I don't like talking about this, but after reading similar comments I feel comfortable contributing to the thread.

When I was in my early 20's, I volunteered to help down in Louisiana right after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. It was a fucking war zone in parts of New Orleans. Soldiers and humvees everywhere, buildings caved in, garbage in the streets, and the houses had numbers in a grid pattern painted on; how many dead adults, how many dead children... Lotta people don't remember the suffering that these people went through any more. It changed me, more than my time in the Navy ever had.

One of the jobs I worked during the relief operation involved me traveling around the state, sometimes to rural areas. This was where I first encountered the bodies, bloated and blue after however long in the bayous. I was able to shrug it off and get back to work, but every night back at the hotel I drank until I couldn't feel feelings, to keep from seeing those bodies being pulled up from the water.

At first it was the visceral memories of the bodies that stuck with me, like wights or ghouls. I still remember clearly what death looks and smells like. But after this long (and becoming a parent) it's the sheer destruction and memories of the houses with the numbers that haunt me. So quickly can one go from having family time, to chaos and trying but failing to save their loved ones while the world collapses around them.

To this day I'm able to ignore the occasional intrusive memory of those swollen greyblue bodies floating up from the back of my mind. But I get emotional anytime I'm forced to think about the suffering I encountered down there and just how quickly things can get so bad.

Yeah, I still drink.