0:00

Hi.

0:00

This is Dave ICE, founder of StoryCore.

0:03

Support for our podcast, and the following

0:05

message comes from Morgan Stanley, a

0:07

proud sponsor of StoryCore. Morgan

0:09

Stanley is committed to giving back and to

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fostering meaningful dialogue among people

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and communities, morganstanley dot

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com.

0:19

So far

0:19

this season, we've touched on some heavy

0:22

stigmas.

0:23

Secrets of the past dealing with shame

0:25

and

0:25

searching for forgiveness. In

0:28

this episode, we're gonna talk about the challenge

0:30

of losing your identity

0:31

as a soldier. society

0:34

tells us all the time what normal should

0:36

look like. And if you're in the military, those

0:38

expectations can be even more intense.

0:41

because soldiers are supposed to be tough and

0:43

showing no weakness.

0:44

Sergeant Matthew Perry grew up with his own

0:47

image of what it meant to serve. and he

0:49

always dreamed of being a soldier.

0:51

From what I heard from

0:53

my family, I wanted to be a marine since I was

0:55

six years old.

0:56

I loved being a marine. The

0:58

thing that I admired about you the most

1:00

when I first met you was that

1:03

you were so dedicated to

1:05

the marine corps everybody jokes and says you

1:07

ate the apple, loved the core. But

1:09

what happens when that identity is lost?

1:12

They said, well, what do you remember? and you

1:14

kind of thought for a minute and he said, I'm a

1:16

marine. Right? I'm a marine. And

1:19

we were like, yep, you're a marine. This

1:21

week for Veterans Day. We're gonna hear

1:23

the story of a marine fighting to stay who

1:26

he was, and the woman who helped

1:28

him find a new purpose. It's

1:30

historical podcast from NPR. I'm

1:32

Camilo Kashani.

1:48

In

1:50

two thousand eight, Matthew Perry was hit

1:52

by three IEDs in one day.

1:54

An

1:55

IED is an improvised explosive

1:57

device. They left him with multiple

1:59

traumatic brain

1:59

injuries, but

2:01

that didn't stop him. He

2:03

continued to serve.

2:05

And then a few years later, while

2:07

on leave from the Marines, he met a college

2:09

student named Helen. Our

2:11

first date was olive garden,

2:13

and that was very fancy for us, Ben.

2:15

You were kind of chunky back in

2:17

the day. Debit stateingly handsome. You

2:19

forgot. Debit stateingly handsome. And

2:22

you were a nerd on my level, so we could have good

2:24

Star Trek conversations. Kirk is better

2:26

than the card. That is debatable. Okay.

2:29

And

2:29

you were funny, and optimistic, and

2:32

nothing could break you.

2:34

Helen and Matthew got married. They started

2:37

to build life together. And during that

2:39

time, Helen finished nursing school

2:41

and joined the military too. Then

2:44

one day, in twenty fourteen, She

2:46

got a phone call. It was from

2:48

King's Bay naval base where Matthew was

2:50

stationed. They said his car needed

2:52

to be moved. And I said,

2:54

well, why don't you call Matt? And they said, oh,

2:56

we didn't realize you didn't know Matt

2:59

how to seizure.

3:01

And I said, no, he didn't. Like, don't say that. You're gonna

3:03

get him kicked out of the military. And they said, ma'am, you don't

3:05

understand if something happened. You

3:07

need to get down here. When

3:09

Helen

3:10

got there a couple hours later,

3:11

Matthew had already been discharged from the hospital.

3:14

But because she was critical care nurse, She

3:17

took one look at him and knew that something

3:19

was wrong. You would go from

3:22

talking really, really quickly to talking

3:24

very slowly and you

3:26

couldn't really remember my name.

3:29

You suddenly stopped talking and

3:32

you did what's called fencing pose. Your

3:34

arm kinda goes up into this. weird position.

3:37

We got you down the floor and

3:40

you stopped breathing. And

3:42

I remember saying, oh my god, I don't

3:44

feel a pulse.

