tv CNN Special Report CNN August 12, 2014 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT
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dressler for "time magazine." it said five months ago he was a complete nobody. he became an overnight star and we're so glad he did. that's it for me. that's it for me. the war comes home, so. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com i was in denial of how bad it really was. the outer shell of him came back, but everything on the inside was dead. it's like everything died in him in iraq. ♪ ♪
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the first day i was in iraq, we were walking to go get shell. we got hit with a mortar and lit up the skies, a big one. these guys will just shoot and shoot and shoot these things at you. jesus christ. it's the most attacked base in the country. >> all of a sudden, your heart races and you get scared, start having anxiety about it and, you know, you hear this stuff like throughout the day, you know, and throughout the night. i guess these fears start taking on a mind of their own, you know, and you start to think a lot of things. >> beckett served in camp anaconda iraq in 2010. he was a vehicle specialist ordering parts for trucks and humvees. he never left the base, but the
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war came to him. >> the really psychological impact i didn't really understand until more towards after i left. >> delon was 25 when he came home to a small town outside san diego, california. the change in him was dramatic. >> when i left that environment is when it all started to catch up to me. loud noises started to mess with me. one night my wife was working and came home and woke me up and i almost punched her in the face. >> he was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress in 2011. doctors at the veteran's administration have given him anti anxiety medications, antidepressants, sleep aids and a drug that is supposed to block bad dreams. >> when i was taking the medication, you're cut off from feeling emotions like love and
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stuff like that. either you feel nothing or you feel angry. nothing else. it probably paves a lot into the problem. >> when the drugs didn't work, delon started drinking heavily. tonight, like most nights, he'll drink two bottles of wine. >> the alcohol helps suppress my feelings and the video game takes me out of this world. it removes me from reality. i got good family, good kids, good job. it doesn't mean anything to me. there is no attachment to it for me. i look at all this stuff around me, it's just empty. >> his wife and young daughters are living in that empty life. nine-year-old lorana and
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three-year-old jayla. >> i was having suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts and it was getting really scary. kids just sitting there, they are not doing anything, not bothering you. you see an object and start, you know, see a hammer and i would think about picking it up and smashing their brains in and sitting there and like this is -- this is getting ridiculous. i was afraid what i was going to do. >> it's estimated one in five veterans from the wars suffer from posttraumatic stress, traumatic brain injury and depression. veterans are killing themselves at an alarming rate and posttraumatic stress is a predictor of suicide by all vets. an estimated 22 veterans commit suicide each day. almost 8,000 a year.
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these numbers don't include drug overdoses or death by violence. >> i have never been afraid of him ever hurting the girls. i know for a fact that i make him mad and knowing him like maybe it's 90% of the time but i don't ever see him ever laying a hand on me. if he was going to hurt anybody, he would only hurt himself. >> she doesn't way to play now. >> for them, this is a typical night. >> stay down here. >> time out. >> time out. >> no, no more, done. >> no more. >> done. no more. stay down here with mom.
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he could be in a critical state. >> i'll pick them up tomorrow, don't worry about it. >> they are already picked up. >> thanks. >> and so there is fear when that comes around. >> delon is the sole breadwinner but it's emmie that's left to pick up the pieces. >> are you sad or mad? >> mad. >> why are you mad? can i have a hug? no? okay. >> it's difficult. like really did i have cfficult. like, i just sincerely want him to work through it and not just give up. but i'm aware of the fact that he might just not. >> put your arm up.
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>> you want to smell my armpit? >> i don't care. i haven't felt the will to love for awhile. >> he's tried everything, doctors, drugs, drinking. >> do you want to go to bed, honey? baby? >> delon and a dozen other soldiers are about to be thrown head-long into a program that's offering hope. it's called save a warrior, retired veteran jake clark started the program in 2012. he says the numbers speak for themselves. how many men have you had come through this? >> 100 active duty and returning warriors have come to save a warrior. >> how many were suicidal? >> between 80 and 90. >> how many killed themselves? >> not one.
