Marine Captain Gamal F. Awad was doing pretty well for himself on September 10, 2001. He was married to a fellow officer, had two lovely daughters, and a prestigious job working for the Commandant of the Marine Crops in the Special Projects Directorate.

It all changed shortly after he went to work in his office at the Pentagon on September 11.

Within a week the nightmares had started.

He sought help, and was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, known as PTSD. The treatment was a handful of pills and weekly group.

Group was out. He couldn’t take time off work.

Things at the Pentagon got even more stressful. The anthrax attacks were in progress. A military base that was already on alert became even more so.

Awad had a four year degree from the University of Maryland when he joined the Marine Corps. He wanted to be in law enforcement but his first choice of working in Prince George’s County, Maryland was not possible due to a hiring freeze. The Marine Corps offered a challenge and a respected uncle had been a senior Marine noncom in Vietnam.

After OCS, Awad won the only slot for flight training in his class. Motion sickness prevented that from happening. He was sent to the Ground Supply Officer’s school in 1992 and began a career in logistics and supply. Over the next several years he served in a number of posts, with work in Europe and throughout the United States.

Sometime in this period a marriage came and went.

He was hand picked for the slot at the Special Projects Directorate. This was a key post for an up and coming young officer and recognition for the quality of his work to that point. He remarried, to a fellow Marine Officer who was a JAG lawyer.

He was promoted to Major effective September 1, 2002. Shortly after this, the DC sniper attacks added another source of stress. The Major determined that it was time to leave Washington.

In August 2003 he transferred to Camp Pendleton, and was deployed to Kuwait in January 2004. He worked in the 1st Marine Logistics Group, Brigade Service Support Group 1 as the officer in charge of container lot operations. As he arrived in country he witnessed a horrific traffic accident where several women and children were killed, yet another stress.

In his position, he was in charge of developing a process for unloading pre-deployed supply containers in a manner that did not result in materials having to be stored awaiting distribution. He spent the months of February and most of March 2004 in Kuwait.

Upon his return he continued to seek treatment.

He was deployed again in September 2004, as Executive Officer and Operations Officer with Supply Company CSSG-15, 1st FSSG, 1MEF Forward. While the base itself was fairly safe from direct attack, they took indirect fire constantly. Major Awad continued to have trouble sleeping, and thoughts of death filled many of his waking moments.

He began volunteering two or three times a week to ride with night supply convoys, a far more dangerous duty and one that his unit had not bee assigned. His commanding officer had to counsel him several times concerning his behavior towards other military officers. Awad told his treating physician about his death wish but did not tell him that he had a plan or intent. In fact, he did. Only a misfire prevented his suicide.

In early January, Awad was discovered in his quarters with a female enlisted Marine. A search revealed contraband.

After a delay of about a month, Major Awad was returned to the States. He was hospitalized in March, and the legal proceedings against him continued.

At a Commanding General’s Non-judicial Punishment, Awad was allowed to plead guilty and after some back and forth was allowed to resign his commission and receive a General (Under Honorable Conditions) discharge. That discharge became final June 30 2006. His wife and he divorced, amicably, and she wrote several memos on his behalf during the legal proceedings.

The discharge allowed him to receive treatment from the Veterans Administration and he has been judged 100% disabled due to PTSD.

Fast forward. Around Labor Day of 2007 an Associated Press story was published in dozens of newspapers nationwide. It was titled “Wounded Vets Also Suffer Financial Woes” and featured Gamal Awad as one of the vets.

Here’s how it described Awad:
In Awad’s case, he needs to think of a reason each morning not to kill himself.

He can’t even look at the framed photograph that shows him accepting a Marine heroism medal for his recovery work at the Pentagon after the terrorist attack.

It might remind him of the burned woman whose skin peeled off in his hands when he tried to comfort her.

He tries not to hear the shrieking rockets of Iraq either, smell the burning fuel, or relive the blast that blew him right out of bed. The memories come steamrolling back anyway.

“Nothing can turn off those things,” he says, voice choked and eyes glistening.

He stews alternately over suicide and finances, his $43,000 in credit-card debt, his $4,330 in federal checks each month. They bring the government’s compensation for total disability from post-traumatic stress disorder. His flashbacks, thoughts of suicide, and anxiety over imagined threats — all documented for six years in his military record — keep him from working.

The disability payments don’t even cover the $5,700-a-month cost of his adjustable home mortgage and equity loans. He owes more on his house than its market value, so he can’t sell it and may soon lose it to the bank.

“I love this house. It makes me feel safe,” he says.

Awad could once afford it. He used to earn $100,000 a year as an experienced Marine with a master’s degree in management who excelled at logistics. Now, he can’t even manage his own life.

