Recon Marine shares struggles with PTSD & what he's doing to overcome them. *Graphic*

My name is George Briones. I'm a former reconnaissance communicator for the United States Marine Corps. I grew up in San Antonio, Texas and it wasn't your normal childhood. The childhood that I grew up in was a very toxic one. From abuse in terms of sexual abuse, to emotional abuse, to drug abuse. Almost didn't finish high school. The Marine Corps was a saving grace to pull me out of my childhood. Very hard thing for me to break. I had to learn how to recondition myself at a very young age from things that one what I found now today was me just hammering in plywood against the door so I don't ever have to go back into that room. But what I didn't realize was that the Marine Corps as my saving grace was also going to be a downfall for me. And understanding that I decided to join the military during a time of war. I'm the one that decided to go ahead and put myself in positions to allow myself to become who I was when I left the military. Originally by trade I was in 0621 which is a communicator, radio operator. And as I was coming into graduating I remember his staff sergeant green he was like, who wants to go recon? No idea what recon was. No idea what special operations was in the military. All I knew was like the Marine Corps was the top of the top and that was what I wanted to do. I didn't know I was going to go to war and do the things that I did do. My first deployment to Iraq it was literally patrols in a vehicle. It was hide sites. It was you know just doing surveillance. It was doing all those things. And we didn't get in very much contact. There was none actually at all. I hadn't seen combat until my second deployment realistically. Going into my second deployment I didn't, I automatically had the thought process oh it's going to be like my last one. But as we're starting to go over there and you start hearing how 3rd Recon Battalion got ambushed and lost dudes. And then hearing you know what's happening to some of the other foreign country military guys that were out there becoming combat ineffective fighting the Taliban. The energy in the air when you land in Afghanistan becomes very very airy. I'm getting ready to insert in 10 days with 120 pound pack on my back full ******* kit And all we've done is a ******* area recon. And all you know is like hey the area you're going into is the ******* hornet's nest of the Taliban. Alright I guess we're really in it now. That's when it made me realize that the only way to survive this was to disconnect myself from my emotions. We ended up staying out there for almost 60 days living out of houses fighting the Taliban, patrolling at night time, fighting during the day, patrolling at night time. And you learn that there was no real break. Because if you took a rest at the time and moment you potentially could be killed. Three different sounds of gunfire. The one that whizzes above your head it wasn't for you. And the one that just pops off somewhere else it's not for you. The one that snaps by your ear you know it's for you. It changes you. We just did a big change out sitting there eating an MRE. We hear rounds going off boom boom boom. All you hear is and see your buddy go Murray went down. Someone go over there. Corpsmen start running over there. Albright's on the radio it's like hey yeah he did this. And I'm sitting there like what the **** just happened. And all of a sudden you see pure chaos. And one of those things is and it gives me goosebumps every time whenever we walk at night time on patrols. You hear the Taliban over ICOM chatter counting you out as you're sitting down conducting seals. Am I going to go ahead and come back from this patrol and be able to go to sleep? It really didn't hit me of what I was doing and so I started writing my own obituary. At the age of 21 having to write your own obituary like that does something to you. Like and I believe that was my first step in kind of losing my humanity. But it's what was needed that time and moment to survive a deployment that we that we did. There was going to be some kind of ripple effect however long it has happened. And it wasn't just because of the military. After I got back from my 2010 deployment I lost five individuals super close to me. My step-grandma passed away. An EOD guy who was operating with us just got killed by stepping on an IED. Your grandfather's passing away. And then a year later your grandma's passing away. My best friend who I grew up with in my childhood is no longer with us. And before my deployment my dad died. So I was already going into this deployment so I guess you could say desensitized. I experienced so much death. So much hate and evil. When you sit back and look at it and actually realize those things it takes a piece of you. But at the same time is that I really loved what I did. But we also did some really bad things out there. And when you still think about those things today it can eat you up inside especially if you haven't reattached your humanity to yourself. We lose when we leave the military. We become afraid to make entry into our own soul because we've been taught to constantly move turn off these emotions to go ahead and stay alive. When we get out of the military every step you take is unknown. And it's the same exact thing in life. Every step we take is an unknown. I started having brothers take their lives. Justin Nolan just took his life. Appletini just took his life. Johnson just took his life. Gino just took his life. So when we look at suicide today in the veteran space all we're now having is a firefight with our own self. Well guess what? You're no longer in a combat environment. Whatever it is that you have to make entry into to take care of yourself because that's what matters. And if you don't do that we fall back into old habits. Over these five years I've had three attempts at suicide. Being able to put a ******* weapon up to your head in a studio by yourself in a bottle of Jack Daniels and to look over at your dog and see him staring at you. That gave me hope. Unclocked it, put it down, went outside. Cool what's next? I gotta figure out how to continue living. I couldn't look at myself eye to eye and look at myself. It took me almost eight years because the demons were just pounding so hard. Boom. But as you start looking at yourself in the mirror and you start really believing in yourself and looking at those things it doesn't mean those habits go away. But what I realized was I recognized that. You have life to live and you get taught a skill set to be an asset in a team. Why don't you carry some of those skill sets that you learn in the military out into real life to go ahead and keep you alive. And I can honestly sit here and say that I have truly learned to trust myself. But it hasn't been done in an individual effort. In the military especially in a reconnaissance team you have companionship and that's something I've had to reconnect with especially as myself who gets into ultra endurance now to go ahead and run a hundred miles to feel and understand it's like the only way I can get from aid station aid station is myself. But once I get to that aid station I'm going to have support there. You have the support structure there to go ahead and allow you to conversate and allow you to bring the sadness, the anger, the frustration, the happiness, the love, whatever it is that you had inside there and share it and have those conversations. Conversation leads to changes. Because when you are uncomfortable is when the real stuff starts to happen. The support network you need is individuals who are going to offer you love, compassion, and empathy. Because when you're in a team that's what you developed. You might have not realized it but that's what you developed. And that's what I've found here with Keegan, Michael, Mark. Individuals that are in this space Brandon, Vince. Individuals who also have made a big impact on me but they have offered and show me what true love, empathy, and compassion has been and has allowed me to go ahead and put a breacher charge on those doors to make entry into it solo and when I come out of it there is love, compassion, empathy for who I am. As an individual not as the marine or or whatever else no as who I am to understand that that's part of my life and it's going to be something part of my life forever. And it's taken me 10 years to find that team again. I have truly found what gratitude means which is why I can say again I can sit here and offer that and say thank you to you guys for offering me an opportunity to share my story. Our inspired actions to keep me moving forward to stay alive and I just want to go ahead and let every veteran else who's going to watch this know you're not alone and if you need to sit and talk reach out to anybody and talk but make sure that that individual you talk to brings love, compassion, and empathy and if you don't have no one reach out to me please. I've done it for a lot of individuals and I'll continue to do that for as long as I can ******* breathe because I truly believe as I've connected back to my soul that's what I'm here to do and I believe this what I heal within myself I heal within the world so thank you