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    The Courage to Remember: PTSD - From Trauma to Triumph
    The Courage to Remember: PTSD - From Trauma to Triumph
    The Courage to Remember: PTSD - From Trauma to Triumph
    Ebook146 pages1 hour

    The Courage to Remember: PTSD - From Trauma to Triumph

    By Lester Tenney

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    About this ebook

    How can you free yourself from the oppression of the past and the imprisonment of your mind? In "The Courage To Remember," Les Tenney describes how he personally overcame the despair of Post-Traumatic Stress resulting from torture, starvation, disease, imprisonment and slavery. One of the few remaining survivors of World War II's infamous Bataan Death March in the Philippines, and three-and-a-half years as a Prisoner of War and slave of the Japanese, Tenney writes a gripping firsthand account. More important, this book outlines how he dealt with and overcame the emotional trauma that followed for many years, outlining how he trained his mind to focus on the positive, set realistic goals, use each setback to propel him forward, and be a victim no more. This is an important book which offers hope to others who continue to suffer from trauma.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateSep 30, 2014
    ISBN9780990638025
    The Courage to Remember: PTSD - From Trauma to Triumph

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      Book preview

      The Courage to Remember - Lester Tenney

      book.

      Preface

      Why would I, a comfortably retired man of ninetyfour, want to undertake the enormous task of writing a book at this stage of my life? What can I offer you of value from my experiences?

      You deserve an answer to these questions, and yet, it's hard to know where to start. The truth is, it took me more than fifty years before I could even begin to talk about my past. It was too painful.

      I am one of the few remaining survivors of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines in World War II, who became a Prisoner of War enslaved by the Japanese for three-and-a-half years. I survived four years of events so barbaric, inhumane, and brutal that most people could never imagine them. In fact, I thought my story of extreme trauma was the rare exception.

      Yet, when invited to talk about how I survived these experiences, I'll often ask, by a show of hands, How many of you have survived a traumatic event in your life? I explain that traumatic stress is caused by more than breaking a leg, or getting stuck between floors on an elevator. It's from things like physical assault from abuse or rape, the unexpected death of a loved one, the combat of war, becoming a prisoner of war, or suddenly being homeless from a hurricane, flood or tornado. It can also be caused by helplessly witnessing another's death, or the trauma of having your life placed on hold while you await a heart valve replacement.

      Each time I ask how many others have had even one of these experiences, I am continually amazed by the number of hands. The fact is, in a roomful of around 150 people, a hundred or so will raise their hands every time. Research confirms this. Two out of every three people will experience a serious trauma before their lives are out.

      To me, that means that life is very hard for most of us. Chances are very good that someone you know, someone you love, or even you yourself, have survived some very difficult times.

      Most folks who survive these events are able to go on with their lives. People always say, Time heals all wounds, and for most of us, it does. You just have to give time enough time.

      But for some of us, time stops ticking. Our lives go on hold, sometimes for years. We get stuck in the past, reliving horrible scenes over and over. Or we avoid situations or people that trigger painful flashbacks. Or we are overly anxious about an unknown future. In my war, they called it Battle Fatigue or Shell Shock. Only after the 1980s was it first seriously studied and given a different name: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. The symptoms, however, have always been the same.

      Because of my past experiences, I'm familiar with many of those symptoms. For years, I felt the loneliness and isolation in a roomful of family or friends who seemed like strangers to me. I felt like I couldn't tell anyone about what I had experienced because they could never understand. I suffered the sleepless nights, the terrifying nightmares. I was filled with anger. But hardest of all to bear was the tremendous sense of guilt I suffered, always foremost in my mind: the guilt of surviving when so many of my friends died. I would think of them lying dead on the side of the road leading out of Bataan, or at the bottom of the ocean. I was haunted by this guilt for fifty years. All those years I asked myself, Why, God, why did I survive when so many of my buddies did not? For years, I had no answer.

      Now, after all those years of questioning, I think I finally have the answer. I am writing now, after another twenty years, to share with you how I finally achieved peace of mind. It is to tell my story of how I was able to learn to live a different life, a life at whose core is friendship, love, God and forgiveness. It was not easy. It took many years, and was one of the most difficult battles of my life. In many ways, I felt that dying would have been easier; it's the living that's hard. Along the way I discovered that I had strengths within me I didn't even realize were there.

      I'm not a professional health-care provider or a clinical psychologist. I'm just one man who has walked the path. And now, after all these years, I'm a little deaf, a little blind, three inches shorter and ten pounds heavier, I limp when I walk and I hiss when I speak. My hearing and my teeth were destroyed in Japan; I wear a hearing aid and have dentures supplied by the Veterans Administration, and a cow's valve in my chest. But nothing, absolutely nothing, can destroy my hope and my spirit.

      Maybe you will see yourself in these pages, or find some answers to your hard questions. That is why I've found the courage to open my life up to you. If I can help someone else get their life back, too, then it all will have been worthwhile.

      Some will live…

      Chapter One

      The Fight To Survive

      My story begins over seventy years ago.

      Most Americans know December 7, 1941 as the date the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. What many do not know is that the Japanese did not only attack Pearl Harbor, but also bombed seven additional strategic strongholds in the Pacific and Asia. One of these was Clark Airfield in the Philippines where I was stationed with Company B of the 192nd Tank Battalion. At 12:25 p.m., I watched in horror as bodies, buildings and tents flew through the air. For ninety minutes that seemed like days, their Zero aircraft bombed and strafed anything left that moved. Within minutes, all our US Army airplanes, B-16s, B-17s, and P-40s, parked on the tarmac like a bunch of sitting ducks, were destroyed. Since our Navy had already moved their ships away from Manila to other ports, by that afternoon we were completely defenseless. And that was only the

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