Diary of a Female Veteran

Frayn and Melissa are the incredible producers and MCs of Back Fence PDX.

The story telling event on Wednesday, 9/21/11, was the best night ever. I got on stage and told this amazing true life story. I did really good. Everyone said that it was a very exciting story and that I was serious and then funny in all the right parts. The audience was captivated. You could hear a pin drop.

After the evening, I stood at the exit and thanked everyone for coming. People told me that it was an impactful story and that they’d never forget it and how it had inspired them. Also, I discovered I had a few fans. It was awesome!! Fans?! Someone called me a rockstar, badass, and hardcore. Hard to imagine why a certain former photojournalism professor would coldly reply to the same story complaining that I was “ranting” about the military.

Mostly, I felt proud because my friends that had come, Betty and Chetan, were very proud of me. I never thought that going in front of a live audience to tell such a tragic story would lift such an emotional burden off my chest, but it did. It really did.

Afterwards, Chetan took me to dinner at a beautiful restaurant perched up in the sky seemingly on the same floor as the moon. I became so inspired that I took photos, but the batteries in my flash had gone dead, so I had to shoot without light. The images are extremely pixelated. I have kind of an old digital camera. But, I don’t think I would have used flash anyway. The time it would’ve taken to do flash would have pretty much spoiled all of the fun moments and blinded people. I just didn’t have time for that. I was having fun and I needed to live in the moment instead of just documenting it. You photographer’s know what I mean. I was able to keep a toe in both experiences though.

On the way to Chetan's car.

When Chetan and I finished eating, he took me on a ride in his convertible all the way up the mountain, Skylar Drive, Portland.

This is Chetan, driving like a bat out of hell on our way to Skylar Drive.

We got out and took turns with my camera doing long exposure shots of this breathtaking view of the city.

Beautiful Portland at 3 am.

I even got dirt in my red cowgirl boots, because I got so into shooting the cityscape that I was kind of rolling around on the ground as I was shooting.

I was doing impressionistic painting stuff with my camera, which could only have been inspired by Chetan's driving.

Chetan’s a budding photographer. A man that is willing to take advice and instruction (on photography) from a woman without getting offended or feeling threatened (on a date)… AMAZING!!

More crazy driving, but with Bob Dylan echoing from the radio.

I shot this long exposure using the blinking red hazard lights from Chetan's convertible as my main light source. I only did very minimal corrections in Photoshop on this one, believe it or not.

The folks at Back Fence PDX said the video of me telling my story will be on the internet within a few weeks. When it is up, I’ll put a link to it on this home page. The previous entry on this page also has a written version, which is mostly what I said. Some details were left out and others added as part of the spontaneity that happens during live story telling. You react to the audience and end up editing on the fly.

Anyhow, just know that the husband of the deceased gave me permission to tell this story so long as I changed his and his belated wife’s name, which I did on stage and in the written version below. I told him not to read or watch it, because I don’t want it to further damage him, and I had to use some details from the scene of her death to explain why I had such bad PTSD that I had to seek inpatient treatment.

So, please enjoy the photos and, as always, I would really appreciate your comments.

With Gratitude,

Priscilla G. Robinson

September 21st, 2011

This is the true story I told on stage.  I’ve written it conversationally and in my southern dialect.  Please remember I’m from Georgia and a have a strong sense of humor.  I’ve changed the names to protect the combat videographer husband.  If he is reading this, I would ask him to stop here, because this is a graphic story.  I did get his permission to tell this story though.

Northern Italy, Aviano Air Base 2005

I was an Air Force photojournalist and forensic photographer on active duty.  It was a Friday morning.

It was my turn that week to do the alert photography detail, for which you wear a pager and remain on call.  During office hours, really anybody had this job.  It was whoever was free to shoot something if we got a call in from Security Forces or the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

The phone rang, another photographer answered it.  Her face went pale.  It was a call for one of us to go photograph a vehicular fatality, an alert job.  When she announced this to our shop, no one moved.  You see, military bases are sort of like really small towns.  Even though we all rotate in and out in a fairly short time 1-4 years, or more, we all still pretty much know each other and who everyone is.

