I've been living with PTSD for decades. The symptoms don't get less severe or go away. My ability to manage the disorder has improved over time. There are good times and bad times, and the progress comes as the good continues to outpace the bad over time. You can have a happy, meaningful, and fruitful life with PTSD. The vast majority of Vietnam vets with PTSD are well-adjusted guys with successful careers and loving families, enjoying their retirement nowadays. It just takes time and persistence. Winning this battle is about endurance.

I'm sorry about your friend. Too many...way too many. But the ones we know personally are devastating. I know what you're going through, brother. It happens to me with some regularity because my whole family and most friends are military and vets, and I've done so much volunteer work with wounded troops and disabled vets and developed relationships with many of those guys and gals. We even lost one of our AFFI certified instructors who was a disabled vet from OIF earlier this year. Sometimes it is due to inadequate treatment or poor access to care, and sometimes it seems nothing could stop the slide into the abyss. But I do know this: since 2007 when I began teaching wounded troops and disabled vets to fly fish and tie flies, I've met probably five hundred with PTSD and know of a couple thousand. Of them all, I have heard of only one who took his own life.


There is an old saying that days spent fishing are not subtracted from the days of one's life span...or each day spent fishing God adds to one's life. We don't hear of too many fly anglers committing suicide...certainly nowhere near the national average for civilians, and definitely nothing like the horrific numbers we see for combat vets diagnosed with PTSD.