David Cox answered my phone call in great spirits as he detailed his intentions for firsthand input into today’s column.
The 61-year-old war veteran from Highland has served six tours of duty in the Iraq War as a critical care nurse for the Indiana Air National Guard. He helped transport roughly 500 critical patients during 156 combat missions, body after body, injury after injury, death after death.
It all caught up to him in 2007 when he lost 57 pounds in just one month while serving overseas. That’s when he stopped sending photos of himself back home to his wife, Kim. That’s when he couldn’t shake the nightmares and the sadness. That’s when Kim knew something was wrong with her husband of 30-plus years, but she couldn’t do anything from 7,500 miles away.
On his flight home, he suffered an emotional meltdown and, later, an explanation that didn’t surprise many experts: Cox had post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.
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