a mental health professional. It was also the end of his heavy drinking.

***

Having served in the Marine Corps as one of his superiors, I knew Andrew very well. He was jovial and you could always hear him from a mile away. His personality was infectious.

We kept in touch after he was discharged in 2011, but on Sept. 10, 2012 I got a haunting message from him. The first words were, “I’m going through some really dark stuff”.
I knew I had to call him.

He told me he still struggles with what happened in Afghanistan and with life at home, and he told me that he needed therapy.

He describes a situation spanning months where he was too busy fighting his inner demons to notice he was driving his wife away.All of his selfishness is clear now and he replays it repeatedly in his mind. The images serve as both torture and penance.

I shared with him my struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. I told him therapy was the most demanding thing I had ever done because reliving combat is sometimes more difficult than initially going through it. Then I made sure to tell him that it was also the best thing I had ever done — for myself and family — and that the first session is always the hardest.

On Sept. 20, Andrew began Prolonged Exposure Therapy, which according to the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices is a cognitive-behavioral treatment program for adults with PTSD.

Prolonged Exposure is the most widely used treatment regimen among veterans and