Read Stories > Army Veteran Overcomes Trauma of Point-Blank Attack

Scotty’s attacker in Afghanistan fired at him from about 12 feet away—shot after shot after shot. Five shots struck the Army infantryman in the shoulder, 4 in the hip, 1 in the thigh.

Somehow, Scotty survived and began the slow recovery from his physical wounds. But the mental toll of the close-range shooting lingered.

“I saw his face. I know exactly what he looks like,” Scotty says. “From then on out, every night before I would fall asleep, I would see his face.” How could he stop this haunted feeling and the ongoing impact of the severe traumatic event on his daily life?

“It was going to consume me”

After he survived the shooting, Scotty wanted to believe he was OK mentally. His symptoms convinced him otherwise. He experienced panic attacks in crowds and frequently felt that he was in fight-or-flight mode, as if he were in constant danger.

“PTSD, depression, anxiety—that’s all very, very real,” he says. “And it became very real very quickly for me.”

To Scotty, it felt like the symptoms of conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were eating him alive. “I needed to get help or it was going to consume me,” he says. He needed the help not only for himself, he says, but also to be the best father, son, and brother that he could be.

“Go out and try everything”

Scotty tried different therapies—including individual and group—and says prolonged exposure therapy (PE) made the biggest difference. PE taught him how to gain control by facing his fears and talking through the trauma. With this therapy, he gradually approached the trauma-related memories, feelings, and situations he’d been avoiding.

That meant Scotty needed to put himself back into crowds. Therapy gave him techniques to calm his response, like using measured breathing, closing his eyes and imagining where he wanted to be, or focusing on the presence of his girlfriend or kids to ground himself.

Outside of therapy, Scotty also found comfort and a form of self-help in music. In need of an outlet during the COVID pandemic shutdown, he decided to learn how to play guitar. That progressed into writing songs and performing.

“I’ve been blessed and lucky enough to find music as a tool for therapy,” he says. “When I’m writing a song, when I’m on stage playing, any time I have a guitar in my hand, it is therapy happening.”

Scotty hopes his path to recovery encourages other Veterans who need help to keep exploring therapies until they find what works best for them. “The most important thing that you can do as a Vet is to just go out and try everything and, who knows, who knows what could come from it,” Scotty advises. “A lot of times us Veterans, we’re told we can’t do something, and we’re like, ‘All right, let me show you.’ It’s important to get that mindset back.”

“Do the work”

Scotty’s progress hasn’t always come easily: He admits there were times when he thought about giving up. But he found motivation in family and in his fellow soldiers.

“I decided that I was going to live my life for my best friends who would never have the opportunity, because that’s what they would want. And that kind of changed everything for me,” he says. Scotty also wants his story to serve as an example for other Veterans and to show them that they can overcome their challenges too, no matter how severe.

“Your quality of life can improve,” he says. “You just have to do the work to do it.”

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