My Nerves

This poetry is my therapy for getting out of the Army and dealing with everything I had done in the military. These 26 poems are words that came to me during a very difficult transition from soldier to civilian. I had two DUIs in the Army and I have/had PTSD from my first fifteen-month deployment to Iraq from Jan. 5, 2006 to March 17, 2007. I lost a few friends and had one get disabled permanently. As a paratrooper at Fort Bragg, everything is manly. They just now started to let women do our jobs. Many of my friends have killed themselves since they got out. One hung himself soon after because he couldn't get the help he needed, while others chose pills or guns. I have been on two combat tours to Iraq and one humanitarian aid mission to Haiti to help with relief after the earthquakes. This book is dark, gritty, confusing, elaborate, and tricky. There are so many nuances and associations that it can almost be confusing unless it is read really fast to pick up on the rhythms and patterns of a soul that has undergone a lot. I have 23 logged jumps from airplanes with sometimes up to over 100 pounds of gear, an AT-4 (rocket launcher), machine gun (SAW .249), etc. We went into the worst parts of Baghdad in 2006, kicked in a lot of doors, and got shot at with rockets filled with C4. This is my story, written in cryptic poems to keep the details from destroying real people and real situations. Stephen Shelgren lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. Publisher's website: http://sbprabooks.com/StephenShelgren