Courage and Commitment

My name is Tonia Sargent, proud United States Marine Corps spouse of MSSGT Kenneth Sargent for 20 years. We met when we were 16 and 17, high school sweethearts. On August 5, 2004, my warrior was injured from a gunshot. It entered under his right eye and exited the left side of his head. This was his second tour to Iraq.

I was a key volunteer for his command and was devastated to activate my own phone tree when I received the call from Iraq informing me of my husband’s injury. In a 5 day period, I had to prepare to leave my daughters, 15 and 17, home alone to travel to be at their father's bedside. I had to school shop, grocery shop and rally friends to check on my children while I was gone.

I didn’t eat or sleep for 3 of those 5 days. I avoided packing for the trip to somewhere. In my closet hung his uniforms and civilian attire. I didn’t know if I was packing for a funeral or long-term. I found myself avoiding the closet, and then sitting in the closet smelling clothes, crying quietly, praying to my heavenly Father… missing the man he was, knowing he might never be that man again.

I clung to a photo from the New York Times, the first photo I saw of my husband being loaded onto a helicopter. I traveled to Bethesda. I didn’t recognize the man in the ICU bed, his head swollen, staples holding his head together and running down his neck, bruised, black and blue swollen eyes, dry blood in his wounds and ears.

He couldn’t speak. I held his hand, smiled and said, "I know you can’t speak, but squeeze my hand if you know who I am." He did. I assured him we could build on that.

I wanted to make him comfortable and complement the care he was receiving. I had support from the Marine Liaisons and the Navy staff accommodated me by including me and educating me on the care he needed. I bathed him, fed him, made him get out of bed to shave, and walk the halls. I tried to instill the structure and stimulation that would advance his recovery.

We had a hard time in Bethesda. He got spinal meningitis, and I thought I was going to lose him to it. He was sick and skinny when he received his Purple Heart. Due to being lethargic, he doesn’t remember being honored for his valor. He looks at it and comments on how he doesn’t rate a medal for just doing his job.

His injuries were legion. He suffered vision loss and impairment; the hearing and inner ear on his left side, gone. The left side of his jaw was shattered, and he took facial nerve damage, which caused palsy on that side. He has speech and cognitive difficulties as well as memory problems due to the loss of two inches of his brain’s frontal lobe. He lacks mobility on the right side of his body. He has PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), and has developed OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). He has gone through about 8 different surgeries over the course of his recovery. More are pending. The system has done a great job on patching my warrior up physically, but it has not had the resources for the other pieces of care.

He needs a working dog but he doesn’t completely qualify through the V.A. because he isn’t legally blind, so I'm looking into a scholarship program to get a donor. He had a Grand Mal seizure on Father’s Day, and it rolled us back to the trauma phase after almost three years. I have secondary PTSD, and this triggered things in me I’ll never forget.

We lost a friend of ours this week who suffered a similar head injury. It reminds us to never take the day for granted. I live every day as a mother to my husband, craving to be his wife again. I miss him, I miss me, and I miss us. My family struggles with financial, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual brokenness. We are trying to move forward into a new normality, but it is hard to do that when you live waiting for the other boot to drop.

I have turned into an advocate for service members and veterans. I’m seeking and searching for tools to put into my tool box to heal my family and others. We are ahead of the medical infrastructure being built, so the road is difficult and lonely. I can’t wait for someone else to build it; I have to take charge to build a new structure for a new situation. I also scoop up broken birds along my journey. I will not allow them to have to struggle through things I have already encountered.

My friends consist of spouses struggling to stay with their wounded warrior, spouses who can't stay and have to walk away, service members who push the spouse away, widows of service members killed in action, widows of service members who physically came back but mentally couldn’t take it and committed suicide. And then there are the parents and siblings of a service member who really have no idea of what’s going on or how to support their loved ones or themselves. Each circumstance is so different. We have no idea of the personal hell each person is living with.

The tsunami of casualties coming back with PTSD and TBI will need support for the rest of their lives. Families will need to be supported so that they can support the service member. I am speaking in the communities to create awareness and to educate them on what these families need in order to transition into the community. The legacy of Vietnam includes thousands of veterans who need this same care; when combined with veterans in need from Iraq and Afghanistan, there are too many for the current system to handle. A new system is needed, and lessons from the past must be learned.

I’m seeing funding and territory wars and would like to see more of a team effort in how agencies and groups can help each other. I am currently a board member for Operation Homefront and American War Heroes. I am an official volunteer at the Palo Alto V.A. I’m in the process of writing my job description to be employed by Bob Filner. I have been volunteering my knowledge and input to help reform the system; it is now time to employ my knowledge, and to use what I have learned.

It is my responsibility to make sure he has the maximum benefits for the rest of his life, as he is unemployable in the corporate world. And I am compelled and called to be a good steward in my advocacy. I’m blessed to be developing my relationship with my heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. I know God chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. I believe this war — my personal war — is a test of faith.

I can do many things, you can do many things, and together we can do bigger things. Please don’t assume someone else is fighting the fight. I’m asking all of you to commit and join me in holding ourselves and our leaders accountable to working for us to make things better. We are responsible to advocate, educate, initiate, navigate, and motivate. We have to see an outline and time line from the data that commissions and committees have been gathering for 5 years now. We need an action plan.

My husband continues to become more different from the man I married. I am committed to him in sickness and in health. He is my flag and I am his pole. My job as a military spouse is to serve him and compliment him. I am honored and blessed to have had the ability to do that. I live and get to grow old with a hero — a true warrior. He fought for our freedom, and I will spend my life fighting for him and all service members to have everything they deserve.

Do you know a service member or a veteran? They are all humble servants to God, Corps, and country. Take a minute and listen to their story, thank them, support them and pray for them and for the family that supports them and their sacrifices. Semper Fi.