PTSD by Jordan Hamilton Lyrics
It’s a scene people in my line of work are too familiar with
Two in the morning
Cigarette in hand
Blood on his knuckles
He’s been swinging at shadows again
Whiskey on his breath
I’m talking him down again
I’m trying to remind him that Afghanistan is just an outline on a map now
That he is in Southern California
And no longer in the desert that killed half of his adopted brothers
I try to swallow my guilt
Even though I have heard all of the stories
And he and I have the exact same basic training
I have no idea what he’s been though
I try to keep it humourous
I remind him that
Yes, California has a gang problem
But the Bloods and the Crips are not known for making homemade explosives
Not known for treating children like street corners
And rigging them with IEDs
That’s probably not funny to any of you
But’s that’s okay
Because even though he laughs
we both know it's empty gallows humor
Because there’s nothing funny about a grown man
Scared to death of the monsters under his bed
He takes a drag from his cigarette
Takes a pull from his bottle
Normally I would stop him
But I can tell that tonight
It might be the only thing holding him together
He says do you remember the things they taught us
Like how Opha Mae Johnson
Was the first female to join the Marine corps in 1912
Or how in 1918 we gave birth to the concept of Marine Corps aviation
The proper way to place a tourniquet is as far from the heart And as close to the missing limb as possible
If one of your brothers takes a round to the chest
The proper way to treat it is to take a layer of gauze large enough to cover the wound
Tape down three sides and monitor your patient for shock and tension pneumothorax
If they present with tension pneumothorax
You take the end of a hypodermic needle
Puncture between the second and third rib
allowing air to escape from the pleural cavity
And allowing your casualty's lungs to expand
When one of your brothers is thinking about killing himself
He will act irrationally
He will make jokes about his own demise
His performance at work will be affected And with shaking hands
He will begin to give away things that you once thought meant something to him
What they never taught us were the things that mattered
They never taught us how to apply a tourniquet To the bleeding stump of your our sanity
Or what to do when no matter how many sharp objects I have punctured my chest with
my lungs just don’t seem capable of expanding anymore
Or what to do
When the shaking hands Are now my own
The only thing that puts me to bed anymore is a bottle of whiskey and a fist fight
And that’s because
The last time I slept soundly
It was in a hole I dug with my bare hands
7000 miles from home
The last time
My bed felt comfortable
It was in the middle of a war zone
He takes a drag from his now spent cigarette
Takes a pull from his now empty bottle of whiskey
He reaches for his wallet
Shows me a picture of his pregnant wife
He says
Do you know why I’m glad I’m having a baby
I feel like If I can bring a child
Into this world
Then maybe
I can give back a little bit of the innocence that was stolen from me
I was 19 and naive
When they handed me a rifle And sent me off to war
And I don’t think I’m ever going to get that back
You see Before I left I knew
No matter what they held I could always outrun my fears
No matter what my nightmares contained
I would always wake up
But somewhere
Between the first time
My truck hit an IED
And the night
We had to send Kyle home in a body bag
Because someone fell asleep on post
My nightmares They grew legs
And started chasing after me
And now
My lungs Are on the verge of collapse
From running dead sprint Through a marathon race
I just don’t seem capable of finding the finish line to
I don’t know If I’m ever gonna wake up
And the irony of that
Is I haven’t slept in three days
The images Just keep playing themselves across my vision
As if the back of my skull Were a movie projector
I can smell the blood
And I can taste the death
I keep hearing the sound a throat makes
When all of its vocal cords have been cut
I keep seeing the way Jonesy’s face looked
Moments before a bullet
Removed the top half of his skull And drained
Every dream he’d ever had
Out onto the dirt street of some shit hole city we couldn’t even tell you the name of
We couldn’t even tell you why we were there
And I know
The burden of doing exactly as we are told
Is one us warriors are taught to carry at a young age
But my shoulders are tired
I keep trying to remind myself that I am a warrior
That I am trained to kill
And willing to die for the things that I believe in
And If I just keep doing exactly as I have been taught
Then maybe
Someday this will all go away
But
The problem with that is
That in between my nightmares
My favorites dreams
