Oral History Of Iraq & Afghanistan: Sgt. David Gilmore

As Told to Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.

Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008



Sgt. David Gilmore
30 Years Old
Army, 1999-present
Served in Baqubah, Balad, Tikrit

• Oral History Project

Sergeant David Gilmore was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after his first tour in Iraq, 2003-2004. He was given medication and redeployed to Iraq in 2006-2007. He is currently assigned to the Wounded Warrior unit at Fort Bliss, Texas, undergoing treatment and awaiting his medical discharge from the Army. The following transcript combines two conversations he has had with National Journal, edited for clarity.

I was a GED, age 20, decided to improve my life. So I joined back in '99, the very beginning of '99. I was trimming trees out of power lines: I didn't think the Army was going to be a big change [in terms of] hazard. That kind of changed during OIF-I [Operation Iraqi Freedom - I, the 2003 invasion of Iraq].

I'm a mechanic: [Military Occupational Specialty code] 94-Mike, radar repair. When you join the Army as support personnel, you don't think you're going to find yourself in a combat zone. But in Iraq, there's no forward line of troops. In Iraq, your MOS [Military Occupational Speciaity] doesn't matter. You're infantry.

I was with 4th Infantry Division in 2003 when we deployed. We took over Baqubah after 3rd ID [Infantry Division] had taken care of everything south of Baghdad.

After the initial push, things mellowed out for a couple months, and then the Iraqis got their act together and started attacking us, and one of their favorite attacks was mortars, at nighttime. That kills you, freaks you out.

They sent us to Balad, which as everyone knows is the mortar capital of the world. We didn't have armor. No bunkers. No defense. When the mortars hit, there was just, what side of the Humvee tire do you hide on? There was a wire fence, towers, canal; [but at Camp] Anaconda, the ground is too hard to dig into.

During the month of July, we took nonstop [mortar fire]. That's actually kind of where I snapped the first time. You can't sleep. It's too hot to sleep in the daytime, you can't sleep at night because of the incoming. Before that, you could get a good eight hours sleep at night, unless you had guard duty.

We lost good people over there too. We suffered four casualties, and I lost a guy I grew up with in Carlsbad, [New Mexico]. He died in October of '03 [from a roadside bomb]. They're pretty good on those IEDs -- we hardly lost anyone due to mortars.

About two or three months into the tour, outside the little ditch that we lived in, I heard a thumping noise, and then all hell breaks lose. In the movies, you see a gout of flame; it's not like that: when mortars land at night, you see a little flash. I was saved by an MKT, a mobile kitchen tent, [between me and the explosion].

One night we took multiple mortars. I just flipped out. I ran to the wire [the edge of base camp]. I had two cigarette lighters in my hands. I was like, "Come on!" Guys on the team tackled me.

You get frustrated because there's nothing you can do about a mortar attack or an IED attack. You can look out. But they're crafty little devils. There's no way to respond to it -- the guys were in a white pickup truck, guy lifts up the back of the pickup truck, drops a couple of rounds in the tube [of the mortar], and before they landed, they were gone. You can't fire artillery because of civilian casualties; it takes time to get birds [aircraft] in the air.

One day, we had them toss a pigeon in our truck. It had a blasting cap sticking out of its butthole. We played hot potato with it before someone finally threw it out of the truck.

What really sucks is even with the armor, our first casualty was in a Bradley [a 30-ton armored infantry carrier]: We lost Specialist Acosta [Spec. Genaro Acosta, killed 12 November, 2003, at age 26]. You've got this armor but you can still find ways to defeat it, it doesn't matter, they can still find ways to defeat it. It doesn't matter what you've got, [even an] Abrams [a 70-ton main battle tank].

Coming back from OIF-1, I was definitely drinking way too much; I'd even drink during the duty day. I didn't kick that problem until I came to the WTU [Wounded Warrior Transition Unit] -- they have a no-drinking rule. I didn't want to get a DUI. You realize after a while drinking and driving's not cool.

I quit drinking. I see everybody drinking, and they hear that I don't drink, and they're like, "What's wrong with you, dude?" I don't want to go back down that path. There's nothing to be gained by going back to being an alcoholic. Not to mention all the drugs I'm on. [Now it's] no hangovers, no feeling like crap, not doing anything stupid -- I don't need this anymore.

I've been on medication since OIF-1, but I decided I was going to stick it out. I got diagnosed with PTSD, no big deal. You can take the meds and they help a little bit, but they don't fix everything. Take some Zoloft so I can drive on; that was my choice.

The ironic thing is, you came back to the States, you're worse. You get so used to carrying a weapon. You come back and you feel naked without a weapon. The real breakdown I had coming back from OIF-1 was trying to get a new cellphone at a Sprint store. I had the mentality of, "Stuff needs to get done, it gets done." Coming back to the civilian world, they want to add all this stuff on. I just want a cellphone. I don't need all these bells and whistles. I just need a damn cellphone. [But] they're not going to let it go. It just frustrates the flip out of you. I was yelling, kind of flipping out on this lady, "Goddammit, I just want a fucking cellphone, how hard is that to do?" There were some soldiers in the store and they got me out there pretty quickly. Obviously, I didn't get the cellphone that day.

[Even today], buying a vehicle and stuff like that, I'll end up paying a little bit extra just to avoid the stress of having to play the stupid haggle game. With my current truck, I paid a little more than I should have. I basically went in there and said, "I don't care about the bullshit, I know I want this truck, let's get this done." That made the dealer just ecstatic. It cost me a couple extra thousand dollars, but it was a much less stressful event than it could have been.