He spends much of his days hoisting weights and thwacking a punching bag in the dimness of his garage. He passes nights largely sleepless, a zombie shuffling through the bare rooms of his home in sunny California wine country, not too far from his old base.

Following that publication, I wrote my post “Who Is Major Gamal Awad?” I raised a number of questions about the original story and Awad’s bona fides.

The November 30 2007 edition of ABC’s news magazine 20/20 did a story titled “Part Three of the Series: ‘Coming Home: Soldiers and Drugs’” and again featured Awad. Here’s some of what they had to say:
Gamal Awad, a former major in the U.S. Marine Corps, said he smokes marijuana to help cope with PTSD. Awad was first diagnosed with PTSD by a Marine psychiatrist after the 2001 attack on the Pentagon during which he said he picked severed limbs out of the rubble.

Despite the diagnosis and his ongoing treatment for PTSD, Awad was still deployed to Kuwait and Iraq, which he said made his condition much worse.

“I was having suicidal thoughts…I would go out on convoys with the purpose to die. I just wanted to be hit by an IED or get shot. We’d get hit with, you know, mortar rounds or rockets, I wouldn’t take cover. I would just stand there,” said Awad.

Awad said military doctors prescribed him a range of antidepressants and sleep medication, but he fell into a spiral of depression and misconduct that led to his discharge from the Marines. A civilian doctor then prescribed marijuana, which is legal in California for medicinal use, to treat Awad’s PTSD symptoms.

“It’s the one thing that’s given me some sort of peace, some sort of sleep for more than three or four hours, and it’s medical marijuana,” Awad said.

Internet searches brought several viewers, and Major Awad to my original post. He left contact information and I spent two long phone calls discussing his story with him this week. He also sent me all of the images in this story as well as copies of his medical records and information used at his Marine trial.

Today, Gamal Awad lives with two roommates in the home he had bought for his family. Both are ex-Marines who were homeless. A therapist from the Soldiers’ Project comes by weekly to treat these men at home. He also sees someone at the VA monthly.

I asked him what he does on his good days. His response - “What good days?” He’s tried to run a therapeutic massage business, after becoming certified in 2002. In 2005 he assisted at a wine tasting at a local vinyard.

One of the things that Gamal Awad has lost is his memory, a tragedy for someone who excelled in logistics. He carries a PDA everywhere and writes everything down. He can still work with numbers, but everything else is either a blur or gone.

A lot of bloggers asked about his home. We wondered how a Major could afford a home with such a large mortgage on his salary. Awad points out that he and his then wife bought the home together, and with housing allowances and other military benefits, both were making about $100,000 a year each.

Others have ridiculed the diagnosis of PTSD, telling him to “Suck it up”. Last week, he reports that someone threw a rock at his window.

As a former volunteer firefighter and longtime EMT, I can assure those people that it is possible to see things that no sane and decent person ought to ever see, and that those sights do no just fade away. PTSD is a normal reactions to horrific sights. As with all medical conditions, there are degrees of PTSD, and many sufferers also have other psychological conditions or substance abuse problems that also require treatment.

There is no one treatment. He’s done the treatments his doctors have prescribed, medication by and large. He’s learned which treatments help and which do not. He’s become his own best medical advocate. He’s had to fight the medical presumption that doctors will treat you but on their schedule. Group is always during working hours, for example. Hospitals are not conveniently located and it’s the patient’s responsibility to be on time or else. The VA has a different list of approved medications than the military does.

He asked for help many times. He was given the standard of care for the symptoms that he reported. He did not report all his symptoms, such as the plan for suicide. It is difficult to ask for help when you do not know what to ask for and that is where medicine most failed Awad.

I don’t know how Major Gamal Awad can be helped by others. I do see a different man than that portrayed in the media. He is helping himself. He has taken in two fellow Marines and taken on advocacy for them and for other ex-Marines who are on the street or suffering with PTSD. He is speaking up and speaking out. In that, I see a glimmer of hope for his future, and for others.

The day he was commissioned was the proudest day of his life. His uncle, the former Marine noncom, was there to see it. I asked him if he had not been discharged, would he still be in the Marines?

“I don’t know.”

Awad’s Decorations

Meritorious Service Medal Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation National Defense Service Medal [one star] Iraq Campaign Medal Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal [Iraq] Global War on Terrorism Service Medal Sea Service Deployment Ribbon Letter of Appreciation [x3] Rifle Expert [third award] Pistol Expert [seventh award]

368 views Tags: Anthrax, War on Terror

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This entry was posted by Chuck Simmins on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at and is filed under Featured, Medicine, Military, Original writing, Reporting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.