clipped from www.alternet.org

A Veteran Speaks of the Forgotten Wounded of Iraq

By Ron Kovic

A Vietnam veteran, paralyzed in the war, talks about his own struggles, those that the recently wounded in Iraq face, and how we can break this cycle of violence and begin to move in a different direction.

Thirty-eight years ago, on Jan. 20, 1968, I was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam. It is a date that I can never forget, a day that was to change my life forever. Each year as the anniversary of my wounding in the war approached I would become extremely restless, experiencing terrible bouts of insomnia, depression, anxiety attacks and horrifying nightmares. I dreaded that day and what it represented, always fearing that the terrible trauma of my wounding might repeat itself all over again. It was a difficult day for me for decades and it remained that way until the anxieties and nightmares finally began to subside.