MDMA Helped Me Recover from War
I went from being in a mental institution to working on a presidential campaign
I served in the military twice: first in the Marine Corps as a loadmaster on C-130s and C-9s from 1995 to 1999, and then as a sergeant in the Army. I deployed with my artillery unit to Iraq; we were there from October 2005 through October 2006.
My unit was on Balad Air Base, in the center of the Sunni Triangle, in the middle of the sectarian violence during Saddam’s trial. That was probably either the worst time in Iraq or second worst, after the initial invasion. The base got mortared so often it was known as Mortaritaville.
The base I was on had a concrete plant, and we needed a lot of gravel delivered. Every morning, there was a giant lineup of about 200 dump trucks waiting to get on the base and drop off gravel. One morning, we opened the gate for everyone to come in, but none of the trucks moved. So we sent out a team and went truck by truck, and every single person had been shot in the head.
That was a bad day.
In April 2006, I got blown up in a porta-john. A mortar landed and threw shrapnel through the walls while I was using the toilet in the middle of the night — I’m actually alive because I was tired and sat down to pee. All the shrapnel missed me…
