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Corporal Paulsen’s battalion was still in Iraq when he came to my care. He had been injured several weeks earlier, was sent home by medevac to his family and was referred by his surgeon. The corporal displayed total paralysis of his legs, but there was no medical reason for it. When I entered the waiting room before our first appointment, the young man with the blond crew cut saw my dark green Marine Corps utilities and desert boots. As a Navy clinical psychologist assigned to a Marine operational unit, I was authorized to wear their uniform. The corporal rolled forward in his wheelchair and shook my hand firmly.“You have no idea how great it is to see that uniform, ma’am,” he said with a grin.
Once in my office, knowing I would need to start slowly, I pulled my chair up next to his wheelchair and leaned back. Before I spoke, I noticed he was looking at the pictures from the war on my bulletin board. Most were of the colleagues I’d served with during my seven-month deployment to Iraq in 2004 while part of a team providing mental health care for thousands of Marines. One of my photos framed the mosque on our base within multiple circles of razor wire.
The corporal seemed focused on that photo.
“That’s Al Asad,” he exclaimed.
I nodded.
He looked at me. “So, ma’am … you were there.”
“Yes,” I said. “I was there.”
The corporal knew that his doctors could find no objective reason for his inability to move his legs. “It’s called conversion disorder,” he told me expertly. “I guess it means that my mind is messing with my legs.”
I smiled. He was right. That was exactly what it meant.
Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect privacy.
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