Wife helps ex-soldier with PTSD out of emotional foxhole
Like the good Army soldier he was trained to be, William
“Billy” Milner Jr. became proficient at pretending nothing was wrong with his troubled mental health. Something, though, has been very wrong since he returned from two tours of combat duty in Iraq.
“I felt useless,” Milner said. “I felt worthless to everyone in my life. I lost all my self-esteem, pride and honor.”
Milner, 42, served in Iraq as an E-4 combat specialist from late 2004 to early 2006, and again from late 2006 to late 2007. While there, he saw the bloody, deadly carnage of war, up close and personal, too many times.
His mind can’t erase what it witnessed.
“I tried my best to hide it, but something always triggered it,” said Milner, who lives in rural Chesterton, Indiana.
After retiring from the Army in 2008, Milner was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and related physical ailments. He’s been in and out of treatment programs, unable to cope with the flashbacks that followed him home.
“In combat, we’re trained to deal with this kind of stress by hiding it, to focus on the mission,” Milner said. “There’s no time to process all these emotions when we’re focused on just staying alive and keeping our unit alive.”
Soon after returning to the U.S., while stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, Milner felt ambushed when he overheard someone speaking in Arabic.
“I snapped,” Milner said, “and I got progressively worse ever since.”
This past summer, “I hit rock bottom. I was so tired of feeling very angry or very depressed.”
Milner quietly told me that he attempted to take his life.
“I was in a very dark place,” he said. “Something had to be
done.”
His wife, Tiffany Milner, also knew that something had to be done.
“Every single day, we lose 22 military veterans to suicide,” she said. “As a spouse, every single day, I pray that my husband doesn’t become one of those 22.”
She has removed all the firearms from their home. She explained to their children about their father’s crying, yelling and sadness. She once stood in front of a tree that her husband was speeding toward with his vehicle.
“I knew he wouldn’t hurt me even though he wanted to hurt himself,” she said. “That’s a heavy weight for him to carry.”
Instead, he took a baseball bat to the family’s pole barn.
“My husband is very good at pretending nothing is wrong,” Tiffany Milner said. “What he hides from the world is more than most of us will ever know.”
When I thanked Billy Milner for his military service, he instinctively replied, “Thank you for your support.”
His wife reminded me that he doesn’t see combat veterans as heroes of any kind.
“He sees the opposite,” she said. “He sees a man who is jolted awake every night by the nightmares of what happened in Iraq, a man who is thinking of ending his life.”
In September, she learned about the Eisenhower Center, a residential treatment facility in Manchester, Mich. It caters to military veterans with PTSD and brain injuries.
She asked her husband what he thought about the facility by pretending it was for another troubled veteran. Billy Milner agreed that it looked helpful for veterans in his desperate situation. But he wasn’t convinced it was for him.
In October, the couple welcomed a granddaughter into their large family. Friends and family saw cheerfullooking photos of Milner cradling the baby at the hospital. What they didn’t see was his meltdown in the back of the couple’s eight-acre property.
“He was crying hysterically because it triggered a memory of a baby in Iraq dying in his arms,” his wife said.
After that incident, Tiffany Milner persuaded her husband to try the Eisenhower Center. He moved there in mid-October for up to a 90-day stay, depending on funding.
“Coming here was a huge step for me,” Milner told me by phone from the center.
He is learning to realize things he never believed in his past — such as, he’s not the only combat veteran with mental health problems, and civilians actually care about his troubles.
“This facility is treating the root of my issues, not just treating my symptoms, and they’re doing it with tools and techniques that help me deal with my triggers,” he said.
His wife makes regular three-hour treks to visit him, often staying overnight at a local motel. On her Facebook page, “Tiffany Marie Milner,” she has posted about fundraising to help pay for her lodging, gas and related expenses.
On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, she will be speaking at the Operation Halo fundraising event, hosted by the Patriot Project/Mission 22, a national nonprofit veterans’ assistance organization with an office in Illinois. Proceeds will go toward the purchase of an educational tour bus to raise awareness of veteran suicides and PTSD.
“Spouses and families of these troubled veterans don’t know what to do in these situations,” said Johnny Boersma, the organization’s director of operations. “They need to be educated so they can help these veterans, like Tiffany helped Billy.”
The event is set for 5 p.m. Sunday at 115 Bourbon Street, an entertainment complex, at 3359 W. 115th St. in Merrionette, Ill. Tickets are $30, with dinner, drinks and live entertainment included. For more information, visit www.patriotproject22.com.
Boersma, who lives in St. John, met me at the Milners’ home in Chesterton to personally praise Tiffany Milner for her efforts to do whatever it takes to rescue her husband from his demons.
“Some wives leave their husbands because they just can’t deal with it,” Boersma said. “But not Tiffany. She’s been the good soldier on his behalf.”
Billy Milner is slowly, yet confidently, emerging from his emotional foxhole.
“This is truly an amazing place,” he said of Eisenhower Center. “My wife saved my life by bringing me here. I feel hopeful again.”
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