No one was reacting fast enough.  When you get called to shoot a fatality scene, especially, you have to be really quick before the first responders take away all of the evidence.  Once you’ve lost the scene, you never get it back.

I grabbed my gear and announced, “I’ve got my batteries and flash cards, I’m out.”  I could see relief wash over some of their faces.  I was really good at this part of my job.  I knew my gear inside and out.  I could shoot the hell out of this type of stuff. I never freaked out when I had to document really messed up situations, like rape victims, for example.  I could put myself in stealth mode and weave in and out of these scenes without any disruptive reactions, no matter how awful it was.

Back to my story- it had happened off base.  I drove there, jumped out at the scene.  A car had impacted one of those really dangerous cement ditches on the side of the road.  I shot 360 degrees around the scene.  Long shot, medium shot, close up.

Her abdomen had been lacerated by the steering wheel.  It was… gory.  So, when the Italian EMTs moved her body from the car to the gurney, things spilled out.  I don’t know how else to put that, I’m sorry.

So, long shot, medium shot, close up- close up… her face.  I knew who that was.  Danielle.  She had just given birth to a baby boy 10 days before this.  I was going to help one of her friends throw a baby shower for her the next morning.  When I realized who it was, I just thought… Nate is going to want to see every piece of her.  Nate was her husband- a combat videographer that worked in my shop.

I had this really crazy fight or flight reaction.  I went into superwoman mode or something.  I took 266 photos and all but 2 were perfectly exposed.  I even climbed a tree to shoot an overview.

I do remember at some point, when an officer from the Safety Wing (they investigate these things too), she grabbed my arm and jerked me towards her while I was photographing the car.  She said, “shoot the tires, you have to shoot the tires.”  She sounded very urgent.  I said, “yes, yes, I know.  I did.”  I was surprised that someone put their hands on me while I was doing this type of work.  I had photographed the tires.  One of the front tires was shredded.  There was only one skid mark on the pavement, which meant that the blown out tire is probably what caused the wreck.  She must have lost control of the car.  When there’s only one skid mark and there’s a shredded tire on a level street it means that the tire was not formed enough to make a skid mark, and it must have happened before she put on the brakes.

So, I finished and jumped in my car to return to base and my shop where I had to download the imagery.  Now, while I was finishing up at the scene I had been checking my photos on the LCD on the back of my camera.  I just wanted to make sure I got everything I needed.  I was not paying attention to where I was stepping, and the scene was very gory and things had… fallen out of her onto the pavement where I was stepping.  Before I knew it, I was stepping into… everything.

So, I jumped in my car to return to base and it was January, so the windows were rolled up, and the heat was set on full blast to come up from the feet.  I hadn’t realized I still had her guts on my combat boots.  The car just filled with that smell, that decaying…  body… smell.  I pulled over and rolled down the windows.  It was too late though.  That smell hit my olfactory nerve, the only sensory nerve that goes through the functional part of the brain, the limbic system.  It’s the sense that is tied most strongly to memory.

Anyhow, I got back to the shop, everyone knew but I told them that I didn’t recognize the body.  I didn’t want them to worry for me.  I helped get the girls through it- chocolate, cigarettes, felt fine.  Two months later I’m in Airman Leadership School, because I was being promoted and about to put on another stripe.  School was stressful.  I had done really poorly on the first test.  I couldn’t handle it.  I couldn’t handle stress anymore… forever, as I would later find out.  I started having flashbacks, olfactory flashbacks.  I would go to eat something and suddenly be overwhelmed by the smells from when I was in my car that day two months before, when the heat had hit my combat boots with her on them.

