CRESTVIEW — Army Staff Sgt. Dan Kinney wants to help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder — because he knows the struggle firsthand.
Kinney, who lives in Baker with his wife, Stacey, and their three children, recently started the Facebook page "The Scars Remain," which follows his blog with the same name.
The central message? "We all suffer. We all care … No judging, just helping," the Facebook page states.
TARGETING INSURGENTS
After Kinney enlisted in the Army — a lifelong dream — in 2006 in Lansing, Mich., he was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base and served seven months in Iraq before heading to Afghanistan.
That second tour would haunt him forever.
In 2010 in Afghanistan, Kinney monitored a group of people digging in the road — "there's no doubt that they were placing an IED" — Kinney said.
His group planned to drop artillery on the insurgents, possibly a subgroup of Al Quaida, he said, and later verify all the bombs were gone.
But the artillery hit a nearby house, and killed three children, along with their uncle and their father.
"One of our best guesses," Kinney said, is that "some of the mortars landed closer to the edge of town than we would have liked… one of those mortars came in through their roof."
RELIVING A WAR
One girl, perhaps 4 years old, Kinney said, did not instantly die.
"She was the only one that was still alive," he said. "She's just making eye contact with me and she's whimpering — and then, all of a sudden, it just stops. We had trucks running, there's people around, there's people talking, but everything was completely silent when she stopped whimpering."
After returning from war, a cry from Kinney's daughter, then 11 months, reminded him of the girl who died too soon.
"Every time I'd hear it, I'd be back there again," Kinney said. "The smells were there. It was a cold night, so I would get chilly."
Military service members who witness life-threatening events might have recurring flashbacks of the trauma and experience sleepless nights and jumpiness, among other symptoms, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center for PTSD.
But there lies the stigma: Being so vulnerable can be challenging for someone who should be a hero, Kinney said.
"A lot of people in the military tend to think that, you know, we're big, bad, Army guys; we don't need help from anything," he said. "And when you do go and seek help for something, a lot of times you can be looked at as weak.
"In reality, that's just absolutely not the case."
'WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE'
For Kinney, coping with combat-related trauma meant attending group therapy sessions in a military hospital.
But something interesting happened.
"What I noticed was for me, personally — and for a couple of the other guys who admitted it — is we were getting more out of just talking to each other (while hanging out) than we were from any of the therapy sessions or the medication," Kinney said.
Bonding with combat veterans outside of any formal setting inspired Kinney to form the Facebook page.
"We've all been there, we've all seen horrible things, and now that we're home and struggling with the consequences, I want to provide a safe place where we can come and get things off our chest," he said.
"It's important for people to understand that PTSD isn't something that ever goes away. You just learn how to manage it and learn how to live with it instead of fight against it."
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: 'NO JUDGING, JUST HELPING': Baker man starts PTSD forum for veterans