3:46

Matthew had a serious grandmal

3:49

seizure. It's an uncontrolled

3:51

electrical disturbance in the brain that

3:53

causes a loss of consciousness and violent

3:55

muscle contractions, and his

3:57

heart stopped. Helen reacted

3:59

the only way she knew how. She gave

4:01

him a precordial thump, which

4:04

is basically like a big punch to the

4:06

chest. You immediately

4:08

took this big and

4:11

I just remember

4:13

how relieved I felt. But

4:16

when he came to something was

4:18

different. The doctor came in and started

4:20

doing the neuro exams. What year

4:22

is it? You didn't know? What

4:23

was your name? You lifted up

4:26

your wrist and read your

4:28

name off the bracelet. You said, Perry,

4:30

Matthew r. And they said,

4:32

do you know who this is? And

4:34

you turned and looked at me and said,

4:36

she seems familiar. you're

4:38

so, like, real attached to me. Like, if

4:40

you went for a test, you'd be like she needs to

4:42

come. And I remember asked you one time,

4:45

what if I had been the cleaning

4:46

lady? You might have just

4:48

been taking out trash, but you were there. But I

4:50

was there.

4:51

And then they sent you home

4:53

and

4:53

two months later three months later.

4:55

You still had no memory.

4:59

Matthew's memory still hasn't fully

5:01

come back. The trauma from the blast

5:03

back in two thousand eight led to something

5:05

called post traumatic epilepsy, which

5:08

is a cognitive disorder. It

5:10

did serious damage to both his long

5:12

and short

5:12

term memory. And

5:14

what's wild is that sometimes these

5:16

injuries don't even show up until

5:18

five to ten years later, like in Matthew's

5:21

case, and they can be debilitating.

5:25

But Matthew was more worried about if

5:27

he'd be able to keep doing the thing he

5:29

loved the most. The

5:30

moment they told me I had Caesars

5:33

with the moment, I knew, okay, they're

5:35

gonna kick me out of the core. Now it's

5:37

just like, well, there's nothing else that will make me

5:39

happy, nothing else

5:41

was on my mind. All I knew was

5:44

I'm not gonna be a marine anymore. I

5:47

think the thing that affected you the most was

5:49

for a long time, you didn't know what kind of a marine

5:51

you were and you were worried that maybe you weren't a

5:53

good marine. I don't

5:55

remember the good times or the bad times,

5:57

and Even though they're bad times, it would

5:59

be nice to know

6:01

them.

6:03

And one of those bad times

6:04

was coming face to face with

6:06

the impacts of war.

6:22

Going

6:22

back to the day the blast. when

6:24

Matthew was hit by three IEDs, there

6:26

was something else that happened. His

6:29

best friend,

6:30

Ivan Willie Wilson, had

6:32

been killed.

6:34

you are wearing a bracelet right now

6:36

that has Willie's memorial

6:38

on it. And

6:41

we took that off of you when you're in the hospital,

6:43

obviously, because you couldn't have anything

6:45

hard on you for seizure precautions. And

6:48

so when we got home, I set

6:51

it aside and you

6:53

were just kind of

6:55

you were so confused that you would fold the

6:57

same basket of Andre repeatedly, and

6:59

it would keep you busy so that I could go do things

7:01

like make dinner and things like that.

7:04

And one day, I came in. And

7:06

this was only a couple of days outside of the intensive

7:08

care

7:09

unit, and you walked

7:11

out of the bedroom and you were holding the bracelet.

7:15

And

7:15

you

7:16

asked me, you said

7:17

something really bad happened, didn't

7:19

it? because you mentioned that Willie's name was

7:21

on there, and I had to explain to you

7:23

what happened to Willie. And that was

7:26

really horrible.

7:28

just

7:28

because I knew how much it

7:30

hurt you and I was sort of realizing

7:33

how sick you were and I

7:35

just hated having to be the one to give

7:37

you that news.

7:39

who I know

7:40

you don't remember any of that to you.

7:42

No. Yeah.

7:44

I don't really remember, like,

7:46

how we met. The reason why I remember

7:49

that we're close is because I have a photo

7:52

of me and him going to Iraq

7:54

or Afghanistan? Yeah. I was

7:56

Afghanistan. It was Afghanistan. We're on a plane,

7:58

and we're both sleeping. And

7:59

both of our heads are resting

8:03

on

8:03

each other.