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the hotel hasallye care of ourry to be right.ep.id for a night.. you can get a 4-star hotel for up to 60% off, even at the last minute. in the neighborhood where we wanna go? yes. you just won't the name until after you book. hmm. ooh. definitely. it's all about sleep. it's not all about sleep. yeah, well, for me it is. lucky me. ♪ >> we were conducting a patrol in an orchid and we came to an opening. everything got real quiet. in hindsight i remember thinking things were not right. we stopped at the edge of this big, open field and all of a sudden, we saw some people running through this wood line
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50 yards to our left. felt like we were getting set up for an ambush. and i just heard like -- pwww. [ gunshots ]. >> garret combs lives with his fiancee and their one-year-old son freeman. >> i was a pretty good kid. i really had a positive view of the world. >> the attacks of september 11th moved him to enlist. he was 18 and had a passion for photography. >> i felt a very deep sense of patriotism and i felt like the situation called every guy my age to go and enlist in the service. i walked into the recruiter's
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office wanting to be a combat photographer and they showed me cool ranger videos and some cool infantry videos and they were like, hey, man you can leave in two weeks or however, a month if you enlist in the infantry so i was like all right, cool, sign me up. that looks fun. >> garrett would end up serving his country for almost five years, the second battilion. >> we have good memories attached to these photos. that's myself again. >> i just don't see it. he looks nothing like you. >> yeah. >> do you think he looks like you? >> no, i think i look like a little boy in that photo. i look like i'm playing army. >> he was deployed to afghanistan in 2006. five days of intense fire fighting would change garrett
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forever. this is footage from that battle. >> it was kind of a mass casualty situation for us. our squad leader was the one who took the rpg basically square in the chest. my friends were like just walking past me days and when we did the head count, we realized we were missing one person, and it was really -- it broke my faith, man. it broke my faith and something good coming of what we were doing. the person that was before, was gone. my view of the world at that
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point became very dark. >> he wanted out. instead, he was stop lost. his enlistment extended for two more years. >> stop loss just took the wind out of a lot of our sails. we were done, over it, we experienced some pretty intense in afghanistan, and it was like a huge moral crusher. >> garrett was struggling with posttraumatic stress but felt there was a stigma with an official diagnosis. >> you didn't want to tell your squad leader i have an appointment at mental health. that was not acceptable or excusable. it was like okay, here is these drugs that we give to soldiers who are having your same problems. now go back to work. >> by april 2009, garrett was home. the war came back with him. >> i knew that i had a temper problem because there was holes
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in my wall. and i knew that i was paranoid because there was guns all over the house. i knew that i had anxiety because i would swerve at somebody on the road if they got too close to me. >> the birth of his son freeman was a turning point. >> having a son, you know, having freeman, hearing him start to say my name and seeing him walk and all these things gives you a lot of purpose and a lot of reason to want to make it, you know, what i mean? to want to find a positive and construkctive way to direct you feelings, you know?
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lindsey, especially, her tolerance and patience and kindness and her like ability to empathize with something that she's never experienced is really thrown me a lifeline. one of the only reasons that i want to be alive is because of my family. otherwise, it really wouldn't matter. >> are you going to dance for me? >> despite support from his family, garrett struggles to contain his anger. >> so much of it is internal. when you're doing the daily routine, or when you're doing like the monodane tasks is when you have a lot of time to reflect in yourself. this stuff in your head that is playing out all the time, it becomes annoying and then the annoyingness starts to really hurt and it turns into a noise and builds and builds and builds until you have like a melt down.
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a lot of times, it's stuff that like lindsey and freeman don't even see. i've gotten to the point where he's too old for me to freak out in the house because i don't want to traumatize him. >> dada. >> garrett knows of at least five soldiers from his battalion that have killed themselves since he's come home, five more if he counts drug overdoses, death by cop or others. he's one of 13 soldiers who will spend the next five and a half days at save a warrior. >> i'm expecting something to happen. the fact that i have a new family, i feel like the stakes are pretty high. if nothing changes, then i'll be all right, but i'll probably continue to, you know, just be unhappy in my mind. >> the stakes are high for
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>> it like being in a burning building. the only way to get out is to jump out the window. you don't want to die, we you don't want to burn, either. i told my wife, i was like i'm done. i don't want to burn anymore. i'm ready to jump out that window. so the only thing that's keeping me from doing it right now is going to this program. i got a lot riding on this. my life is riding on it. malibu, california, save a warrior 010 is arriving. the soliders represent all branchs of the military. they are quiet, nervous.
