Transcript
I just, I was just -- I just shut down.
I don't want to be around people,
and even to a point when I always have to make sure that
no one is behind me, that my back was to a wall,
that I always have an avenue of escape.
I was just, just, just hurting.
I would take my daughter and we would just get in the car
and ride on the base because I was comfortable around soldiers.
I could relax.
It'd bring me down to a level where I was at ease.
My daughter, it was like she knew that
something was wrong with Daddy.
"Daddy, are you OK?"
I didn't want to tell her that I've been having these dreams
of a trauma that I witnessed,
when my mentor got killed in the barracks.
You know, shoot, I didn't want to put that on her.
Because, you know, after she lost her mother,
we would always talk, and she would always
say things like, you know, "I miss Mommy."
You know, and I was like, "Yeah, I miss her, too."
And so, I tried to block her from a lot of things.
I was trying to protect her.
A lot of times, I would have to grab my Bible
and just read from the Book of Job.
That's one of my favorites because Job lost everything.
He lost his wife, he lost his kids,
his cattle, he lost everything.
And it's hard.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you all
it was a piece of cake -- even reading the Bible and praying,
it's still hard.
And I was mad at the military because,
as much as I love the military, it seems like
the only solution that they had was,
"Oh, we're there for you if you ever want to talk about it."
But I needed more than talk.
I needed more than talk, you know, because this was...
Just looking at him looking at me with his eyes --
because when he got shot, I mean, when he died,
his eyes was wide open, so he was looking at me.
So that really, really tore me up.
I thought I was protecting her, but actually,
I was exposing her to something that,
she didn't even have a clue.
I would snap at her, in a rage.
It got to the point when she would say to me,
this is in her teenage, [laughs]
"Daddy," she said, "instead of talking at me,"
she said, "talk to me.
I'm your child, I love you."
You know, and I knew it was from the PTSD and the anger,
and I knew that I needed some help.
And it took about the first three months for me to get
to a level when I was able to talk about
the trauma that I experienced.
Being able to talk about everything, it helped me
to open up that relationship with my daughter again.
And even to this day, even as we sit here this day,
I need my child.
I need my daughter.
She's a big part of my life, and she knows that
I'm there for her, and she's there for me.
And I know that if anybody understands me,
my daughter understands.