"It's My Pleasure"

This morning I am sitting in a hotel room in Washington D.C. I am on a "TDY" (training-something-something) for ten days to learn about deployment psychology. Basically, that includes all aspects of deployment from the soldier's experience to our own as psychologists with a specific emphasis on training us to provide evidence-based treatments for PTSD. Mostly the training has been rather boring (powerpoints), but we did get to tour Walter Reed Medical Center. I'll get to that, but first I want to tell you all about the experience of traveling in uniform.

Capt. Smith, Capt. Cassidy, and I decided to wear our uniforms traveling to D.C. because we were trying to get through the trip without having to check a bag. Boots take up a lot of room in a suitcase. In San Antonio where military personnel are a dime a dozen, we are not really even noticed so I forget how much one stands out in uniform. I mean, at home I can wear my uniform to the grocery store and can guarantee I will run into at least a couple of other people in uniform. However, in Dallas they are not as used to seeing people in uniform. Maybe it's because people in the Dallas airport are from so many different places, but we were thanked several times for our 'service'. We agreed that this puts us in a bit of a moral dilemma. How do we respond? What do we say? We're not so sure we deserve 'thanks' at this early point in our military careers and there is an assumption that people seem to make because we're in uniform (the assumption being that we have actually done something!). Do we say "you're welcome"? Or respond with the natural inclination to say "thank you" back? After much discussion we decided the best response would be, "my pleasure." This response both acknowledges the person's gratitude and does not take credit for a service we don't really feel as though we have provided (at least that's what we came up with!). So we tried out our new response as we strolled through the airport. One very energetic gentleman grabbed my hand, shook it excitedly, and expressed his just-short-of-tearful appreciation for what we were doing. I refrained from explaining to him that I'm just a psychologist and at this point had only been soaking up government dollars (just this trip is costing you all, the taxpayers, around $3500!). However, the event that left us all speechless was when we requested our check from our lunch at Chili's, and the waiter told us that our tab had been taken care of by a 'grateful American.' Still just writing that I feel a heaviness and a sense of awe. The kindness of people is amazing. We walked around with our jaws dropped for several minutes after that one and rationalized it by telling ourselves that someday we may very well be deployed, which will give us an experience to make us feel as though we might actually deserve this.

Speaking of those who deserve the appreciation that the grateful American expresses, I got to see several of those real soldiers at Walter Reed. The day started with lectures, but by mid-morning we were observing the instructor do an interview with a traumatic brain injured patient. This young man is 33-years-old and his beautiful and articulate 27-year-old wife sat with him on stage as the interviewer asked questions about his 15 months in Iraq and the blast that took his left arm as well as his memory of his college days (and Iraq). Patrick is lucky to be alive. Kat has grown up a lot and is now married to a different person who she will spend the rest of her life caring for. It was gut-wrenching to listen to them tell the story of just how close to death Pat came especially since the blast happened in the very last week of his tour and he had volunteered to go back out on this brief mission. He regrets not just staying in the office that day. The anger, the grief for a life together they lost, and optimism about the future was palpable in the room as they spoke. Pat was an English major in college, a left-handed writer, who joined the Army after 9/11. After watching this couple, I realized that one of the most difficult aspects of TBI is that it robs a person of their personality. Kat is loving a different man than she married. She too is a warrior.

At lunch I observed several amputees in the cafeteria getting their trays, paying for their food, and making their way through an ordinary day at the hospital, probably one of many. There was one young man in a wheelchair. He had lost both his legs and both of his arms. I tried not to stare, but I watched as he managed to get his tray on his lap, balance the plate of food, and still fix his own drink. I resisted the urge to help, knowing this is his journey; his work. Another gentleman was on crutches with both his left leg and left arm missing. Looking in the faces of these guys, I saw a determination to carry on with life that conveyed a sense of, 'today is just another day'; no different than the faces I see walking down the streets of Washington D.C. Ordinary yet so different. It was awesome to see the state-of-the-art facility that is Walter Reed. If you ever want to see government dollars put to good use, just go visit that hospital. They have facilities to train these guys to not only get back to tasks like walking, running, and driving, but also to do the things they enjoy like hunt and fish in wheelchairs or with prosthetics. The people who work there are so enthusiastic about what they do. I felt proud to be an American. Humbled to be considered a soldier.

So... now when I get thanked in the airport, I have a point of reference. I know who these grateful Americans are thanking, and I can think of these guys as I respond... "it's my pleasure."