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I'd be screaming in bed.

Harold Bud Smith, US Air Force 1959 - 1962, talks about how he knew he had PTSD.

Transcript

The Vietnam War really was, is in a stage back then

where there were advisors there and people doing reconnaissance

like me and it was not what you'd call a regular war.

It was guerrilla warfare type stuff

and it was very, very brutal.

I had really bad nightmares, really, really bad nightmares

and I didn't get much sleep.

Many years later when I had a heart attack, I'm a policeman,

the doctors told me out in Boston Hospital

that I hadn't slept for years.

Looking back, I've done a lot of that since, it's true.

I hadn't. I just didn't sleep

because it was a place I had no control over.

I'd fall out of bed or I'd be screaming in bed.

During the day, I thought I had control over PTSD or I tried

to have control over it, but at night it was

like everything happened.

So if I was to wake up in the middle of the night,

I just wouldn't go back to bed then day after day after day,

I was exhausted all the time.

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