I drove home from the doctor’s office as sad and depressed as I’d ever been in my life. Sitting on the seat beside me were two bags. One contained a small bottle of Ambien, to help me sleep. The other contained sample boxes of Lexapro, an antidepressant.
For the last three months — the three months since I’d come home from Iraq — I’d been unable to sleep. Every night at ten o’clock, no matter how tired I was, I’d come alive. I’d feel that familiar tension. In Iraq, night was when bad things happened. Night was when friends died. Night was when we had to make our tough choices. When I was outside the wire, it was often at night. Night was when the detainees rolled in. At night I had to be alert.
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