“I'm definitely not the person I was before. I was always laid back, relaxed. Always cracking jokes and things like that. Now I'm anxious and tense and have bouts of anger, have some pretty severe insomnia.”

GLANTZ You're listening to “The War Comes Home,” warcomeshome.org, a project of KPFA Radio. I'm Aaron Glantz.
27 year old Melissa Resta remembers when she first met her husband. Growing up near a Navy and Air Force bases in rural South Carolina, her father had always told her not to date cops or guys in the military. Then Patrick Resta appeared at her door.

MELSSIA RESTA “I met Patrick. He seemed like a wonderful guy. He showed up in full army fatigues after going to drill. I mean, it was a little awkward. I have to say that I giggled every time he put the beret on every couple of weeks, but it was him that I loved.”

GLANTZ Patrick Resta had always loved the military. He’d signed up right after High School, but by the time they married he met Melissa he had already finished his time on active duty and was in the Army reserves.

MELISSA “I figured he was only in the reserves so I'm not going to become an army wife or anything. But that's definitely what happened.”

GLANTZ Patrick Resta’s aunt and uncle were killed in the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001 and about three weeks later Patrick was called to active duty as part of homeland security. … A year later, the Bush Administration started to advocate an attack on Iraq – an invasion Patrick Resta opposed.

PATRICK “Rumors started to build and I had questions from the start about some of the things that were being given as a rationale for the war. I can honestly say that whether to go to Iraq or not was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make in my life.”

GLANTZ In the Spring of 2004, the US Army sent Patrick Resta to Diyala Province, Northeast of Baghdad near the Iranian border. One of the most dangerous places in Iraq, it’s where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed last year.
Patrick served as a combat medic. He went out on patrol and checked for roadside bombs. He says he saw Hum-Vees blow up in his face, but added the worst casualties he saw were Iraqi civilians – who he was often forbidden to treat.

PATRICK “We could not treat Iraqi civilians unless they were about to die and we had done it. You had people bringing their children up to you who were ill and had to be treated. And we were threatened with being court-martialled if we took any medicine to treat these Iraqis in the city. So there are a lot of things that are below the surface back here that are not reported that really are immoral.”

GLANTZ By the time he left Iraq, Patrick says he knew the war was a disaster.

PATRICK “Two days before I left Iraq, I went on my last patrol to the city where I was based at because seeing the children probably had the biggest effect on me. So he took a picture and I wasn't looking at what the children were doing along side of me and he hands the camera back to me and I see that I'm surrounded by children who are between 8 and 10 years old. One of them is holding up a Hitler salute and on the other side of me one of the children is holding up a local newspaper with the Abu Ghraib torture photos on the front cover. So that was the impression that I left Iraq with – that we had radicalized a whole generation of Iraqis to hate this country and hate Americans.”

GLANTZ On November 15, 2004 Patrick Reste left Iraq and was welcomed back by his family in the U-S. … But his wife Melissa quickly realized something was wrong.

MELISSA “Right after he came home, that's when it was real bad. I mean, I guess we were in rough situation. I had just finished school and was looking for work. We were living with his brother in a small apartment in a new city and he was just angry about a lot of stuff and I just assumed it was because I hadn't found a job yet and gotten a place and whatnot and I just had a feeling that something wasn't right and was drinking a little bit more than I would normally think someone should and at off hours. He wasn't sleeping. When I would lay down he wasn't there and as this progressed on over the course of I'm talking just 2 or 3 weeks I started to notice that if I came into a room he would just leave. If I said something to him, he would just snap. He didn't want to talk me, he didn't want to talk to really anybody. And if I confronted him about having problems I would get let into. Why haven't you done this? Why haven't you done this? I just want to be left alone. Go away.”

GLANTZ Six weeks later, at Christmas time, Melissa Resta confronted her husband.

MELISSA “At Christmas, he just wasn't interested in spending any time with me and I didn't even see him the rest of the day. And I knew there was something wrong there. So I finally said something to him. I asked him if he wanted to split up and he said he didn't care and I realized 'That's not my husband.' Patrick wouldn't say that. He wouldn't let this happen.”

GLANTZ So Melissa talked to other veterans in her community and a few months later, Patrick went to the Veterans Administration, where he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, an anxiety disease that can emerge after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. A person experiencing PTSD can lose touch with reality and believe that the traumatic incident is happening all over again. … Patrick Resta.

PATRICK “I'm definitely not the person I was before. I was always laid back, relaxed. Always cracking jokes and things like that. Now I'm anxious and tense and have bouts of anger, have some pretty severe insomnia, nightmares. I think it's pretty standard for the men and women who've been over there..”

GLANTZ Patrick says the treatment he’s received from the V-A has been helpful. He’s gone back to school is working on an Associates degree at a community college in Philadelphia. After that, he plans to transfer to Temple University to study nursing. Still, his wife Melissa says their lives have permanently changed.

MELISSA “There are so many of these things that I never would have thought would be a problem and now I have to think them through. The grocery store's too crowded. We also live in a city with a high Muslim population and there are a lot of women in traditional Muslim dress and sometimes I think it can be unsettling for him to see this because it brings back these feelings. I mean there are a lot of things you have to take into consideration it's not really where I had pictured myself.”

GLANTZ You've been listening to “The War Comes Home,” warcomeshome.org, a project of KPFA Radio. I'm Aaron Glantz.