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>> we are embarking on a hero's journey. we deal with posttraumatic stress and if you ask the average person what part of that warrior is messed up? where do you think they would point? they would point to your head. this isn't broken. this is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. okay? this is broken. and that's why you're in that chair, i assert. >> jake clark is a veteran. he served for 14 years in the army, retiring as a captain. he worked for the secret service, the los angeles police department and the fbi. >> when i left the fbi, i'm surprised i didn't kill myself. i had significant personal issues untreated, alcoholism, dry drunk. i didn't even realize it at the time and it was just coming out in every area of my life. >> after nine years of recovery, rehab and finally meditation, jake got his life back. he wanted to bring the things that saved his life to other
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veterans. he called it, save a warrior. why does save a warrior work? >> it revisits the sense of purpose and puts guys back in their relationship that were previously isolated from other warriors. >> the next five days will be filled with physical challenges, bonding exercises, and classes from meditation to understanding how posttraumatic stress affects the brain. the program is free to each soldier. donations cover the cost roughly $1600 per person. the goal is to teach veterans tools to deal with daily stress, to give them options, other than taking their own lives. but mostly to show these warriors that they are supported by other veterans. >> society will not save this generation of returning warrior. >> who will? >> they will save each other. together they can save themselves. >> i want to introduce your project director. >> a decorated sergeant.
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he did ten tours of duty in iraq and afghanistan between 2003 and 2011. he earn add bronze star for valir and a push l heart and he took part in save a warrior. he says it was a turning point. >> good evening. this is where i talk to you guys. he knows if he tells his story, others will be able to tell theirs. >> i pulled out my glock 19 out of my locker. sit down at my desk, made sure it was loaded. stuck it in my mouth and was going to pull the trigger. the next thing that crossed through my mind was my kids, my two sons at that point. i was like i don't want some other -- raising my kids.
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i put my gun down and called the va suicide hot line and a 40 minute wait on hold with a glock pistol sitting on my desk -- funny, isn't it. block pistol sitting on my desk and i'm on hold. i never talked to anybody. >> with guns in his truck, bobby went looking for a confrontat n confrontation. he was going to be one of the uncounted suicides, death by cop when he confronted a young police officer. >> young kid walked up to me and goes listen, if you do anything, if you raise your hand or do anything they will kill you, you realize that. i was like yeah. he said please don't fight me. i was like i'm not, man. he cuffed me and took me to the hospital. bobby would spend the next nine weeks in a civilian run hospital specializing in military posttraumatic stress. the next day is rough for delone. he hasn't had a drunk in 24
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hours. an exercise using strings shows the men how connected they are to each other. it's emotionally draining. susie, a family therapist walks the soldiers through the traumatic experiences they had before they joined the military. a study out of mount claire university shows trama in childhood can make the stress worse. >> read your list, please. >> sexual abuse, abandonment, rejection. >> alcohol abuse, divorce, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, poverty, divorce. >> rape, molestation. >> alcohol, neglect. >> when i joined the military, i was traumatized for what
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happened to me as a child and growing up. >> is that why you joined the military? >> i joined the military because i got deep into alcohol and got depressed. i snapped over in iraq. when i came home on leave i never knew why but now i do. my cup was overflowing before i went there and with that extra stress, it was too much for me. >> all the pain is on the table for these 13 men. today was emotionally brutal. tomorrow will be physically grueling.
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meditation is at the core of save a warrior, it will teach the soldiers to control their racing thoughts. >> keep your eyes closed for two minutes and slowly come back to yourselves. let's make ourselves comfortable and let's begin. >> it's hard to sit quietly and not want to be doing something or to not be thinking about things. when you relive those vents, it's like having a song stuck in your head and not being able to stop singing or thinking about the song. >> except in your case it's terrible thoughts. >> yeah, some kind of like graphic event. >> dusty teaches meditation to the warriors. he taught meditation to more than 200 veterans.
