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Isaiah Schaffer holds his daughter, Athenry, at his parents' Spotsylvania home. Three tours in Iraq left Schaffer with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Schaffer shops with Meghan, a chocolate Labrador service dog who helps him deal with daily tasks and being in public places.
Isaiah Schaffer hikes in Shenandoah National Park. The Iraq war veteran suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, which makes it difficult for him to be in crowds. |
Isaiah Schaffer joined the Marines at 17, eager to fight for his country. After three tours in Iraq, he is back home in Spotsylvania struggling with the physical and psychic wounds of the war. This is the first of a two-part series about Schaffer and his efforts to recapture a normal life.
BY BRIAN BAERIt's after 2 a.m., and Isaiah Schaffer's Marine unit is patrolling the city of Haditha in northwestern Iraq.
The farming town--along with Falujah--is one of the hot spots in an escalating war in March 2004.
Schaffer and his fellow Marines spot a few Iraqis in the distance.
Most of his unit withdraws to the safety of their boats near the Euphrates River.
Schaffer and a handful of other Marines are ordered to stay behind to keep a distant watch in case the Iraqis are insurgents.
The hunch is right.
Within minutes, about 15 Iraqis emerge and launch an attack on the Marines.
Schaffer fires his own M-249 assault weapon and starts running.
The remaining Marines--outnumbered by a ratio of 3-to-1--race toward the waiting boats.
A grenade explodes, and Schaffer twists his left knee.
Unable to walk, he crawls into the cold water until it covers him.
He has nothing more to give.
In desperation, Schaffer thrusts his weapon just above the water's surface.
And he prays that a friendly face will see his hand and pull him up.
THE REALITY OF WAR
It's not an easy story for Schaffer to tell.
He served three tours in Iraq: in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
He signed up at 17, eager for the warrior's life he'd always dreamed of. He left for Iraq at 19 as a gung-ho young Marine.
He was medevacked home, for good, on his 21st birthday, not sure he'd made the right decision.
Along the way, he killed Iraqi insurgents and, he quietly suggests, innocent civilians who were mistaken for bad guys.
Schaffer is now 25. He's a doting dad to a beautiful 4-month-old girl. He lives in his own Spotsylvania County apartment. And he has friends to watch the Sunday ballgames with.
But his life, in many ways, is at a standstill.
His knee still hurts sometimes, and he sustained a traumatic brain injury when he was blown from a Humvee in a 2005 roadside bomb attack in Ramadi.
Those are the least of his injuries.
THE ENEMY INSIDE
Bad guys with guns are no longer the enemy. As it does for many Iraq war veterans, the enemy now lives in Schaffer's head.
He has been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
What does that mean?
In Schaffer's case, it has meant two month-long stays in the Veterans Administration psychiatric unit in Richmond and a few nights in a local mental-health hospital.
It has also meant broken relationships. He's no longer with the mother of his daughter. He went three months--including Thanksgiving--last year without talking with his family.
And it has meant most jobs are out of the question. He now has a service dog, Meghan, with him at all times to help keep him calm when he's out in public.
Mostly, though, it means living with survivor's guilt and nightmares.
It means waking up drenched, seeing the faces of bloodied civilians he was told were insurgents. "Correction," a report came over his radio that night in Iraq. Turns out the bad guys' car was a different color. The correction had come too late.
It means jolting up in bed with a throbbing knee as he relives the riverside attack in Haditha.
Earlier this month, it meant finding a corner in Wegmans supermarket where he could sob into Meghan when bad thoughts overwhelmed him.
It meant crying into the shoulder of a Stafford sheriff's deputy, also an Iraq war veteran, who responded after Schaffer had a severe flashback one night. Schaffer was wandering around a friend's backyard carrying a Glock handgun.
"It's all right," the deputy told him. "We're back. We're home."
Yes, he is home. But in many ways, he's still there. Part of him always will be.
He doesn't want sympathy, he says, but knows he needs help.
No one's chasing him now, but to some degree he's still the same Marine submerged in an Iraqi river.
He's waiting, hoping, praying for someone to pull him up.
'LIKE A DIFFERENT PERSON'
Many veterans of the Iraq war lead a life most of us will never understand.
