Little Relief on Ward 53

"See why I picked infantry?" Calloway said, his leg furiously twitching. "There's no other place in the world where you can have a job like that. It's a brotherhood that's deeper than your own family."

His romanticized ideals clashed with reality. His anti-nightmare medication made him a zombie in the morning, and he slept through his alarm. After missing morning formation, he was ordered by his platoon sergeant to pick up trash, but in the middle of his work duty he had an anxiety attack; shaking and unable to focus his eyes, he was taken to the ER, where he overheard his sergeant tell the doctor that it seemed to be a big coincidence that Calloway had an attack while doing work.

'I Can't Handle Another Day'

He often wondered why he snapped. Several factors make PTSD more likely -- youth, a history of depression or trauma, multiple deployments, and relentless exposure to violence. Calloway hit most of the criteria. He had been depressed in high school, and four months out of basic training he was in one of the most dangerous sectors of Baghdad.

Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment got to Baghdad in the fall of 2005. The roads around Yusufiyah, where they patrolled, were littered with bombs. A first sergeant was lost right away, and the casualties never stopped. Living in abandoned Iraqi houses, Calloway went weeks without bathing and days without sleep. He went on raids at night, kicking in doors and searching houses to the sound of gunfire and screams.

Calloway had never felt such excitement or sense of belonging. His best friend was Spec. Denver Rearick, a grizzled 23-year-old on his second tour. In his Kentucky cowboy wisdom, Rearick warned Calloway: "Your entire body is a puzzle before you go to war. You go to war and every little piece of that puzzle gets twisted and turned. And then you are supposed to come back home again."

The pressure and dread and exhaustion began to smother Calloway. He survived several bomb blasts. Some soldiers were sucking on aerosol cans of Dust-Off to get high, and one accidentally died. Sleep deprivation mixed with the random violence scrambled Calloway. He wore it on his face. One of the sergeants asked him, "Are you gonna kill yourself, Calloway?"

Music was his escape. On rare nights on base, Calloway, Rearick and Vosbein would strip off their armor and climb up to the roof to play guitars and harmonica. Vosbein loved Johnny Cash. He was from Louisiana, free and easy with his affections, and at 30 he treated Calloway like a kid brother.

The day Vosbein died was sunny and hot. A convoy patrol in three Humvees pulled over to check a crater in the road. As Calloway was opening his door, Vosbein was already moving toward the crater. The force of the explosion rattled Calloway's teeth and knocked two other soldiers to the ground. Vosbein -- whistling, happy Vos -- was eviscerated. Parts of him were everywhere.

Calloway buckled and puked. Then rage. He wanted to shoot the first Iraqi he saw, but his legs weren't working. He was useless to help clean up the scene. Later that night as the chaplain gathered the platoon to talk, Calloway stood off to the side with two sergeants, crying. They confiscated his weapon. Rearick sat up with him in his room until he fell asleep. His commanders watched him closely. "We want to do what's best for you," the company commander told him with compassion. "You need to tell me what you need."

"I can't handle another day of this place," Calloway answered. He was sent to the combat-stress control trailers, where the decision was made to ship him to Walter Reed.

In his room at Mologne House, Calloway kept photos from Iraq on his computer: Vosbein grilling steaks at their patrol base. Calloway's gang piled on a tank with their guitars. Driving through a blinding orange sandstorm. Rearick, wiry and invincible, smiling in a dirty cowboy hat.

"He was able to handle it," Calloway said.

But Rearick was in bad shape. While Calloway was at Walter Reed, Rearick was home in Waco, Ky., sleeping with a .45 and the furniture pushed in front of the window. He was so anxious in crowds that he no longer went to bars or restaurants, ordering his meals at the drive-through window. To rouse him in the morning, his father tossed a boot from the doorway because he startled so violently when touched.

Rearick had sought help after coming home from his first tour in Iraq. While asleep one night, he knocked his girlfriend to the floor. "I damn near broke her nose," he said. Without telling his commanders at Fort Campbell, he went to the VA hospital in Lexington, where he was prescribed antidepressants. He didn't like the pills, so he drank himself to sleep, while gearing up for his second tour.

