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For the Global Thinker

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Welcome Home

This is the Pulitzer Prize Winning Feature about a soldier suffering from PTSD.  Certainly, documentary photography at it's finest...


 Scott looks over his military service records and weeps after being told his apartment application had been turned down. The leasing manager said he couldn't allow Scott to move in because of an assault charge on his background check. Though Scott had his honorable discharge papers and his good-conduct medal, Scott said they meant nothing. 'I'm not a criminal. You would think this would be worth something. It should be. It's not, though.' (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post -Dec. 29, 2011)

 
 Scott drinks a beer outside the VFW Post in Longmont, Colo. Scott recalled his worst day in Iraq. 'We got this infantry platoon attached to us to beef up our numbers. ... There was this one guy, and I knew right away that we were going to be friends. ... The vehicle he was riding in the passenger seat hit a really big bomb that day - really big IED, and it trapped him inside the humvee, and I got to listen to and watch him scream as he burned. And I never learned his name. There was nothing I could do. ... I lost a friend that I never had.' (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post - December 29, 2011)

 After punching a hole in his bedroom door, Scott panics in his living room. 'My PTSD comes from long exposure to combat trauma,' Scott said. 'I think it comes from the fact that I survived. That wasn't my plan. It's an honor to die for my country, but I made it home.' Scott said that being diagnosed with PTSD 'means I have nightmares every night. It means I'm hyper-vigilant -- It means I have no fuse and if I get attacked, I'm going to kill. 'I don't want to feel this way.

Scott watches an evening storm roll in outside his apartment. 'I'm just feeling guilty about the things I did. I was a brutal killer, and I rejoiced in it. I was bred to be a killer, and I did it. Now I'm trying to adapt and feel human again. But to feel human, I feel guilty. I did horrible things to people... That's why I can't eat: I feel guilty, I feel sick.' 

SEE FULL SLIDESHOW HERE...
http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2012-Feature-Photography# 

Also see more Pulitzer Prize Winning Photos here...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131084/Pulitzer-Prize-winners-2012-Picture-screaming-girl-standing-amid-Afghan-suicide-attack-carnage.html 

And lastly an exceptional documentary called "Hell and Back Again" which depicts the reality of modern war and the pain of reintegration.
http://hellandbackagain.com/ 
(It's easy to download this doc from torrentz...)

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