Warriors of Camp Southern Ground

ChasOn Parker

Chason is a U.S. Army veteran and Warrior PATHH alum from Salt Lake City. This is his story.

I failed out after one semester of college and went to talk with an Army recruiter. I served for 12 years, spending most of my career in Africa. I also spent some time in Timbuktu and hunted pirates off Tanzania.

My transition out of the military was not good, but it’s a huge part of my story. When I got back from my last tour to Iraq, it was almost immediate that I was struggling. I sought help, did all the things by the book. I was then directed to have a conversation with Team Chief Surgeon, which I was informed would be a simple conversation about whether I wanted to try and work through my PTSD and continue my career or consider a Medboard. When I got into the meeting, he had pulled and reviewed my entire medical history which also included my diagnosis of narcolepsy and my pre-military documentation mentioning a couple concussions. When I got in the meeting, this officer basically said, “I don’t really know much about narcolepsy, but I do know that it’s related to head trauma, which you did not report caused your narcolepsy. This looks like a case of fraudulent enlistment.” I ended up getting a lawyer, who was able to settle before it really went anywhere, but it was, “30 days, turn your sh*t in, you’re done.”

I served in the Army for 12 years in various roles within the Intelligence Community, supporting different organizations and mission sets, most of which were enabled by my language capabilities in sub-Saharan dialects of French, which I studied in my undergrad. It wasn’t until the end of my career that I finally made it to Iraq for my final tour. Although a part of me still wanted to go hard in the paint and continue my service, it was pretty clear after returning from that tour that I was having significant issues. As they say in PATHH, I was NOT struggling well. I had wrapped myself so tightly that I was always a hair’s breadth away from either losing myself in a panic attack or becoming angry and destructive.

One of the things I remember most is my concept of time management. People kept asking what my plan was 5-10 years from that point, and I remember that I could only think about the next day. Instead of planning 5-10 years ahead, I could barely go day to day or hour to hour. The problem was that I struggled to get myself out of that cave despite going through several different types of therapy. It was always depression or panic, utterly incapable of accomplishing anything because of sadness or anxiety. Despite making concerted efforts towards progress, I got stuck in the thought process that I could not solve or cure what had changed in me.

When I finished PATHH, I walked away with a completely different relationship with my mental health. I saw the benefits of Post-Traumatic Growth and approached it as “training” rather than a cure, instituting practices and positive habits that I learned at PATHH. I decided that despite it being my story, I needed to move forward, which meant writing a new story. I became so close with the other guys at my PATHH experience that we have become a form of accountability for each other. It was an incredible experience, and I cannot recommend it enough.