and watching buddies dies, nothing like that. It's horrible. It's terrible. I have best friends that suffer pts from combat and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It's just there. There are. There's shards of valor in it, though, in that you were at least doing your job.
Whereas what happened to me, there's.
Excuse my French. There's nothing in it. There's nothing but shame.
There's all that's. That's all there is. And. And I'm done with the shame, obviously. Like, I can talk about it, but I. I lived in silence, not.
Not even knowing that PTS could be caused by anything other than combat. Because I was an infantryman. That was the only.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Scope in which I understood PTS at all. And so I never even suspected myself of having it again. Name of my book, the Monster Inside of Me.
I just thought I was crazy. I didn't know if I'm like bipolar. I didn't know if truly I'm just an angry bastard. Like, I didn't know what the hell was wrong with me and I didn't want to be that way. Get used to being at a. At a hyper vigilance level 910 and like, no one should live that way.
I'm not an anxious person either. My. My go to is fight. Someone steps to me. Okay, let's do it. You don't get along well in any society that way. Even the military. You're supposed to be able to trust your brothers and sisters in the military, like what you said.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: There's a link below to his book, the Monster Inside of Me. On Thursday the 11th, we will be having a live interview with a young woman that was a part of the CIA. Don't miss. We need your help to keep this show going. Leave us a donation. There's a tip link at the bottom. Leave a written review for us on Apple Podcasts like or share this video or subscribe to our channel to help survivors. And don't forget, your voice is your weapon and the fight against mst.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: I started crying uncontrollably. She's like, hey, Ron, how are you? And I went to talk. I couldn't talk. I couldn't stop. Couldn't get myself through to quit. I broke down and she immediately said, well, I can see you're not okay. She called upstairs to psychiatrist, came down, caught me still crying, could barely breathe, and finally calmed down, first words out of my mouth were, I can't.
I can't anymore.
