Iraq War Neurosurgeon Exposes U.S. Military Secrets About PTSD Recovery

Ajouté : 2026-06-05

[00:00:00]I was deployed as a neurosurgeon for the Air Force to the Iraq war in 2004 and five and did 200 brain surgeries in a tent hospital, morted a hundred times and and just went through a lot of trauma both as a doctor taking care of people and as a person who was you know getting shot at every day.

[00:00:15]>> Um and came home from that really sort of um traumatized as you might imagine.

[00:00:20]>> And my faith at the time was was sort of performance-based if that makes sense.

[00:00:25]Um, and so the first time you're caught caught outside in a rocket attack, you pretty quickly realize you can't control or do anything about that situation. And I had to I think for the first time really understand that God was in control and I wasn't. It might surprise you to think that neurosurgeons are control freaks, but [snorts] >> but that was that was the first time I really had to let God sort of show me that he was capable and willing to take care of me even if I couldn't do anything on my own behalf. So you felt like after that experience it moved from a performance base to more of like you fully surrendering and having to trust God fully.

[00:00:57]>> That's right.

[00:00:58]>> And so in the when you're in Iraq and you're performing these surgeries, these are people that have been blown up or gone through some type of traumatic event, right? That's what's requiring you. Okay. And were you doing surgeries prior to being in Iraq? Yes, I was a practicing neurosurgeon in the Air Force. Um, and then deployed there into that combat environment and we took care of Iraqi civilians who were injured as well as American troops and coalition troops and even enemy combatants.

[00:01:25]>> Wow. So, you're there helping all the whole group. Anyone who you can help, you're helping.

[00:01:31]>> Anybody that got hurt, we took care of.

[00:01:33]>> And so, when you got back, were you surprised by the PTSD that you encountered? Can you kind of tell us what that was like?

[00:01:42]>> I was, you know, I was, the first thing I did, which I don't recommend, is that I didn't talk about it or deal with it for several years. Um, we just got busy and and started our life and our practice and and then it came roaring out of me a few years later, which is what trauma does if you don't deal with it. Um, and that's when I learned that I even though I was a neuroscience expert and a practicing neurosurgeon, I I was capable of having my own brain sort of take over my life. And that's what trauma really is, is when your brain starts telling you lies and and telling you stories that you're not safe and that it's never going to be okay again and all that. And I really had to learn how to process that and manage it.

[00:02:19]>> What did that look like for you?

[00:02:21]>> It looked like again the loss of control of a sense of safety and a sense of peace. Um, and even though my faith was strong, my brain was telling me all kinds of things that were not true. And so I began to have to understand that that you you have to detach your sense of what you're feeling from what's actually true. And I think that's really what led to the work I'm doing now.

[00:02:44]>> Can you elaborate on that further? How people can do that themselves?

[00:02:49]>> Yeah. So we know now from really good neuroscience research that about 80% of the automatic things that pop into our head, the thoughts we think and the feelings we feel aren't true. And so if you believe that everything your brain tells you is true and you react to it, then you're going to spend a lot of time in your life dealing with things that aren't ever true. And so then you're always behind the eightball. And so once we learn to separate that a little bit, let let the Lord speak into what really is true, then we can start questioning our thoughts and feelings instead of just automatically reacting to them. And for me, that was the beginning of that healing process.

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