"All the banners said 'Welcome Home Heroes,' " Rearick said. "But the moment we start falling apart it's like, 'Never mind.' For us, it was the beginning of the dark ages. It was the dreams. It was going to the store and buying bottles of Tylenol PM and bottles of Jack."

Rearick retired from the Army earlier this year. In the bucolic green of Kentucky, he threw himself into the physical work of breaking horses and moving cattle. The only places he feels safe are the pastures and his barricaded room.

"At least Calloway doesn't try to sugarcoat it," he said. "He's like, 'I'm [expletive] up and I'm pissed off.' "

Rearick knows his outlaw paradise of guitars, guns and Willie Nelson is just a cover.

"Everyone thinks you are a badass," he said. "But you are scared of the dark."

Going Home, Far From Cured

Calloway put a Johnny Cash song on his cellphone to describe his sixth month on Ward 53.

I'm stuck at Folsom Prison

And time keeps dragging on

One night he mixed Monster energy drink and Crown Royal and got so drunk he was taken to the ER at Walter Reed, which landed him in the Army's alcohol counseling program. He had to submit to a breathalyzer test at 7 each morning. "I am losing my mind more and more while I'm here," he said.

His psychiatrist had referred him to the Deployment Health Clinical Center, but Calloway blew his chance at getting into the coveted program when he missed appointments. He blamed his meds and memory problems. He had been exposed to multiple bomb blasts in Iraq, but after seven months at Walter Reed he had not been tested for traumatic brain injury, which affects memory. Instead he was given a Dell PDA to help him remember appointments.

The relationship with his psychiatrist was barely tolerable. The frustration seemed mutual. "He complained about his problems but did not seem eager to listen to any suggestions I provided him," the doctor noted in Calloway's records. He added that Calloway showed up to Ward 53 not in uniform but in cutoff shorts with his tattoos showing.

Even on high doses of sedating drugs, Calloway's rage crackled, and one night he started breaking things outside Mologne House. He was again taken to the ER, where he screamed that he wanted to kill his psychiatrist.

Finally, Calloway got what he wanted -- a new doctor. Lt. Col. Robert Forsten had served in Iraq and had published studies on combat stress. Right away, Calloway noticed Forsten's combat badge and his listening skills. Forsten agreed that the violence of Iraq was transforming and harrowing but said it should not define the rest of Calloway's life. The doctor also tried to reframe the experience. "You're a soldier," he said, according to Calloway. "You went to Iraq. You did your job.' "

Something clicked for Calloway. But it was so late in the game. His physical evaluation board process was nearly complete, and he would be going home soon. His worries turned to what diagnosis the Army would give him and how he would be rated for disability pay. His case worker had told him that she could not locate anyone at Fort Campbell to provide written proof that he had witnessed a traumatic event in combat. Forsten picked up the phone and within days had an official statement:

"During a routine route clearance in August 2006, PFC Calloway's team leader (SGT Vosbein) was clearing a suspected IED crater while PFC Calloway was inside his M1114. SGT Vosbein stepped on a crush wire that detonated 2X155 mm artillery shells. The detonation killed SGT Vosbein and knocked the remaining soldiers to the ground. PFC Calloway came to the site and saw his team leader blown apart into several pieces."

Forsten would soon get another assignment and leave Walter Reed.

The evaluation board diagnosed depression and chronic PTSD in Calloway, and ruled that his conditions had a "definite impact" on his work and social capabilities. He was given a temporary disability rating of 30 percent, which meant he would get $815 a month. He would be reevaluated in 2008. He would report to the VA hospital in Cincinnati for treatment when he got home.

After eight months at Walter Reed, Calloway showed "some improvement of his symptoms," according to his medical records. But his step-grandfather, Greg Albright, who came from Ohio to help him pack, was astounded at his volatility. "He's a grenade with the pin half-out," Albright said.

Even on his last night, Calloway avoided the open grassy spaces in front of Mologne House. He chain-smoked under the awning. He wondered what home would be like.

At dawn the next morning, he set out for Ohio, a combat infantry sticker on the bumper of his car.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this article.