In Schaffer's case, the result is a person that even those who love him most don't recognize.
"We went through a couple of years of absolute hell," said his mother, Debbie Schaffer. "If the war wasn't bad enough, the aftereffects were far worse.
"He's just like a different person. It's not just being 18 and then he's 25. This is just a different ballgame altogether. He's begun to shut down."
Organized professional support has been uneven.
He was drugged for days in one hospital, and humiliated --sprayed with Lysol--in another local "support" group's waiting room.
But he continues to get treatment for PTSD and for drinking. At one time, he was downing one to two cases of beer a night. That's not the case anymore, he said.
His lowest points, he believes, are past him now.
At one time, "It was just mountains of beer cans. I had food in the bed I was sleeping in. I was just consumed with thoughts of the war.
"I remember one time looking around and seeing like 20 pizza boxes and beer cans everywhere. The house was a wreck. I had five movies and no cable. I would just watch these movies over and over and sleep all day."
Not long ago he wouldn't leave the house, but didn't want anyone to know why.
"I would invite friends over and I would drop money out the window for them to get me groceries."
He told them he had the flu.
He has held jobs--as a guard at a juvenile correctional facility and as a civilian worker at Quantico--but they didn't work out.
He knows he needs to work--he recently walked from Breezewood Apartments in Spotsylvania to Central Park to put in some applications--but says it's not easy.
"It's hard with an infantry background of 'Hey, I can shoot guns and I have no education.'"
Also, there aren't many bosses who want their employees walking around with dogs.
And, as his mom puts it, "You can't hold a job down if all you do is cry and drink."
The PTSD, his family knows, isn't going away.
"He's more angry than he's ever been," his mother said. "And sad. He's just sad. He's just not the person that called me from a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean to tell me about a sunset. That's not who he is anymore."
After a solid counseling session or a good day, she can see flashes of the old Isaiah.
The one who would bridge-jump with friends into Lake Anna.
The one whose smile and sense of humor have won over countless young women since middle school.
The one who was surrounded by fun-loving friends all headed in the same direction.
"When [therapy] works," she said, "I see glimpses of a boy that I knew he could turn out to be. He's remarkable. He's compassionate. He's giving. He's selfless.
"But when it's bad, I have no idea who that man is, because that is not the man I raised."
Schaffer spent New Year's Day at his parents' house in Spotsylvania this year, taking care of his daughter, Athenry.
Debbie Schaffer can't remember the last time before this year when he wasn't hung over on Jan. 1.
It's a sign, his mom hopes, that the darkest days have passed.
"He's hurt all of us. If he were bipolar--any other mental illness--there's a pill for it that will alter the progression.
"There's nothing for PTSD. It's a journey that we will be on for the rest of our lives."
PICKING UP THE PIECES
All Schaffer ever wanted to be was a Marine.
For him, though, that dream turned into what may be a lifelong struggle.
Going through infantry training camp, and even after his first tour in Iraq, he said, "You feel like you're playing GI Joe like I did as a kid, and you come back cocky as hell."
Now, after three tours in a war zone, that's not who he is.
The small boy who always dreamed of being a Marine now has many regrets about signing up on his 17th birthday. He thinks of how different his life would be if he'd gone to college instead.
"I've gone from this little kid who wanted to be the hero to a guy who just got away with his life," he said.
In war, "There is no hero. It's live and die. That's how war is."
And he knows that, wounds and all, he's one of the lucky ones.
"I'm still living and I'm still breathing. There's people from this town who didn't make it home."
Schaffer wants to start over, beginning with the small things: taking more college courses, securing a car and trying to be a better dad.
But every day remains a struggle.
"I don't even know what my identity is anymore," he said.
The kid in camouflage running around his parents' backyard?
He's gone.
The bragging teenager with a rifle and a Marine uniform?
A lingering nightmare.
Now?
"It's all about trying to pick up the pieces and move on with what you've got. I gotta find out who this guy is now."
Brian Baer
Email: bbaer@fredericksburg.com
Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents or military combat.
Scientific research from last September suggests that as many as 35 percent of Iraq war veterans will seek treatment for PTSD.
People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to. They may experience sleep problems, feel detached or numb, or be easily startled.
--National Institutes of Health,