In the last tour, 2006 to 2007, we took a lot of casualties. We lost some really good people, young kids, 19, 20 years old. It's sad, we were losing a lot of support personnel, because of IEDs.

There were soldiers that we lost -- Specialist Nepsa [Corporal Keith Vernon Nepsa, died 2 June, 2007, at age 21], Specialist Costello [Corporal Jeremiah David Costello, died 2 June, 2007, at age 22], "Doc" Cottrell [Staff Sgt. Eric Dwayne Cottrell, died 13 August, 2007, at age 39] -- we lost people that I know and that I've worked with before. It sucks to see young kids -- like Specialist Costello -- he had just re-enlisted, he had a daughter. "Oh, let me show you pictures of my kid." You see their faces in your mind.

This last tour I got sick as soon as I got into country. I got a cushy job. I was working at the Iraqi sergeants' academy, training Iraqis. I was isolated from Americans; I got used to being around people who didn't understand me.

I never left the wire. I was the admin officer. I didn't like it. It's frustrating. I'm single, I'm 30, I'm an NCO [non-commissioned officer], I've already been there before. I'm not exactly fond of going outside the wire, but it doesn't bother me. To see someone who's 19 years old, they've only been in the Army a year or two at most, they've got family -- you wish it was you instead of them. But by the same token, you're glad you're not going outside the wire.

When I came back the second time, I was just, "I don't think I can handle going back over there anymore." You think about it statistically, number-wise, the losses we take over there [are low]. But when you think about how a unit functions -- whether you actually talk to the person or not, you know them; if that person is removed in a violent manner, for lack of a better word, it sucks, whether you like the person or not. Sometimes you don't get along with people, but you are a family.

When I got sick in country, Cottrell was the doctor who said, "Hey, your kidneys are messed up." He got killed later in the tour. He had a beautiful wife, several kids; older man; he was the kind of guy, you go out of your way to say "hi" to.

After Doc Cottrell's death, I was up for re-enlistment. I had committed myself to being a lifer [in the Army, but] you're going to go every other year, and that kills marriages, that destroys marriages.

[Being assigned to a Warrior Transition Unit and] coming over here was my saving grace. Being sent over here has been great. They've got civilians assigned to do something that NCOs and the chain of command cannot simply do for you. As a soldier you've always got stuff going on. We've got civilians here who are dedicated to [helping with] appointments. It's a great system. I've got an outstanding case manager; she calls me, lets me know my appointments -- whereas my platoon sergeant is swamped because he's got other soldiers to handle. Their job is to make sure we go to our appointments, keep track of us, make sure we don't do anything stupid. They assign us jobs to keep us working -- I work in the mailroom. They monitor your drugs. It sucks because you've got to refill every seven days, but it keeps kids from doing anything stupid. If you don't get better here, it's because it's your own fault.

They've got this thing called the R&R program, which I just didn't have enough time left in the Army for, and I'm not a very social person, so I opted not to do it. With my sarcastic nature, I'd have gotten kicked out anyway. The R&R program is not a bad deal. My friend Sergeant [name withheld], he's a lot worse off than I am; he's in the R&R program and it's definitely helped out a little bit.

The R&R program is a good deal, but myself, I'm going to get out of the Army. It took my psychiatrist about ten minutes to say, "Oh, you're not going back." Who are we to judge how strong we are?

I do individual therapy, once a week, sometimes twice a week. I have a counselor that I see [i.e. not an M.D. psychiatrist]. We talk about the day, talk about how I feel -- it's one of them touchy-feely type deals -- are you having a good day, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. My personal opinion, he's a little bit overly happy, but that's kind of the idea.

Our psychs are overworked, and that kind of sucks, because you've got people that need them that are fighting to get the appointments. The people that really need the damn psychs have ten types of hell getting to see them, and then there are people -- mama didn't hug them enough, or they don't like how their platoon sergeant talks to them. Come on, guys.

We need to get more psychs out there, [especially] specialty psychs -- like, you've got PTSD, you can see this guy; if you've got pussy hearts, you can see this guy.

[Talking to people about PTSD] -- I really don't. Most people don't understand. You can tell them about it, but unless they've actually been there, they don't understand. You always have that bond with the people who've been there and understand what you're coming from, and more often than not, that's our greatest help.

There are a couple of people in the medical field I do trust. We have a really good doctor in the WTU. He frustrates the chain of command, he frustrates the case managers. He really gives a flip about us, and all the soldiers know it. He doesn't move as fast as they want -- 'here's some Motrin, next' -- he doesn't do that; he actually tries to work with you. Sadly, he gets a lot of grief for that.

There are several people around here that I feel I can trust. But they're very few and far apart. [People] -- I really don't allow myself to really trust them per se; it's a dog-eat-dog world out there.

I've gotten engaged. She's a civilian, a little older than me, doesn't want to play any stupid games, and very realistic, very hard background like myself, so we understand each other relatively well. She has more of a calming effect on me than the drugs and the counselors and all that stuff. When I'm around her, I sleep comfortably, I'm very content, I'm not so fidgety.

I'm getting an introduction to the civilian world. She's been really patient with me. I don't understand a lot of this stuff.

When I'm around my fiance I feel like I'm getting better, but I'm getting frustrated here. I'm longing to be free of this stuff. The Army that I knew and loved is gone, and I just don't have the mentality and the patience for it anymore.

These interviews were conducted on July 30, 2008, and Oct. 16, 2008.