My stepfather was not someone who would ever be enraged. He just told my mom he really preferred she not make cabbage or go anywhere he could smell it. It wasn’t until the whole Abu Ghraib scandal and my stepfather started having nightmares that she understood that he’d been tortured. (In a somewhat amusing family story she then insisted he go the VA for counseling. He did under protest. After the first session he came home grinning from ear to ear. See said my mom isn’t it helpful to talk to someone about all of this. “Well” said my stepfather, “the guy just put me on full disability ( my stepfather was like 80 at the time) and I’m gonna get a big monthly check so yep, it was VERY helpful.” And he claims he never had a nightmare again. He LOVED to tell that story til the day he died at 93.
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