Boxing cures combat trauma

Boxing cured my combat trauma three minutes at a time. 
 I was on my second tour and Iraq. We were just entering a traffic circle and all hell broke loose RPK, machine gun, fire, RPGs, and IED’s.

I was a 21-year-old who was already on his second combat deployment. I remember being in the gun and turret and one of our sergeants goes down. We hear over the radio Sergeant B is Wounded!

My corpsman/medic doc Martin runs out of my truck and runs behind the high back. Chaos is everywhere, but everything seems so calm. This very second where hell is all around, I thought to myself there is no other place I would rather be. I was protecting my doc and my Marines while he assessed Sergeant Bs wounds. 

Doc shakes his head because he can’t stop the bleeding shortly thereafter Sgt B was gone. A chill ran up my spine and a sense of helplessness hit me like a ton of bricks. I must be next I thought to myself, I hope it's quick. The moment I heard he was gone; fear and hate had entered my heart. It was one thing to be shot at it’s another thing to lose a brother. Our second tour was filled with trauma and death. I came home numb, disconnected, irritable, anxious as ever, and could not for the life of me calm my anxiety down. Every moment and every waking hour were filled with fear that I was about to die. 

My Marines and I were all self-medicating whether, drugs, porn, drinking, woman ect. It was anything that would get our minds off what we felt and saw.

I went back to what made me feel good. I picked up an old set of boxing gloves and started hitting the heavy bag. Somehow someway my anxious heart began to feel normal again. Whether I was angry or happy, I knew that all it took was three minutes and I could be normal, three minutes and I could be safe again. Three minutes on a heavy bag.

Three minutes saved my life from suicide, anger prison and so much more. This is why I started Putasos. I never want our men and women to ever feel as broken and disconnected as I did. I used boxing as therapy, physically, mentally and emotionally. 

All it takes is three minutes a round to throw some Putasos.