BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – Army Sgt. Tony Macie remembers vividly the day he knew he was at war. He was a forward observer in Iraq, on patrol outside of Baghdad, at the height of the surge in 2006. At the time, he was only 19.

“We were doing a dismounted patrol, and two guys in front of me stepped on an IED,” he said, referring to an improvised explosive device. “It was surreal seeing someone blown up, and also being just two people away from it … [The experience] kind of jolted me into this war. This is real. It’s not training anymore.”

Macie served in the Army for 15 months before a back injury not related to combat forced him to leave the Army. He returned to his childhood home in a small town outside of Brattleboro, Vermont, but couldn’t shake what he had seen. He replayed the war over and over in his mind, willing himself back in time to change the past.

“I would think about, ‘If I had been there in this situation, I could have prevented it,’ or ‘If I could have gotten retaliation after, that would have made me feel better,’” he said.

Like tens of thousands of veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Macie was eventually diagnosed with PTSD. But he says the care he received at the VA – anti-anxiety and anti-depressants combined with therapy, and painkillers for his back – only made him numb. He eventually became addicted to Oxycodone.

“You’re not dead, you’re not alive,” he said. “You’re just in this in-between state.”