New Jersey veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder ‘welcomes death’ until service dog gives him life – Mosaic

Iraq War veteran Dave Crenshaw has learned to live again despite his complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), thanks largely to his service dog Doc, a black Labrador-pointer mix who senses when his anxiety levels are rising and intervenes in a friendly manner before Crenshaw does Poke the snout.

“Now you forget what you were even thinking about. Now your panic attack is gone,” said Crenshaw, 42, a retired New Jersey National Guard staff sergeant who served on active duty as a military policeman (MP) in Tikrit for 18 months. “I call it my early warning system.”

Crenshaw, a husband and father of four who lives in Kearny, is one of 300,000 former military personnel in New Jersey who will celebrate Veterans Day on Monday, an official state and national holiday marking government offices and other public facilities in New Jersey remains closed compliance.

To mark the holiday, he meets with a handful of buddies from his unit who share a mortal bond stronger than most friend groups will ever know, and who appreciate the fact that they value both the war itself and the psychological ones that come with it and emotional impact can be just as deadly.

“We’re coming together to make sure we celebrate together and not remember one of us for taking our own life,” said Crenshaw, a beneficiary and advocate for K9s for Warriors, the veteran suicide prevention group that connected him with Doc .

Crenshaw’s condition ended a decades-long law enforcement career in 2017, and he has spent the years since healing and “reinventing himself,” primarily as an advocate for other veterans and as Housewife and father of two sons from his second marriage.

He serves on the boards of several nonprofit veterans organizations, including the Lt. Dennis W. Zilinski II Memorial Fund, named for an Army lieutenant killed in Iraq on November 19, 2005, six days after the end of Crenshaw’s trip there. Zilinski’s brother was the commander of Crenshaw’s National Guard unit when he returned to New Jersey from Iraq, and the two became close friends.

Crenshaw has also served as an ambassador for K9s for Warriors, speaking to potential donors on behalf of the group, whose mission is to prevent suicide among veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury or sexual assault in the military by providing service dogs.

“Approximately 20 veterans die by suicide every day, and K9s For Warriors is committed to changing that,” the organization states.

Crenshaw has also helped advocate for federal legislation the Service Dogs Assisting Veterans Act, which would provide grants of up to $2 million “to assist organizations in providing service dogs to eligible veterans and for other purposes.”

The SAVES Act was approved by the House For Country Caucus, a bipartisan group of 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats who are military veterans, co-chaired by a member of the New Jersey delegation, U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11. District, a former Navy helicopter pilot, was re-elected Tuesday.

Bill McCabe, an officer with K9s for Warriors and an Army Reserve lieutenant, said Crenshaw and other veterans would be the most effective advocates for a law.

“Members of Congress obviously want to hear directly from veterans themselves about what the real issues are,” he said.

Complex PTSD is a form of post-traumatic stress disorder that results from repeated or multiple types of trauma, as opposed to a single, particularly traumatic episode.

Crenshaw has repeatedly been exposed to violence, death and stressful situations, not only in Iraq but since then as a Neptune firefighter and police officer and as a narcotics detective with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. In 2016, personal changes added to the pressures of his job.

“Newly married, baby on the way, and I was just really stressed out,” Crenshaw remembers. “I remember being in my office and saying to myself, ‘I’m tired, really tired,’ and that’s when I knew something was up.”

He began treatment in the form of medication and counseling at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in East Orange and another VA facility in Tinton Falls.

But he still suffered and began to think that it would be best to be killed in one of the dangerous raids in which he took part along with the prosecutor.

“I told myself that if I died at work, life would be a lot easier for everyone. My family would be taken care of, I would die a hero’s death,” Crenshaw said.

He wasn’t exactly suicidal, but added: “I welcomed death. Death will bring me peace.”

He asked to be transferred to another unit, but his request was denied, so he continued, repressing his feelings to the point that people started calling him after a character from Tin Man The Wizard of Oz who had no heart.

“You solve these problems with a beer, that’s what I was always taught,” said Crenshaw, whose father worked for JCP&L and his mother worked for a civilian contractor at Fort Monmouth.

After two harrowing experiences stemming from his post-traumatic stress disorder, he eventually left the prosecutor’s office and a law enforcement career typical of military veterans.

One of them was triggered by the death of his mother the year before. It was a flashback to a real-life trauma in Iraq, in which the bodies of two US soldiers were placed in body bags after they were murdered by a comrade, an image that alternated with the hallucinated vision of his mother in a body bag.

“I put a lot of bodies in body bags,” Crenshaw said.

The other was a kind of blackout in his house when he said, “I was home, then I wasn’t home.”

After the Zilinski family urged him to try a service dog, he began to emerge from that dark time, and K9s for Warriors paired him with Doc, a then-growing puppy who turns seven next month.

Crenshaw enjoyed the love of his human family, but somehow the purity of Doc’s affection, his “unconditional love,” opened his own emotions.

“Honestly, it was the first time I felt raw emotion in a long time,” he said. “You’d have to be a monster for him to have no effect on you.”

Other stories from Steve Strunsky:

With support from the Naughty by Nature star, the mentorship program is expanding to Newark

Newark opens a new section of park on a “gorgeous day” along the riverfront

A pro-Trump demonstration in…Montclair? The famously liberal city is hosting a Republican rally

Steve Strunsky can be reached at [email protected]

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