I couldn’t trust my mind anymore, so I could no longer be a forensic photographer in the Air Force.  I was medically discharged.  I was no longer fit to serve my country, because I had a raging case of Post-Traumatic Stress from my duties as a forensic photographer.

I got out of the military and the next week I went to a resort-like hospital called the Priory Hospital, located in Roe Hampton, London because they had a really good program to treat veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress.  It was unbelievable.  Just to give you an idea, it’s the same place Kate Moss goes to for eating disorders and drug addictions… nice.  I had a blast.  I loved the British people, who I had not realized at the time, were actually celebrities.  Well, I didn’t know that, because I don’t watch British t.v. (probably because it sucks).

Now, I do admit that I escaped twice when I was having all this fun.  There wasn’t a fence or anything.  It was a resort, but you know, with shrinks.  I had things to do and see.  I escaped the first time for art supplies and to buy a British cell phone.  The second time, I took the tube to central London and got an application for the Royal Academy of Art, then dropped by the Tate to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit, and the embassy to see how to apply for dual citizenship, and grab 4 Tori Amos CDs.  I loved the British, and I think they loved me too ‘cuz they kept calling me deary and darling, real sweet-like.  (By the way, I might be banned from England because I was an escape mental patient that went to the embassy.  Uhht, oh… I inadvertently created an international incident.  I’m looking into checking up on that).

Unfortunately, during both escapes a very important military shrink called to check on me and the Priory staff couldn’t find me, ‘cuz I had escaped… both times.  Which is why they moved me to the Capio-Nightingale Hospital (Florence Nightingale’s Original Hospital) in central London.  I was cool with that because it was closer to the Tate, you know.

Now, we need to go back a step.  About 2 or 3 months before Danielle’s death, the military had laid down spikes at both gates to the bases as an added security measure.  You know, the kind that if you back up over them you’re totally screwed?  The problem with that is that they laid them down very close to the speed bump.  So, everyone that had to exit and enter the base would probably go just a hair too fast and launch their car up in the air a little, and then land right on those spikes.  People were reporting holes in their tires.  And, I remember that I when I drove to and from base, I had started seeing shredded tires every where on the sides of the roads that led to base and, just more than usual.

At some point, my Air Force Base put out announcements and mass e-mails.  It was something like, ok, everyone go to such and such hangar on the flightline and we will inspect your tires.  It could be very dangerous.  You need to replace your tires and we will reimburse you.  Someone at a commander’s call asked how they would do that and the general just said, “I don’t know yet, but we will.”  This is highly unusual for the government and especially the military.

Danielle’s death was the second one where a blown out tire caused a fatal car wreck.  Both reports the Safety Wing put out said:

Cause of Incident:  “Driver Distraction”

That didn’t make a lick of sense to me.  How the hell would they know?  Were they in car too?  Rediculous.

Anyway, while I was getting out I had happened to launch an Inspector General Investigation against my base for the possible cause of definitely those two negligent deaths, which was also stressful for everyone.  Those complaints get forwarded all the way to the Pentagon and the base is then put under a microscope and things are investigated.  A lot of very high-ranking people could get in trouble.  Careers could be ended, but I had to follow through with this.  For Danielle, for Nate.  For all of us.

Now, I’m Capio-Nightingale in London.  I’ve been in therapy for a total of 2 months and made incredible progress.  My doctors were really proud of me and said they were going to have me released to my family because I was doing really well.  I asked them when I would go home and they said soon.  There was just some sort of hold up with Tricare, the military insurance company.  They’re the ones that were paying for all of this.

A few more days went by and no one knew when I would be released.  In fact, they started dodging the question.  It just seemed so strange to me.  Something was going on.  So, I get this phone call out of the blue from the British Liason to Tricare.  He said, “what do you have to do with an Inspector General Investigation?”  I was shocked.  I said, “how do y’all know about that?”  He said, “oh, they know.  The Americans know.  I’m very worried for you, dear.  You need to call someone.  They’re not…”

I said, “are they all scrambling to cover their asses?”  He said, “yes, something like that.  I had to remind them that you are, in fact, human.”  I asked him what would happen to me.  He told me that they would medi-vac me to Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in the States and I would then be put into the American mental health system for my state… uhhmm… Georgia.

