My name is (retired) Staff Sergeant Zachary Thomas Ruttman. In July of 2001, I joined the Air National Guard. I was 23 years old. Two months later, 9/11 happened and I was put on active duty orders. I remained on active duty for the rest of my military career. Eventually, I was selected to join the Tactical Forces Group (Team 2), the Air Force’s only combat offense group. I deployed to Iraq for 7 months in 2004, and what happened there changed my life forever. I medically retired from the Air Force as a Staff Sargent in 2011. This is my story;

 

I live in Oklahoma, in a suburb of Tulsa. I’m in college full-time studying business. My wife’s name is Tarra, and we have an 8-year-old son. I also spend a lot of time coaching youth sports—basketball, baseball, and football. I’d like to start a small business, or be a high school or college football coach. That all seems pretty normal, but my experience of life can change in an instant.

It happens when I’m doing simple things, like going outside and checking the mail. I peer out the door and all around, not because I think someone is out there, but because survival has become my nature. Why would I want to turn off my vigilance? It’s what brought me home safe and to this moment.

Sometimes as I drive, I have to remind myself that I am in Tulsa and that no one is going to come out with a gun and start shooting at me, or try to blow me up. But then my mind shifts and I’m back in combat in Iraq.

My time there wasn’t all bad. When I first deployed, I loved it. I was 26, and a part of a small team that bonded quickly. I felt we had a good reason in being over there. We didn’t have the mindset that we were an occupying force; we were there to build relationships, help people, and get bad guys.

Over a million people lived in the area. We would hang out with the locals and play soccer with their kids. We showed them we cared and we became close. So many locals would give us a heads up if something was going on, if there was talk of planned attacks against us or other groups.

When we received a tip, we’d set up a mission to see what we could find out. We had over 120 successful missions. Every time we went to and from our objectives, we would prepare ourselves for death. As we drove through heavily populated areas, we’d hear gunfire and explosions. There were a few times where gunfire, rockets, and mortars were just near misses. Until, for me, that day in November.

On November 22, 2004, we headed out on a mission. There were three teams in HMMWVs. I was in the lead vehicle, riding on top in the turret wearing protective equipment as I sat behind the M240Bravo. As we rode along, I assessed the area for any oncoming threats. As we continued driving to our destination, I saw three men out of the corner of my eye standing to our left behind a couple of cars. They seemed out of place, and their body language screamed with shifty unseemliness. I distinctly remembering thinking, “What are they up to?”  

As soon as the thought entered my mind, it happened! Our 13,000 ton vehicle was lifted off the ground. My helmet flew off and thick, grey smoke engulfed us in a dry surge. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. I had hot, sharp, burning metal shrapnel in my right shoulder, neck, and head. There’s something silent and sacred about being in the epicenter of an explosion. Time stands still and you become one with it. If you are far away from the center of impact, you feel the energy that comes after the sound wave. But when you are inside of the explosion, there isn’t a bang that hits you milliseconds later. It’s instant shock, without warning. And then I found myself hanging in the turret, hunched over in a dream-like state fading back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. Finally, the smoke started to dissipate. I opened my heavy eyelids, blinking through the dust. The smell of smoke, sweat, diesel, and blood saturated the air. The driver was leaned forward, propped over both the steering wheel and the passenger who had been flung onto his lap. There was another guy in the back, but I couldn’t see him. I took the worst of the explosion, as I was exposed at the top of the vehicle. The others had minor injuries, but thankfully we all survived. We were rocked, but alive. The rest of that day is a blur, but I know the other teams we were with took us to a nearby base for immediate attention.

The medics cleaned up my shoulder and neck, stabilizing me pretty quickly. My right ear was completely blown out. I lost my eardrum and my middle ear was torn up. They filled my ear with wound packing. It would be months before the swelling would go down enough for me to be assessed for surgery.

They were able to simply pull out most the shrapnel, as the piercings were mostly superficial because of my life-saving body armor. I still have a few pieces of shrapnel in the back of my head that weren’t worth fishing out; they are about the size of thumbnail clippings.

A later investigation revealed we had rolled over two giant tank rounds—155mm Howitzers—buried in the ground, which were remotely detonated. They exploded on the rear passenger side of our HMMVW. Those three suspicious-looking guys were exactly who I thought they were. It is so wild to think about how that one single moment made such an impact on my life.

People ask me what was the worst part of what I’ve gone through. I am not sure I would consider the actual explosion the worst moment. The whole 7 months I was deployed, every single tenth of a second could have been my last moment. Living with constant anticipation was worse than the actual event.

I don’t think I could have ever prepared myself for what I went through in Iraq. Before I deployed, I didn’t know the extent of how evil the world could be. Deployment was like flying in a spaceship to another world, a place where everyone wants you dead, and a small percentage of them actively seek you out to kill you.

