Ken Asbury is haunted by unshakable images of Afghanistan.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Related video: Researchers explore how and why PTSD affects veterans like Ken Asbury
Find help: Resources for veterans and families
By Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times | 981-3428
Correction (Nov. 11, 2011: 2:50 p.m.): Three people were killed in a car that Virginia soldiers fired upon when it tried to run a vehicle checkpoint in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, in 2004. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect number of dead. This story has been updated. | Our corrections policy
In 2004, Ken Asbury could hang drywall all day, run farther and faster than men half his age and still have the energy for Virginia Army National Guard training on weekends.
The then 44-year-old Rockbridge County contractor and citizen-soldier was about to retire after 20 years in the guard when his unit — Company C, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry — was called up for deployment to Afghanistan.
With twin sons serving in active-duty units in Iraq, Asbury felt he had to go.
"I went 20 years with no deployments, but when Jase and Jimmy went to Iraq, I felt I had an obligation because my sons and buddies will be over there," he told former Roanoke Times reporter John Cramer in 2004.
Somehow, some way, Asbury felt that his presence in Afghanistan could protect his sons.
All three men came home.
But Asbury's battle didn't end.
A year in Afghanistan left shards of images buried deep in his mind:
Night.
A gunfire-torn car spills what is left of an Afghan family on a dirt road.
Off duty, Asbury, the squad leader, leaps from where he is sleeping and tries to arrange pieces of what just occurred in his sleep-deprived mind.
His soldiers man a vehicle checkpoint. A father driving the car charges through. The car is brought to a stop. Three dead, including a young girl who dies minutes before medical help arrives.
Night again.
A charred Army helicopter.
The bodies of young soldiers — young women — the ever present taste of wind-blown dust as he sits guard on the perimeter he and his soldiers set to keep the wild dogs at bay.
"They were so young," he said. "Those girls shouldn't have been there."
Nightmares.
Anger.
Paranoia.
No scalpel can cut these images out. No splint can straighten this disjointed past.
Like many soldiers, Asbury knew something about PTSD. But in his unit, like in many, it was viewed with disdain.
By 2008, Asbury was declared 100 percent disabled because of PTSD, war injury-related spine issues and high blood pressure. He couldn't work or exercise. He put on weight. The rock of a man who went to combat out of a sense of duty and paternity seemed to be slipping away.
He is still married to his wife, Jan, who after watching him leave for war, watched him battle its lasting effects, which have strained their relationship at times.
Despite his diagnosis and the challenges that come with it, he remains self-effacing about his experiences in Afghanistan.
"Lots of guys saw way more stuff than I did," he said in an interview earlier this year at his home in Lexington.
His challenges mirror the ones described by many suffering from PTSD — nightmares, angry outbursts and paranoia.
Much of his anxiety stems from the two incidents and the memories of them he just can't shake.
"It isn't the shooting, really," he said. "It's all the stuff you have to see and you can't get out of your head."
He attends weekly group therapy sessions in Roanoke. Like most veterans, he finds greater comfort in shared experience.
But times being what they are, finding the will — and the money — for the hourlong trip keeps him isolated.
Between trips to the shooting range — his one outlet — he calls a former member of his National Guard unit in the middle of the workday and shares a sandwich with another after a therapy session in Roanoke.
But the two soldiers he shares the most with are his two sons.
This summer the family took a fishing trip to the Gulf Coast of Florida where one of his sons lives. The simple rhythm of a rocking boat and the familiar repetition of casting and catching created opportunity for conversation and maybe a few steps toward healing for them all.
At home, with his Rottweiler, Chloe, curled in his lap, he regularly watches "Restrepo," a documentary about the war in Afghanistan. Beside him a glass case holds medals and news clippings — pieces from his life in Afghanistan.
"You go over thinking you have a job to do, come back and you have so many problems and injuries. You're just trying to put your life back together," he said.
Outside, an American flag always flies.
Earlier this year he noticed that winter had left the flag in tatters.
A February wind blew red and white bits of ribbon around the pole.
Asbury lowered it and carefully collected the tatters for proper disposal.
"It's time for a new one," he said.