I quickly got off the phone and panicked.  I remembered that as a member of the National Press Photographer’s Association one of my benefits was that I had access to advice from a Human Rights and Media Lawyer.  I called the NPPA and got the referral number, and then called the attorney.  I told him the situation.  He said, “you have no control over the situation you’re in.  Just let things play out, blow the whistle on them when you get back home.”  I said, “but, no one will believe me when I’m in a mental institution.”  He said, “you don’t have a choice.”

I was terrified for about 5 minutes, but then incredibly angry, and that’s when I go commando.  So, I traded the British guy that was staying in the room across the hall from me, a really nice couple of gourmet tea bags in exchange for his services.  The British love tea.  They think it’s freakin’ crack or something.

My British tea-loving neighbor created a distraction as I snuck into the nurse’s office to make about 40 copies of this letter I had written.  It went something like this:

     To Whomever May Find This,

          I am in desperate need of your help.  I am a former photojournalist for the United States Air Force.  I was sent to this hospital to receive treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress.  Before I came here, I launched an Inspector General Investigation against my base for the negligent death of two service members.  My British doctors here say that I’m doing really well and they have decided to release me, but Tricare, the military insurance company that found out about this investigation I launched has decided to go against my doctor’s orders and have me placed in mental institutions back in my country.  I believe I am being reprised against.  You can reach me at ____-____ (phone number).

Former U.S. Air Force Photojournalist and Forensic Photographer,

Priscilla G. Robinson

So, the British neighbor is distracting, I’m copying.  I go into the patient lounge where there are bars on the windows with my copies.  I was finally able to jimmy up one of the windows about 6 inches and I tossed the 40 copies of my pleading, begging, desperate letter out of the window and into the wind.  I hear one of the nurses yelling at me to stop from across the room.  A British guy on the street grabs the stack of flyers and looks very pissy that I have just littered.  I yell out to him, “help me,” as the nurse is dragging me away from the window.

She puts me in my room and a male orderly, very big, steps into the frame of my door.  She’s telling me that I have to take this medicine.  I say, “no, I’m allergic to that.”  She’s not buying it.  She tells me to take the medicine or she’ll have some one make me.  I look to the doorway and see this very big and threatening male orderly clinch his fist at his side.  He actually clinched his damn fist at me!  I thought to myself, oh hell, I’m fixin’a have to scrap with this lil’ punk.

But, it’s two, potentially more, against one.  So, I take the medicine after trying to hide it under my tongue.

14-16 hours later, I wake up to the sound of my British cell phone ringing.  I find it from where I hid it from the nurses and answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is ____ I’m an Amnesty International Lawyer.  I got your letter and I wanted to ask you some questions about this.”

That pissy little British man on the street got my letter to the one agency in the world that could help me, and, as it turns out, the Amnesty International Headquarters are in London, 2.7 miles away.

So, I very calmly and rationally tell him the situation, the investigation… everything.  After I finish, he says, “we usually don’t do this sort of thing, but give me the names and numbers of the British Liason that warned you, your case worker at Tricare, and I’ll make a few phone calls.  I don’t think this will be a problem.  This type of thing usually only takes a few phone calls.”

I thanked him profusely, and two hours later he called me back.  He said, “I don’t think they’ll be a problem.  Just call me if they give you any more trouble.

The next day, I was released to my mother and allowed to return home and not to a mental institution.

That was 2005.  I’ve recovered.  Finally, this past January I wrote the Department of the Inspector General to try and get a copy of my complaint that was forwarded to them.  I got a letter about a month later stating that they never received my Inspector General complaint and there’s no case.