8:05

How would you describe your memory

8:07

loss to a stranger? Just frustrating

8:09

that I

8:11

don't remember and every

8:13

day is kinda like a new day and everything

8:15

behind it was

8:16

deleted. If,

8:17

like, reading the back cover of a

8:19

movie but

8:20

not watching the movie. Which I guess you get

8:23

to skip some of the boring parts. Maybe that's a part.

8:25

Yeah. It's a romantic part.

8:28

Truthfully,

8:29

I don't know why

8:31

some things stick around and the other things

8:33

don't. I remember

8:34

one time you told me it's hard to know what you're

8:36

missing if you don't know what you're missing.

8:38

It's

8:39

just gone. Mhmm.

8:42

How do I help you? Oh, here we

8:44

go. How

8:46

much time do you got? you

8:47

go to my appointments because if

8:49

you did not, I would not be able to explain

8:52

what's going on with me.

8:53

At all,

8:54

you help me fill out paperwork

8:56

because I sometimes date

8:59

things nineteen sixties.

9:01

You

9:01

told me one time I was your service support

9:03

wife. I know that one

9:05

of the things that I've started asking you

9:08

is how you feel about things because

9:10

I know that

9:11

knowing your emotions

9:13

for a certain experience is something

9:15

that you don't remember a lot. So

9:17

I'll ask you, like, did

9:19

you like this? Were you excited? Were

9:21

you anxious so

9:24

that I can remember for you. And

9:26

and

9:26

then that way, when you ask me

9:28

about it later on, I can sort of

9:30

be your working memory to fill it in for

9:32

you. Just remember

9:34

that. Sometimes I'll I'll throw in fake stuff just

9:37

to throw you off. That's almost. --

9:39

vegetables. You used to not eat anything

9:41

green. You would eat some salad with ranch. And

9:43

then when you came home from the hospital, I

9:46

started with chicken and broccoli. And you

9:48

said, do I like this? And I said, yeah.

9:50

It's your favorite. That's why I made it.

9:52

And then we tried a asparagus, and

9:54

we tried brussels sprouts, and we figured out which

9:56

veggies you really like and don't like.

9:57

Yep. Marriage

9:59

based online.

10:03

To

10:03

keep their lives on track, Helen and Matthew

10:05

came up with a system. They set up whiteboards

10:08

around the house with important information. Calendars

10:10

with daily routines, alerts for all the

10:12

medications Matthew takes, basically

10:14

all the things they need to keep

10:16

life moving. But

10:18

even with all their systems, their

10:20

love, and their humor, they

10:23

still struggled. I

10:24

know a bunch of other guys. If they had

10:26

my injury, those officers have been out the

10:28

door real quick. Was

10:31

there ever a time when

10:33

you wanted to give up on us Oh

10:35

man. We've

10:36

had some rough times.

10:48

So far, this has mostly been Matthew's

10:49

story. After the

10:52

break, We'll hear what Helen was going through.

10:55

Stay

10:55

with us.

11:27

I'm Dave ICE, founder of Story Corp. This

11:29

message comes from NPR sponsor Subaru.

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wilderness.

12:02

Navigating

12:02

a relationship with severe memory

12:04

loss is something that most people probably

12:06

can't imagine. Matthew

12:09

was constantly facing a path that he

12:11

couldn't quite hold on to. And

12:13

Helen became his caregiver, nurse.

12:15

partner, and his

12:17

memory bank. Over

12:19

time, she started forgetting

12:21

how to take care of herself.

12:24

In twenty sixteen, Matthew was forced

12:26

to retire from

12:26

the Marine Corps. A

12:28

few months later, Helen left active duty

12:30

too. She decided to go on a

12:33

three week humanitarian aid trip to the

12:35

Middle East. And not long after she got

12:37

home, she has some really hard realizations.

