Life After War: I was Seeing the Enemy Everywhere

“I’ve been blown up twice,” says Juan Rubio in a serious tone, “once in a Humvee and once on foot patrol. I have shrapnel in both legs, up and down my right arm, and some in the back of my head.”

Rubio is a navy hospital corpsman. As part of a joint operation with the navy and the marines in the invasion of Iraq, Rubio served as a medic to marines and saw many things from the ‘sandbox’ over two tours. Those were things that stick.

While doing a foot patrol off of the Euphrates River, Rubio’s small battalion out of Camp Lejeune was ambushed and a firefight ensued.

“One of the marines got hit so I gave first aid,” explained Rubio. “I patched him up and we went back down the river to the battle aid station, called for a helo for him to get further aid.”

Afterwards they returned to the ambush site and once again got into a firefight. Pushing onwards they discovered blood trails and followed them.

Instead of finding wounded enemies, Rubio and the marines were surprised by another ambush, this time, with an improvised explosive device that caught Rubio and two other marines in the blast.

“One received amputee on right arm, I received shrapnel on my right side,” said Rubio. “Brian Parrello—I give his name out because I would have been injured even more [if it wasn’t for him]—he took 90 percent of the blast.”

During that firefight, Rubio provided medical aid to those wounded in the war, saving three of the four marines that were hit.

“I didn’t find out I was injured until one of the marines noticed blood coming from my right wrist,” said Rubio. “I was so used to having other marine’s blood on me, so I said ‘I’m ok I’m ok’.”

That was when he discovered the shrapnel in his arm and his own injuries from the ambush, and was taken to the hospital. During this time he was offered the chance to go home because of his wounds.

“I chose to go back to my platoon, I had another three months before my tour was up,” said Rubio, citing his loyalty and dedication to his comrades in the small company.

Merely a month later Rubio’s company was on a mission in a city that was well known to have weapon caches of IED bomb material. After they finished, they were heading back to base in Humvees when they ran into another ambush.

“I was in the back of a Humvee with eight marines,” said Rubio, “it [Humvee] got hit with an RPG—I was blown out of the Humvee.”

The concussive force of the explosion and subsequent fall to the ground resulted in a traumatic brain injury and left Rubio with more shrapnel wounds.

“We lost quite a bit of marines that night,” Rubio said quietly.

After a pause he mentioned that he once again had the chance to go home. “A month and a half left, and I decided to stay with my marines,” he said. “I couldn’t leave them.”

He explained that he was a late joiner, enlisting at 25 rather than the usual 18. This resulted in many of the younger members looking up to him as a big brother taking care of them.

“I had about 46 casualties and only 12 didn’t make it in my company,” said Rubio. “On both my tours I’ve only lost 18… it’s a high number and I’ll never forget my buddies.”

Rubio mentioned the loss of his comrades as a contributing factor to his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), something he has to live with everyday. And like many sufferers of the disorder, Rubio tells of a past spent leaning on the crutch of a bottle.

“Just like every guy, every marine, every soldier, every medic—they want to tough it out, they think can handle it themselves,” he said. “I fall into that: marines self-medicating themselves with alcohol.”

Rubio said he used to drink a lot to numb the pain and mentions that it is a common thing among sufferers of PTSD.

For Rubio, PTSD has affected his ability to drive, raised his anxiety levels, and given him nightmares and flashbacks. He dealt with it himself until one day he went off on his dad. “I’ve never raised my voice to my father,” he said.

“That’s when I needed help,” Rubio explained.

He started seeing the psychiatrist at Camp Lejeune, then was transferred to Corpus Christie, where he was stationed for a year and a half.

During that time he was medically retired for his PTSD and severe flashbacks.

“I was seeing the enemy,” Rubio explained. “They said my PTSD was severe enough that my mission readiness wasn’t there.”

During his last few months in the navy, Rubio spent time getting treatment for his PTSD, but emphasizes that something like PTSD doesn’t just go away.

“Living with PTSD is like a constant battle,” Rubio explained. “The war is not only over, but it continues within yourself.”

The battle wages on in the mind, according to Rubio, it is a struggle just to keep the harsh memories out.

“I have nightmares occasionally still, and flashbacks,” he said. “One day I would have a good day, the next it would be nightmarish, secluding myself in the home, not wanting to go out.”

Part of the temptation of seclusion is trust—those with PTSD have a hard time trusting people.

“It’s not being able to trust other people,” said Rubio. “I trusted my fellow marines, they had my back.”

Out of the service, Rubio no longer had marines watching his back, adding to his anxiety of crowded places.

“I have a hard time going to Walmart, H-E-B—crowded areas—but as long as I have my kids or wife with me I feel secure,” he explained.  “Things run through my mind constantly about if someone got hurt, if there was a shooting. It always runs in my mind, ‘what am I going to do’.”

Years of training and the addition of PTSD makes it impossible to just ‘turn off’ those thoughts.

“At first it really drove me crazy,” Rubio stated. “You can drive yourself to the point where you want to seclude yourself from other people.”

But with help from his family and various veteran services, Rubio has learned to live life again.

“I wear this bracelet every day because it has Brian Parrello’s name on it, and when I’m having a bad day and I can hear him saying ‘Doc, you got to get out of bed, you don’t need to live like that, that’s not what God put you on the Earth for’, he says.

“I believe that there is a reason I didn’t die in Iraq, and that frightens me, it’s part of the PTSD,” he said, “not knowing what my purpose is anymore.”

However, Rubio mentions that the Purple Heart and Veterans of Foreign Wars helps him in that aspect.

“We may have done different wars but we went through the same thing,” he explained. “I want to teach the other veterans how to reach out when that time of having a hard day comes about.”

As Commander of the Purple Heart in San Angelo, Rubio helps many combat veterans in anyway he can. Sometimes it takes two to three weeks for a returning vet to get their PTSD checked out, so they VA clinic will tell them to call Rubio.

“If they think they need it or not they need to talk to someone, someone they feel comfortable with,” he explained. And if they feel comfortable with him, he is happy to help.

Rubio explains that sometimes the combat veteran doesn’t have the support system he or she needs, which makes their journey to learn to live with PTSD even harder.

“I’ve always believed the toughest job in the military is the military spouse,” he explained. “The spouse has to see the transformation in a person that’s dealing with PTSD, and it’s heartbreaking,” he says. “a lot of people can’t handle seeing their loved ones change like they do.”

Rubio mentions his own fortune that his wife and kids were and are still able to work with him on his issues.

“Unfortunately there’s a lot of service members who don’t have that,” said Rubio. “They are young, go to war, come home and it’s just them and their parents. They rely on self-medicating with drugs and alcohol.”

According to a statistic reported by Forbes, “There were 349 suicides among active duty personnel – almost one a day. That means there are now more suicides among active duty soldiers than there are combat deaths.”

Current statistics on the suicide rate of veterans alarm Rubio, especially when four marines he knew personally took their own lives.

Rubio mentions that there are other things that cause PTSD, like car wrecks or rape, and it appears that society lumps it all together.

“I think society puts it all in the same category, which is very unfair to the service member,” Rubio said. “It’s not the same, we go through different things.”

He thinks that if more people knew about PTSD and its impacts, more could be done to help those suffering from the disorder.

Rubio urges all veterans to talk to somebody they trust even if they don’t think they have PTSD.

For more information on PTSD visit http://www.va.gov/ .

To get in contact with the VFW and Purple Heart, call (325) 655-6550.