{"id":21637,"date":"2019-02-22T11:43:04","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T11:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/?p=21637"},"modified":"2019-02-22T11:45:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T11:45:54","slug":"iraq-war-casts-psychological-shadow-for-ul-masters-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/iraq-war-casts-psychological-shadow-for-ul-masters-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq War Casts Psychological Shadow For UL Masters Student"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many, the Iraq war seems million of miles away. For others,<\/strong><\/em>it rages on in their memories.<\/strong><\/em>By Kate Devaney<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It was a normal September day.<\/p>\n

The summer was ending, the children were going back to school.<\/p>\n

Some people still lay in bed, their day yet to start.<\/p>\n

For others, their life would end and the day\u2019s date would forever be remembered in history.<\/p>\n

9\/11.<\/p>\n

A war had begun.<\/p>\n

For Melonie, she still remembers the event taking place and her fifteen-year old self watching through a television screen, her blood
\nrunning cold.<\/p>\n

It was at this point she was certain she was going to join the U.S Army.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad, April 9, 2003. (Photo via Rolling Stone)<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEverything changed in Iraq,\u201d Melonie Kotschwar said, a mature student in UL, doing her Masters in psychology.<\/p>\n

Melonie joined the US Army Reserves when she was only seventeen years old, being the only one to raise her hand after a Commanding Officer came to her school asking if anyone wanted to join.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I was a little kid, I\u2019ve always wanted to be in the military\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her own Grandfather had served in World War II, however he rarely reflected on his experience, being too traumatised after his Navy Ship was hit by a Kamikaze, killing a lot of his friends.<\/p>\n

Melonie took her army oath when she was only seventeen years old and recalls how you \u201cpretty much sign your life away\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are giving yourself to the government, not a person, a soldier. They can put you anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating and completing 9 weeks of basic training, she then went on to do job training.<\/p>\n

Only three months after completing job training, she was called to Iraq.<\/p>\n

Physically, she was ready.<\/p>\n

So, she flew out.<\/p>\n

\"Image
American troops at Shannon Airport, November 2007. (Photo via Indymedia Ireland)<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her job was convoying, protecting local truck drivers that were bringing food and water to the civilians.<\/p>\n

There was also a gunner on her convoy truck, which she gunned on herself for three months.<\/p>\n

However, she said truck driving was the hardest, often working off as little as 3 hours sleep and having to deal with small arms fire and
\nconstant roadside bombs.<\/p>\n

Out of every four convoys they had, there would be one if not two roadside bombs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would just be waiting, on that one spot, looking at the bomb, hoping it doesn\u2019t go off.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were many dangerous routes but the hardest was the 3rd furthest from base, known as the \u201cWidow-Maker\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is a bottleneck road and once you drove in, the only way out was to keep going forward.<\/p>\n

This made it easy to plant bombs and shoot convoys.<\/p>\n

After long hours of endless driving and adrenaline pumping through your body, willing it to stay alert, they returned to base for some
\ndown time.<\/p>\n

However, Melonie never really felt at ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a female, it\u2019s much harder to relax,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

At this time, out of the one hundred and sixty-nine soldiers in her group, only twenty were female.<\/p>\n

A Freedom of Information request revealed that there are currently six hundred and five females serving in the Irish Defence Forces,
\nrepresenting only 6.75% of the overall strength of the Irish Defence Forces.<\/p>\n

Melonie said that the guys could mess about and have fun, but for females to let go it was a lot harder.<\/p>\n

There were a lot of rumours cycled around and she never felt like she had \u201coff-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe atmosphere was so toxic at times,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

Matters became worse after she was sexually harassed by another male soldier, who was twenty years older than her.<\/p>\n

After reporting it to officials, she did not get the help she needed, and she felt they did not support her. She felt ostracized.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of politics in the military,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

So, she decided her time in Iraq was done.<\/p>\n

But the trauma followed her, and she suffered severe depression and war PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder).<\/p>\n

On top of this, after being sexually harassed in the military, it brought back repressed trauma of her childhood sexual trauma at the age of
\n6, when she was sexually abused by her baby-sitter\u2019s 15-year old foster child.<\/p>\n

She also had severe culture shock, saying it was harder to adjust to life coming back then it was going to Iraq.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids in Iraq who have no shoes, live in a war-torn area, don\u2019t get alot of food. Kids were selling pornography to get by,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

However, Melonie credits the military for making her who she was today, and she is now pursuing a master\u2019s in psychology, focusing on
\nhelping those who experience PTSD and sexual trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the difference between first world and third world problems\u201d.<\/p>\n

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For many, the Iraq war seems million of miles away. For others,it rages on in their memories.By Kate Devaney It was a normal September day. The summer was ending, the children were going back to school. Some people still lay in bed, their day yet to start. For others, their life would end and the […]<\/p>\n

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