Every day I would pray, “God, if you are going to take me today, please just make it quick. Let it be a shot to the head.” I didn’t want to look down and see my legs gone. I couldn’t not think about stuff like that. I had to make peace with it. I couldn’t let it affect my job. I knew I was going to have to deal with injury if it came. But in the moment, I had to focus on whatever mission was in front of me.

I wasn’t physically ready to patrol with my team for a couple of weeks after the attack, but I really wanted to get back out there. There wasn’t anything severely wrong with me and I wanted to keep working. When I heard there was talk of sending me home, I balked.

“If you send me home that is a win for them and a loss for us. I don’t want that to happen,” I said as I argued my case to the commander. He let me stay with my team and finish my mission, but nothing was the same after that.

My hyper vigilance became worse. I saw every single object, every piece of trash on the road, every person within eye sight, and car. We couldn’t probe everything that might be a threat or we would never get anywhere, so I just braced myself and plowed forward.

Four months later it was time to go home. During out-processing in Iraq, the doctor reading my file looked at me and asked, “Why in the hell are you still here?” He red-flagged me for follow-up in the states.

I knew I’d have some recovery time, but I had no idea how bad my injuries actually were, or how my experience would affect me mentally. Those first three years back home were bad.

I ended up having surgery on my eyes, ears, and neck. I had a lot of damage to my spine. The doctors put an electronic nervous system into my body to keep my nerves alive. I have 16 leads from my tailbone to the top of my head, and a battery source in my hip.

Along with the physical stuff, I was diagnosed with PTSD and a Traumatic Brain Injury. The realities of the gruesome things I’d seen lingered in my mind. I started having horrific and gruesome nightmares. My heartrate never slowed down and the hypervigilance never left. It wasn’t like I could just chill now that I was home.

The Air Force decided I couldn’t be in my career field anymore. They said I was combat ineffective, and non-deployable. I was enrolled into the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program and assigned to a Care Coordinator who helped me take a proactive approach to transitioning to retirement. Eventually, a Non-Medical Care Manager began to call me every month or so to ask if I needed help with anything. Everyone took good care of me. I didn’t feel discarded. But, I always down-played my PTSD with everyone and tried to move forward with that “tough guy mentality.” That attitude caused my recovery to be extremely difficult. I blame that on myself. The help was there, but I guess I was scared at first. I medically retired from the Air Force in 2011 with full benefits.

Though I had my physical needs met, that feeling of losing my sense of purpose and not knowing where to go from here was scary as hell. Of course, I didn’t act afraid or voice my concerns. I did what I could to survive, just like I did in combat.

To distract myself, I started drinking and gambling. I got married—it was a Vegas wedding and the marriage only lasted about a year. I did my best to hide a lot of my struggles, but when you’re married you can’t hide it. I needed recovery and my wife wasn’t prepared to handle all that came with that.

Then one of the team members who was in the HMMVW with me that day took his own life. I had a strong sense of guilt. Maybe he’d still be here if I would have kept that bond with my team. Or if I could’ve prevented the IED attack from happening. I became lost in negative thoughts, and I was ready to end my own life.

I knew I had to make a choice. I was either going to end my life, or do everything in my power to get better. I wanted more than to just survive. I wanted my quality of life back, or I did not want life at all.

I made the decision to fight for my life.

I packed a suitcase and took a one-way flight to Hawaii. I didn’t know a soul there. I stayed at the airport a few days before I found a hostel. In a few weeks, I rented an apartment.

Hawaii was good for me. I started taking proactive steps toward recovery. I re-gained physical strength along with a few much-needed surgeries. I went to an outpatient and two inpatient rehab facilities for PTSD where I gained the tools I needed to manage my life. I started finding purpose in living, every day.

Even though I’ve been retired for 6 years now, I attended my first two Air Force Wounded Warrior C.A.R.E. Events in the past few months. I am blessed to be a part of the AFW2 program, even though I’m an old guy that is already out of the system. I wasted so many years without working on my recovery, and I am thankful to have the opportunity to participate and meet other people who share similar experiences.

So many people have taken care of me throughout the years. I’m now at the point where I need to give back in order to keep going forward. I was recently trained as an AFW2 Mentor, and have found purpose in encouraging others to be proactive about recovery, instead of waiting for so many years and missing out like I did.

Being a Mentor is an awesome opportunity for people like me who are further along in recovery. We walk along side of other Wounded Warriors right where they are at. We give them hope for the future, and a Wingman for life. And they give that right back to us. I never had that.

I thank my friends and family, and AFW2 for being involved in my recovery. Without the help of others, I may not have wanted to live anymore. And I know other warriors out there don’t have a good support system. Or maybe they do, but refuse to ask for help. I hope my story reaches warriors and their families. And I hope it helps in their recovery. They fought for others. Now, others need to fight for them.