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he parachuted into panama. >> we settle down and close our eyes and we have thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and you experience the stillness between thought and with the deep, deep rest stress and anxiety comes out. there is a chemical relief, it gets released. you feel better. >> more than 350 studies say meditation works, several show it reduces symptoms of posttraumatic stress like anxiety and insomnia. the issue is getting warriors to embrace the process. >> i'm skeptical but i have an open mind. i don't know if i'll stuck with
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it yet. >> it just felt like the stress was leaving out of the top of my head, you know. it was really awesome, like i'm just all smiles and giddy right now. it was really cool. >> the next session is designed to teach the warriors to trust and support each other. a rope hangs 35 feet off the ground with a backdrop of the pacific. the view is beautiful. but the assignment, terrifying. >> one of the things that is a protective factor against suicide is the pain of death. our guys have seen so much death and experienced so much trama in their own lives there is a sense of i don't care, i rally don't care. >> that's the reason we do a ropes course. this gives us the opportunity to
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engage with something scary and daunting but is still very, very controlled and both physically and emotionally safe. okay. holy -- yeah. >> there you go. >> looking good, guys, looking good. step. >> lean in, lean in. you're good, you're good. you're good. lean into me. lean into me. >> xavier, an army veteran is next. he has multiple final strufract, a hip. he's afraid. >> i feel like i'm back in a parachute, i got hurt and parachute, so just the harness and just makes me feel uncomfortable. >> tell me what you want. >> you're really physically involved. big deep breaths. >> xavier begins his claim.
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>> killing it, man, killing it. >> you're almost there. don't give up. >> on the other side. >> there you go, yeah! >> xavier, i have you, i promise. >> you are safe. 100% safe. >> hide those legs, if you can. >> just a little more. >> that's my boy xavier right there! >> yeah! >> you can do it! [ cheers ] >> that's my boy xavier right there. >> he's embraced by men he didn't even know a few days ago. >> are you feeling okay?
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>> it's nice. >> beautiful. >> eyes up, eyes up. >> come on. >> 35 feet up, it's a leap of faith. >> beautiful. >> stand up. take it in. >> when i got up to the top, they were just saying take something in your life that you want to leave behind and leave it up there at that pole and i just told myself, i'm going to leave this all behind, you know, i don't want to feel like this anymore. you up for the challenge suds-maker? i'm gonna need more than that to get through the rest of these dishes. i want more suds! dawn? you won't last. a drop of dawn ultra has active suds that stay stronger longer, so you can clean 2 times more greasy dishes to get the job done.
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[ laughter ] >> come on, man. >> all right. i'm coming down. >> it just felt so good, being that person, we're done. before i didn't trust anybody. now you're trusting somebody you just met with your life. it just felt like this enormous burden of how these feelings have just been lifted off me. i felt strong. i felt invincible. >> after meditation, a lecture on posttraumatic stress and the brain. >> the system is important to understanding posttraumatic stress because this is where it
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occurs. >> the rest of the day will be spent in equine therapy. it's as simple and challenging as leading a 2,000-pound horse. >> they have no shame and don't have a fear of hurting anybody's feelings. if they don't like what is being put out on the table, they will tell you. >> cheyenne price says the horses are like soldiers, they are sensitive and don't trust easily. there are dozens of programs that help with posttraumatic stress. the goal is to help teach the soldiers how to communicate better. >> let's go. >> got it? >> koda is a five-year-old draft horse. >> trust. trust. >> garrett is asked to get the horse to walk and trot and
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canter around the ring. he's skeptical. >> i honestly thought the horses were trained to do what they were supposed to do, which was runaround in a circle, you know, really seemed like they were conditioned to do it. it seemed a little too easy, you know what i mean? >> like it was bull. >> like it was bull. >> you absolutely have that right to be skeptical. >> how many times has this horse done something like this? >> actually, in a group like this, this is actually the first time that i've really put him in a situation like this that's a non-training-type thing. so what i noticed right off the bat, you went out of your boundaries into his and physically tried to push him. >> come on, come on. >> what is it he needs right now? >> some direction. >> come on, come on.
