Fred Johnson - A Hard Truth

 

When I walked out of the Jeffersonville City Jail, I knew one thing for certain, [audience laughter] and that's my wife was going to be pissed. [audience laughter] The night before, I had performed a ritual that I had done on the anniversary of 9/11 ever since I got back from Iraq in 2007. And that was a shot of bourbon for each of my three most dearest fallen comrades. The first shot of bourbon was Maker's Mark. And it was for Bill Wood, who loved Maker's Mark. Bill died in Dora, Iraq, in 2005. 

 

The second shot of bourbon was Woodford, which is my favorite bourbon, because Joe Fenty didn't like to drink bourbon. He died on a mountaintop in Afghanistan in 2006. Joe was my dearest friend. And then, my last shot of bourbon was Basil Hayden, because it's so smooth. And Freeman Gardner died so young on the streets of Amiriya, Baghdad, in 2007.

 

I finished my shots, and I had a couple of beers, and I sat and thought, and I said to myself, I'm going to get in my car and I'm going to drive it into the Ohio River, so I can be with my dead friends in Valhalla. Of course, a policeman stopped me and put me in jail. That's the reason why I was in jail. [audience laughter]

 

So, the next morning when I got out, I called home and my wife answered. Didn't let me say a word. She said, "You're going to therapy." What she didn't say, but strongly inferred, is that, “You're going to go to therapy now or you're never going to see me or your daughter again.”

 

My wife had long said that I had PTSD, that when I went to Iraq that I changed and when I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, that I had gotten worse. Now, my wife is a PhD psychologist. She's the director of behavioral health at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in charge of all the behavioral health [audience chuckles] at Fort Knox. And so, they diagnose people with PTSD.

 

And I said, "You know, honey, what do you know?" [audience laughter] It's perfectly normal to freak out with your back to the door, because you can't see behind you. It's normal to look at every passerby to see if they have a weapon in their hand or if they're a threat. And it's normal to have your friends who had died in combat revolve through your mind in an endless cycle of despair. It's normal to every now and then think about putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger.

 

Now, I did not have PTSD. I didn't believe in it. You don't go to war and serve your country and get sick. Particularly, a colonel who had been in the army at the time, 28 years, and had prepared his entire adult life to serve in combat. But I went to therapy, because I felt that if I didn't, I knew I would lose my wife and my daughter.

 

Now, there are three things that I learned whenever I was in therapy. First, is that I needed it. I was on this downward spiral of self-destruction. I needed to do something. The second was that it helped, that my therapist gave me cognitive tools to help mitigate the challenges that I had, particularly with anger. And three, that it wasn't quite enough.

 

One day I was talking to a fellow colonel who said a derogatory comment about one of my buddies, and I went after him. I got pulled back before I could do anything, and I got in trouble, bad trouble. It looked like I was going to possibly leave the army in dishonorable conditions. It was about that time that my psychiatrist said, "Hey, Fred, have you tried medication?" Now, that was another red line for me. I said, "You know, I can do it myself. You know, I'm a soldier, I'm self-disciplined." But obviously, the situation I had with that colonel proved otherwise. I was again in a now or never moment of, if I don't do something, then I could leave the army in a bad way.

 

When I first took the pills and the medication, ironically, it was just like a firefight. There is nothing that brings greater clarity than the snap of a bullet by your head and its impact two inches away. And that clarity is followed by the slowing down of the world. So, you can see it in its full spectrum, you can anticipate dangers, and then you apply your training to do your work. Well, that pill provided me the clarity and the slowing down, and therapy gave me the tools that I needed to make the right decisions. 

 

After a while, my buddies, I remember them only whenever I wanted to. They weren't revolving in my head. Shooting myself was a ridiculous notion that never entered my mind again. And then, one morning, I woke up after an awesome night's sleep. I'm laying next to my wife, which is something we'd never do, pillows propped up, drinking coffee. I look over to her and I touch her and I say, "So, this is what it's like to be really normal?" And she says, "Yes." And now, I have this awesome job in this greatest city in the world, doing the thing that I love most and that's bringing art to the people and the places that need it most. 

 

I feel incredibly blessed, remarkably happy, and incredibly normal. I thank God every day for that night in the Jeffersonville Jail and for the cop that pulled me over. I thank God for my wife who had the courage to give me that ultimatum, and I thank God for giving me the clarity to make the right decision in my now or never moments. Thank you, guys, very much for listening.