My Tour In Hell

David W. Powell enlisted for a tour of duty in April 1966 with the US
Marines after receiving an imminent draft notice. Believing he would be
able to leverage his existing skills as a computer programmer, he never
thought all they would see on his resume was his Karate expertise. Even
less that he would wind up serving as a Rocket man in the jungles of Da
Nang and Chu Lai for a 13 month tour in hell.



David's journey from naive civilian to battle-hardened combat veteran
shows us all how fragile our humanity really is. In addition to killing
the enemy on the field of battle, he was witness to countless cruelties
including murder both cold-blooded and casual, cowardice under fire, and
a callous disregard for life beyond most people's imagination. With
each new insult, he lost a little bit of his soul, clinging to his Bible
as his only solace while equally certain of his own imminent demise.



Upon returning to civilian life after a two year enlistment, he found
himself with nightmares during sleep, intrusive thoughts while awake, a
hypervigilant stance combined with an exaggerated startle reaction, and
a seeming inability to control basic emotions like anger and sadness.




The price he paid for what would only be diagnosed decades later as
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was broken marriages and relationships,
inability to hold down jobs leading to bankruptcy, alcohol abuse, and
having to hide the service he willingly gave to his own country.



In 1989, David eventually recovered through a simple but powerful
technique known as Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) and is now
symptom-free. Not just for veterans, TIR has since been successfully
applied to crime and motor vehicle accident victims, domestic violence
survivors, and even children. His story shows what is possible for
anyone who has suffered traumatic stress and that hope, healing, and
recovery can be theirs too.



What People Are Saying About My Tour In Hell



"His autobiographical work is a must read for veterans who remain stuck
between two worlds. Healing is not forgetting; healing is making sense
of the past in order to live life in the present with a restored hope
for the future. Powell articulates this process very well and has given
a tremendous gift to the combat veteran community of any generation."

- Father Philip G. Salois, M.S., National Chaplain, Vietnam Veterans of America



"The connection of David's problems in his current life and his Viet
Nam experiences is one of the clearest descriptions of how trauma affects
our lives I have ever read. My Tour in Hell is a tribute to David's unwillingness to give up on himself in the face of great unhappiness."

-Laura W. Groshong, LICSW (Seattle, WA)



"Years in combat zones, group psychotherapy with combat vets diagnosed
with PTSD and TIR training qualifies me to recommend this book.
Those in the helping professions will learn how the negative
emotional 'charge' of trauma can be partially or totally eliminated through
the adept facilitation of Traumatic Incident Reduction."

-Sister Kateri Koverman, LISW, ICDC



"Powell presents a brutally honest and riveting account of one man's
descent into the dehumanizing realities of war. However, the journey is
worth it to relive his dramatic ascension and redemption from the abyss