November 2008 Archives

Not many couples could ask the questions Connie Spinks and husband Albert Ross put to each other. "I ask him, 'Baby, am I worth losing a leg for?' And he says, 'Yes,'" Spinks says. "Then he asks me, 'Honey, would you get burned up for me again?' and I say, 'Yes I would!' And I would, because I love him."

The two, expecting their first child in March, are former U.S. Army specialists who met three years ago at the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Houston in San Antonio, Texas, while being treated for traumatic injuries suffered in the Iraq War.

Ross' right leg was severed at the knee in August 2004, while he was on patrol in Baghdad. Spinks suffered a bevy of injuries that would take 20 surgeries to mend: a crushed right ankle, left leg ripped with shrapnel, two broken fingers on her left hand and second and third degree burns on her face, hands and wrists, injuries suffered after the Humvee she was riding in was attacked by a suicide bomber on October 13, 2004--the day after her 22nd birthday.

"If we hadn't gotten injured, we never would have met," Spinks says. "It was part of God's plan that we got injured so we could meet."

It's an unlikely love story set amongst the casualties of war. Yet even as medical advances in field hospitals across the Iraqi battle zone are credited with saving more limbs and lives like Spinks and Ross, many experts say the military isn't doing nearly as well by soldiers who suffer mental injuries. This has particular significance for African Americans, who have historically seen military service as an avenue for career training or to get money to buy a home or attend college. And it has taken on added importance for African-American women, who have entered the service in advanced numbers since the 1990s Desert Storm.

Women have been a part of U.S. military campaigns since the nation came into being, largely playing a supporting role in our nation's conflicts, serving as clerks, nurses and other non-combatant roles. But a change in federal legislation meant that after January 1990, women could do any job in the military except active combat. That's why more than 33,000 servicewomen were deployed in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm that year. During that conflict, 13 servicewomen were killed and two taken prisoner.

Today, more than 180,000 women have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, say Pentagon officials. More than 8,000 African-American women are deployed in the same areas. Though still prohibited from participating in active combat duties, the guerrilla tactics of the Iraqi insurgency, including the routine use of roadside bombs, suicide bombers and anti-personnel rockets, turned the entire country in to a war zone. No one and nowhere was safe.

Living under endless stress and, for many, seeing firsthand what violent combat can inflict on soldiers and civilians alike is often more than some GIs can handle. Many are haunted by those images to the point where they can't eat, sleep or interact with families or friends when they return home. Once called "shell shocked," these vets are now diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Veteran's Administation estimates more than 3,800 women--among 27,000 returning veterans--were treated for PTSD in 2006, a slightly higher rate among women than men.

A 2007 American Journal of Psychiatry study of 2,863 soldiers returning from Iraq found 16.6 percent met the criteria for PTSD. That number jumped to 32 percent of those injured or wounded in the conflict. Mental health officials say many career servicemen and women won't seek help for PTSD, fearful a notation on their service records that they received mental health counseling will cost them promotions. Those who seek counseling find an overburdened system. According to a 2007 story by Washington Post writers Dana Priest and Anne Hull, 100 psychologists left military service during one 12-month period. The Defense Department's Mental Health Task Force warned the remaining system offered "inadequately trained" workers and was not "sufficiently accessible" to servicemen.

Shoshana Johnson is still living with PTSD five years after she became the first African-American woman to be held as a prisoner of war in Iraq. "I pictured myself with a husband, a couple more children, doing 20 years in the military," Johnson, 35, says from her El Paso, Texas, home. Instead, she says, "sometimes I feel I am barely getting by."

 Johnson was shot through both ankles and taken prisoner March 23, 2003, when her supply convoy got lost in Nasiriya. A videotape of her interrogation by Iraqi captors was broadcast around the world. Marines rescued Johnson and five other POWs 22 days later. They returned to the U.S. to great fanfare; on New Year's Eve, 2003, she pulled the switch to drop the ball in Times Square.

  But Johnson didn't know she had PTSD until three months after she returned and her 10-year-old daughter, Jenelle, told Johnson's parents that "Mommy was sad and crying all the time." She  still has "massive mood swings" and finds herself reacting to mental "triggers" about the war. "They're everywhere," she says. ""It's hard to avoid them when the conflict is ongoing. They're even putting them in music videos! I wonder if they know what that does to people to see those things."

Some women found they and their attackers were on the same side. Increasing numbers of women veterans have sought treatment for "military sexual trauma," a pseudonym for rape by a fellow American soldier or officer. "I see a lot of women who have been raped in the service," says Barry Campbell, a New York City benefits counselor with the Veteran's Administration Hospital. "They get attacked by superior officers or guys in the ranks."