Are the ones where my friends
Are still alive
Two in the morning
Cigarette in hand
Blood on his knuckles
He’s been swinging at shadows again
Whiskey on his breath
I’m talking him down again
I’m trying to remind him that Afghanistan is just an outline on a map now
That he is in Southern California
And no longer in the desert that killed half of his adopted brothers
I try to swallow my guilt
Even though I have heard all of the stories
And he and I have the exact same basic training
I have no idea what he’s been though
I try to keep it humourous
I remind him that
Yes, California has a gang problem
But the Bloods and the Crips are not known for making homemade explosives
Not known for treating children like street corners
And rigging them with IEDs
That’s probably not funny to any of you
But’s that’s okay
Because even though he laughs
we both know it's empty gallows humor
Because there’s nothing funny about a grown man
Scared to death of the monsters under his bed
He takes a drag from his cigarette
Takes a pull from his bottle
Normally I would stop him
But I can tell that tonight
It might be the only thing holding him together
He says do you remember the things they taught us
Like how Opha Mae Johnson
Was the first female to join the Marine corps in 1912
Or how in 1918 we gave birth to the concept of Marine Corps aviation
The proper way to place a tourniquet is as far from the heart And as close to the missing limb as possible
If one of your brothers takes a round to the chest
The proper way to treat it is to take a layer of gauze large enough to cover the wound
Tape down three sides and monitor your patient for shock and tension pneumothorax
If they present with tension pneumothorax
You take the end of a hypodermic needle
Puncture between the second and third rib
allowing air to escape from the pleural cavity
And allowing your casualty's lungs to expand
When one of your brothers is thinking about killing himself
He will act irrationally
He will make jokes about his own demise
His performance at work will be affected And with shaking hands
He will begin to give away things that you once thought meant something to him
What they never taught us were the things that mattered
They never taught us how to apply a tourniquet To the bleeding stump of your our sanity
Or what to do when no matter how many sharp objects I have punctured my chest with
my lungs just don’t seem capable of expanding anymore
Or what to do
When the shaking hands Are now my own
The only thing that puts me to bed anymore is a bottle of whiskey and a fist fight
And that’s because
The last time I slept soundly
It was in a hole I dug with my bare hands
7000 miles from home
The last time
My bed felt comfortable
It was in the middle of a war zone
He takes a drag from his now spent cigarette
Takes a pull from his now empty bottle of whiskey
He reaches for his wallet
Shows me a picture of his pregnant wife
He says
Do you know why I’m glad I’m having a baby
I feel like If I can bring a child
Into this world
Then maybe
I can give back a little bit of the innocence that was stolen from me
I was 19 and naive
When they handed me a rifle And sent me off to war
And I don’t think I’m ever going to get that back
You see Before I left I knew
No matter what they held I could always outrun my fears
No matter what my nightmares contained
I would always wake up
But somewhere
Between the first time
My truck hit an IED
And the night
We had to send Kyle home in a body bag
Because someone fell asleep on post
My nightmares They grew legs
And started chasing after me
And now
My lungs Are on the verge of collapse
From running dead sprint Through a marathon race
I just don’t seem capable of finding the finish line to
I don’t know If I’m ever gonna wake up
And the irony of that
Is I haven’t slept in three days
The images Just keep playing themselves across my vision
As if the back of my skull Were a movie projector
I can smell the blood
And I can taste the death
I keep hearing the sound a throat makes
When all of its vocal cords have been cut
I keep seeing the way Jonesy’s face looked
Moments before a bullet
Removed the top half of his skull And drained
Every dream he’d ever had
Out onto the dirt street of some shit hole city we couldn’t even tell you the name of
We couldn’t even tell you why we were there
And I know
The burden of doing exactly as we are told
Is one us warriors are taught to carry at a young age
But my shoulders are tired
I keep trying to remind myself that I am a warrior
That I am trained to kill
And willing to die for the things that I believe in
And If I just keep doing exactly as I have been taught
Then maybe
Someday this will all go away
But
The problem with that is
That in between my nightmares
My favorites dreams
Are the ones where my friends
Are still alive