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L.R.D.

L.R.D., Sergeant, U.S. Army, OIF, 2006 – 2007 I was raised Roman Catholic. I am Roman Catholic, and not just on Christmas and Easter. I'm doing my utmost to push myself back to my faith, because I want it and I believe it and I crave it. My mom used to say that, if you look at the decline in the sacrament of confession, you'll see a rise in psychiatry, and I think she's right. This is how we shaved [on deployment]. The physical pounding [of deployment] is one thing. The rhythm of what makes you able to do that is perhaps the [most] dangerous [to your health]. In order to go work for a 25-hour shift, you don’t sit to eat. You just pound away at your body. Eat what’s there and [don’t] sleep, and it’s hard to get out of that [when you get home]. When you’re inside of a Humvee, the idea that you can see an IED is bull---. If you see it, you’re going to be dead. It’s too late. So largely what I would do is look for signs of life, look for kids. I love kids. That’s Arlington [National Cemetery]…a lot of loss for people so young. I mean, that’s the thing that sticks with me sometimes, when I talk to people that are really young and they just have so much loss. Or you have so much guilt. You’re standing in a field of death, and you’re alive. You stand there and feel guilt. I think anyone standing alive in that place ought to. It [graduating from college] wasn’t like this ‘popping champagne’ action thing that I think a lot of college seniors have. For Veterans, it can be more like “Hurray! You’re unemployed.” I think it’s true of a lot of the guys. They’re not in a super hurry to get out, because they know what it’s like to dig a ditch. This [college] is a pretty good gig. I enjoyed my undergrad [studies], and I enjoy school now. One of the neat things about the [Student] Veterans Center [is] you can meet people who had that similar experience. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be best friends. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be buddies, but it does mean they know that much. And if you want to be friends, you could. I think there's a desire in our culture to forget, to move on. There are some things that you should not forget. Some things I think you should not move on from. I could quickly make it into GI Joe. I never imagine a cure. And it's more difficult for you in the audience to hear that I'm troubled by these things; I haven't moved on, that there is a cost to this.
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L.R.D., Sergeant, U.S. Army, OIF, 2006 – 2007


LRD enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and served one deployment to Iraq. He went back to school after separating from military service at West Chester University, where he helped found the Student Veteran Center. LRD is currently in his second and final year as a Masters of Social Work candidate at West Chester University. As part of this program, LRD has served several internships including his current placement at the Philadelphia VA with the Veterans Justice Outreach. He enjoys working with other Veterans through the Philadelphia Veterans Treatment Court, where he is developing their Veteran Mentor Program. He is very involved with Warrior Writers, and is conducting a qualitative research study to explore the impact that participation has on veterans in the community. He and his wife have two young children, Anna Marie and Matthew.

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