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oh, man, he's stubborn like me. >> how do you feel? >> scared. >> what do you feel scared of? >> i'm not going to be able to do this right now. >> okay. ♪ ♪ >> frustrated, garrett finds therapist susie and makes a surprising confession. >> i was on the 14th floor of a hotel in florida like at 2:00 in the morning thinking about jumping -- >> jumping. >> jumping off the balcony. i felt guilty because i have -- i have so much. i have a beautiful woman in my life. i have a beautiful son. i feel guilty even saying i ever
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wanted to do anything like that. >> why was it important for you to be one of those who had not considered suicide? >> there is a lot of people who experienced much worse than me, who might have a reason to want to do that or who might have more of a reason to do that. >> it is the first time garrett acknowledges out loud that he's considered suicide. >> he did some amazing things and he saw some horrible things happen and eventually that kept wearing and wearing and wearing and you can't go back to pro tending. >> i think a lot of people in my life will be surprised to hear that i considered ending my own life. somebody telling me that it was okay to feel that way is a huge part in being okay with it. >> thanks.
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>> the project is nearing its end. the men walk a labyrinth and are told to leave their former selves behind in the center. bobby farmer hands each warrior a stone, a symbol of their brotherhood. >> he is such a positive person. let it out, man. >> thank you. >> is this a cure? i mean, it's five days, right? >> it's access to the cure. it's access to it. >> the first step? >> for some. for others it's a turn of the dial that is required to create that welcome home that's been missing for them. society doesn't owe us anything. we can't fault them for what they don't know. could they do more? sure. everybody could do more. we could do more for one
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another. >> the crisis of soldier suicide say these veterans can only be solved with each soldier feels responsible for his fellow warriors. >> i know you got friends. i know you got friends. will, i know you got friends, and they all need help. you can probably think of three or four of them in your head. reach out to them. that might be the text that saves their life. cohort, 010. your project is complete. [ applause ] >> it's over. garrett and elon are eager to go home. will the progress they've made and the bonds they've formed stay with them? can garrett contain his anger? will delon stay sober? 9 million.
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i miss my family? you know, such a foreign feeling, i was holy crap, i miss my family. i'm going home tonight. i'm going to go home and see my wife. i'm going to go see my kids. >> hey, baby. >> careful. on the couch. >> hey, i'm done. i'm going to get a shower. you want to take a shower? >> yeah. >> all right. >> first thing in the morning, delon meditates. a ritual he started at save a
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warrior. then he gathers his family in front of the kitchen sink. >> i woke up and i took out the bottle of alcohol she had been hiding from me, and i took the 151 and poured that junk down the drain. i had all of my family watch me do it. for me, that was symbolic of moving forward. you know, that this is now a part of my past. not my future. my kids may not understand it now, but i know they will later on in life. i don't know where the aa place is. i got to look it up. go this evening or find the hours. ♪ >>. ♪ i don't want to fall in love, if i ever did that, i think i'd have a heart attack ♪
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>> so home with the family. >> the person that i was needed to go through a radical transformation in order to be the best parent or the best father that i could be. >> he once wanted to be a combat photographer. now garrett is pursuing a keyer in photo journalism. >> my experience i think gives me a valuable insight into telling stories. i was always very curious. and at some point, i lost that curiosity. i do think save a warrior did help me get on the track to, like, gaining back some genuine
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compassion and the genuine drive to, like, really explore my curiosity with the world. i have some faith that things will get better. i have some faith that like i'll be able to utilize techniques that i learned as a way of hopefully being able to heal some damage that was done. but time will tell, yeah. ♪ [ laughter ]
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>> don't do that! this is cnn breaking news. >> good evening, everyone. this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. >> and i'm allin camerota. breaking news tonight. 130 additional u.s. military personnel being sent to iraq to help assess the humanitarian crisis and develop more options for all of the displaced people. is the u.s. getting further into iraq than we'd bargained for? plus a passing of another hollywood legend. lauren bacall dead at the age of 89. we're going to have more on that. also the latest on the ag
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