Fletcher Parkway comes out of Fletcher Hills down a grade into the northwest section of El Cajon. Back in the day, the big rigs used to run with little or no muffling and they would ride their Jake Brakes (a Jacobs Engine Brake that basically turns the fuel off to a diesel engine's cylinders and turns it into an air compressor to aid in slowing the truck ) all the way to the bottom of the grade. Late in the evening, when the traffic had thinned out, the trucks would rattle down the grade sounding a lot like gunfire.
Almost at the bottom of the grade there is a complex that used to be called "Art's Roaring Twenties" that had a nightclub, bowling alley, coffee shop, and pool hall, surrounded by a huge parking lot. It was a very popular place to hang out or take a date.
Told you all that so I could tell you this: I got home from Vietnam two days before Christmas, 1966. I took a date up to Art's. It was a Friday or Saturday, I don't recall which, but Art's was busy and the parking lot was pretty full. It had been a drizzly kind of day and there were a few puddles around. We had to park a little way away from the entrance but she said she didn't mind walking a little way with me, rather than be dropped by the door and wait for me to find parking. So I got out and went around to help her out. I had the door open and held her hand while she stepped out of the car. Just at that point a big old double-stacked semi started down the hill and flipped on that Jake Brake and...well...I did a beautiful low-crawl under the car. It would probably be a more noble thing if I had dragged her down and covered her, but I didn't. I left her standing by the car, hands politely folded over her purse, waiting for me to come back out from under the car. She quietly asked me what I was doing. I stood up, began squeezing the muddy water out of my sports coat and tie, and tried to apologize. It didn't do any good to explain. I had embarassed her in front of our gathering audience and now I was wet and muddy and the evening was obviously over before it began. The drive back to her house was very quiet.
New scenario:
It is the summer of 1983. We had just come back to Fort Ord from Germany. It was a warm afternoon. We were in the little town of Marina, just north of Fort Ord, remarking to each other how much it had grown in the few years since we had left for Germany. One of the factors in the growth in the area was the influx of Vietnamese "boat people". The fishing town of Moss Landing, a little farther north of Marina, had probably doubled its population since the late seventies. They had been spreading out from Moss Landing, opening businesses like convience stores and restaurants. By '83 there was a noticable Vietnamese presence in Marina.
We stopped for lunch at the Taco Bell (we had been overseas for several years, that's why). As I stepped through the door I was met by the sound of a large group of Vietnamese jabbering a mile-a-minute, trying to figure out what they wanted to order. There was that sweaty "hot-town-summer-in-the-city" feel on the back of my neck, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with a feeling of threat, fear, anger, confusion, rage, more rage, and more confusion. I broke out in a heavy sweat, my breath became rapid and shallow, I felt weak, and then it was over. It couldn't have lasted more than a couple of seconds. It left me with a residual exhaustion, like I had just run across town. I don't think anyone noticed my mini-seizure, but it left me with its shadow crossing over my heart all day.
The point of these two stories is that most folks do not understand what PTSD is, even though we hear a lot about it nowdays. PTSD is not restricted to military folks or even folks in combat. Fire, police, EMTs, housewives, bank robbery victims, all kinds of folks can have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Thing is, the first story is not a result of PTSD. It is a result of "Conditioned Response"...think Pavolov's dogs (does that ring a bell?). People learn to react in a certain way to a certain stimulus. In Army training we teach what we call "battle drills". For example, one of the things we drilled was to react to enemy fire immediately. In any situation during the day, one of the NCOs would enter a work space and yell, "INCOMING!" Soldiers were supposed to immediately stop what they are doing and drop and look for cover. Or yell, "GAS!" and the soldiers had nine seconds to don and seal their protective masks and secure the hood. So diving under a car seeking cover from a .50-caliber Jake Brake is not a PTSD response, it is a conditioned response. Skills and reactions we have been taught in order that we may stay alive.
But an uncontrolled PHYSICAL response coupled with a psychological response: that is PTSD. It isn't something that is learned, it is a response to a stimulus that recreates certain mindsets from a time of great stress: fear, uncertainty, panic, rage, or whatever it may be. I think that everyone has some trace of PTSD, and considering what we ask of our young soldiers, it is a miracle that more of them aren't disabled by it. Some men internalize things differently than others. Ten men in a squad will experience the exact same incident but have ten different reactions to it, and down the road, only two or three will have problems with it.
I avoided a lot of the pains of PTSD by staying in the Army. My peer group looked up to soldiers who had been to "The Nam". Others were submitted to a lot of grief that I think aggravated their ability to cope.