Kymber Lea Durant, 38, says that's what happened to her while she was one of 10 women among 300 men stationed in Egypt with the 101st Airborne in support of the first Desert Storm. "I went to the guy's tent to borrow a tape, because he had a big collection of CDs and movies," she says. "He attacked me." Afterward, nobody believed her. "I told my sergeant, and he took it to the first sergeant."

Durant says she was labeled a troublemaker, a reputation that followed her when she was deployed at King Faud Airport in Iraq in 1991. "When I got to Iraq, there was a lot of what I called 'mental ass whipping,'" she says. "They called me Dead Beat Durant. Nothing I did was good enough."

A supply clerk, Durant suffered back injuries on the job and was left infertile when an Army surgeon removed one of her fallopian tubes during an ectopic pregnancy. "I went into the Army to get money for college," says Durant, who now lives in Brooklyn, New York. "If I could go back, I would never have joined."

Experts and other studies warned doctors were often too quick to prescribe drugs to treat PTSD--drugs that mask, but don't solve, mental health issues. Spinks recalls a doctor at one of her counseling sessions asking if she was having bad dreams or trouble sleeping. "When I said yes, he said he could give me this drug for that, and this drug for that," she says. "He asked ten questions and was ready to give me four different drugs to take."

Johnson is off the anti-depression and anti-nightmare medication, though she still sometimes uses sleeping pills. Single, she's also had trouble developing relationships. "Civilian men, once I tell them who I am and what I went through, you don't hear from them again," she says. "Military men are coming back from Iraq and have their own issues."

Durant's mental trauma was such that she was homeless for a time. She now lives in her late mother's house, surviving on 50 percent disability pay of $728 a month, and takes care of her 10-year-old adopted sister. She takes four different drugs daily to deal with migraines, depression, panic attacks and gynecological issues. "I can't hold a job," she says,  "because some days I can't get out of bed."

Spinks rejected VA counseling in favor of sessions with her pastor and her husband. She speaks with her pastor "about anything, even my scars," while she and her husband "witness and minister to each other."

Faith was the rock that got Keona McNair through her year-long service at Kirkut Regional Air Base in Northern Iraq. "I was more sensitive to God's voice while I was in Iraq than I had ever been before or since," says McNair, 31, now a Realtor in Largo, Maryland. In Iraq she organized church services and sang in gospel choirs to maintain her faith. "I used to have conversations with God," she says. "He would tell me which way to go and not to go."  

Johnson, too, relied on a higher power: "I leaned on my faith during captivity, and I still lean on it. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. But I try to do the right thing every day." 

By KIMBERLY SEALS ALLERS
  The Mocha Manual

I don't know what did it for you but I was perfectly content doing my happy dance in my living room on Election night until I saw the image of the Obama family walking out onto the stage of Grant Park. That's when I lost it and the waterworks came swiftly into town. That regal image--which none of us will soon forget--said something and did something so profound that words can't do it justice.

Lately, we've been having a honest and robust conversation in our Mocha Manual Movement emails about the negative stereotypes and misconceptions about Black moms. We've lamented our seeming invisibleness and not being understood as intentional, nurturing mothers who simply want the best for their children. We've debated how we can change our perception and be seen for who we truly are as Black mothers.

Ladies, in the image of our First Family I saw that hope. In Michelle Obama I saw that hope. When she declares that her most important job will be Mommy-in-Chief, gives her man a pound, a hug, and that real 'I-got-your-back'-kiss (not that mechanical crap John McCain liked to pull!), we know that the world won't look at the Black family in the same way ever again.

The world has been forced to see who we really are, and see our children in a new light. When President-elect Obama said Michelle was the "rock of the family" and "his best friend," I got goose bumps. He declared to the world what we've known about our role in our families and communities for generations. He told the world that our relationships are more than baby mama drama.

Years ago, Claire Huxtable was our role model. We glued our eyes to the TV on Thursday nights dreaming about our high-powered career, our brownstone or other dream house, our man that rubbed our feet even though he too had a long day at work. She was the original strong black woman with a professional career, beautiful kids and a successful man who adored her. We looked to fictional characters on the television to remind us that we could have what white women had been enjoying for years. Now, we can look to the White House. Now we can look to our First Family.

This has given me new faith. And just when perhaps our own hope in Black men, the future of Black families, and our ability to "have it all" as women seemed in question, our own faith in ourselves and our dreams is reaffirmed. Our faith in the power and steadfastness of love is reaffirmed. My faith in myself as a Black mother, especially one raising a Black male against incredible odds, is reaffirmed. And it is to that, I said, Yes We Can! And it is to that, I say to all Black mothers, I know we will!


In motherhood,

Kimberly