I attribute my PTSD to my son, volunteering to go to Iraq! Volunteering!! My begging and pleading did nothing to disuade him and I lost a year of my life watching scroll on CNN. I don't remember anything other than scroll and the monthly box we sent him with whatever holiday theme we did it in.....halloween, thanksgiving, christmas, valentines, st. patty's etc...... It has been 5 years since he got home...... He got spewed out the other end of the military in one piece....albiet with one very close call that netted him a purple heart and disability payments.....and nasty dreams.

MRSD is so correct....young men do not listen to their mothers.

Soldiers are some one's baby.

He no longer places weapons strategically around the house and keeps them in the gun safe.....things are getting better, for him.

I still can't watch a war movie, and this whole thing did not help my autonomic nervous system....ugh. I burst into tears at the mention of anything military.....memorials leave me drained for days.

My daughter deploys early next year for her second tour in the middle east and we will be raising her one year old son for a year. I am in training for this.

I feel for you....I will keep you in my thoughts.