12:40

When

12:40

I came back from Iraq, I was

12:43

broken and lost. Part of

12:45

what made it so bad was I was in this

12:47

horrible war zone, and

12:49

I was happier there than I was

12:51

at home. By

12:52

the time she got back to the states, they were

12:54

both dealing with serious depression.

12:57

But Helen couldn't quite let go.

13:00

People

13:00

used to heckle me because, you

13:02

know, even though we were separated

13:05

at that point, I would still

13:07

message you to be like, did you take your meds?

13:10

Do you know when your appointment is? You know, trying

13:12

to keep you squared away with that kind

13:14

of stuff? and then you got in a

13:16

bike accident and broke

13:18

your collarbone. When

13:20

you woke up that night after surgery, you called me

13:22

and you said, I don't wanna get divorced anymore. I

13:24

I wanna work this out. I was like, okay.

13:27

We'll try to work things out. I

13:29

remember the hospital part. I don't remember

13:31

the phone call. Yeah. but

13:34

it was never because I wanted to give up on

13:36

you. That wasn't any of it

13:38

at all.

13:45

They

13:45

started finding their way back to each other.

13:47

They continued to go to therapy, and

13:50

reimagined what normal looked like

13:52

for them. And then another

13:54

big life change happened.

14:08

Do

14:08

you remember what you said when I posted the

14:11

ultrasound on the bathroom mirror?

14:14

You were like, what's this, and then

14:16

you got very excited. Doctors

14:18

had been telling them for the last ten

14:20

years that they couldn't have their own

14:21

kids.

14:22

I do remember Ethan's birth.

14:25

I was the first one they got to hold them, and then

14:28

I got to take them to the room and spend

14:30

just solid two hours Just

14:32

me and him. Nobody else. Don't

14:34

one hundred percent remember how I felt

14:36

though. What's

14:38

your favorite part of the day?

14:40

Ethan. Waking up

14:42

and changing his diaper in medium.

14:45

After you give him a bath, you're

14:48

looking dinosaur. And

14:53

he's just calm and you're giving

14:55

him his milk and he's like just

14:57

winding down towards bedtime,

15:00

especially when he burps and smells like formula.

15:02

I don't know why people complain that it's like

15:04

a pleasant smell.

15:08

What

15:09

are your biggest fears? That

15:11

I'm gonna fail as a father.

15:13

You're

15:13

a great daddy, though.

15:16

for the beginning part.

15:18

But

15:18

when he gets older and starts to ask

15:20

me questions, that's

15:21

gonna be really tough because it can be hard

15:23

to tell him to do it this way,

15:25

this way if can't remember how to do it myself.

15:29

Everybody else grows up and they

15:31

learn from the experiences.

15:33

I don't get that.

15:35

You have so much love

15:38

for that little boy and

15:41

you turn all of the same love and

15:43

attention that you had for the core you

15:45

give to him times a thousand.

15:47

And

15:47

I get to be a stay home daddy.

15:49

and you do it with

15:52

a smile on your face.

15:55

Matthew

15:55

has a new purpose in life.

15:57

Being a father. but

15:59

he won't ever be an active duty marine again.

16:02

And the honest truth is that his

16:04

condition is only gonna get worse.

16:06

was

16:06

really hard when you realized

16:09

your seizures weren't going away.

16:11

I

16:11

feel like I'm a volcano. It's

16:13

not a matter of if it's when And

16:16

I don't know when that's gonna come. I don't

16:18

know how big it's gonna be.

16:20

How do we overcome those fears?

16:23

I don't think we really overcome them.

16:25

think we just live our lives. Yeah.

16:28

We make bucket list and do things

16:30

that everyone says they wanna do,

16:32

but they

16:33

don't? I

16:34

think when you first started having your seizures,

16:37

it was eye opening

16:39

moment for us to realize that life is

16:42

literally very short, and we just

16:44

need to make the best out of it,

16:47

love all the people around us, and laugh

16:49

as much as we can. in

16:51

your mirror, marine, marine, or nothing but joke?

16:54

You are nothing but jokes.

16:56

Am

16:57

I still the same person?

16:59

you're

16:59

still the same person.

17:01

You still have this optimism

17:04

about you and life

17:06

and still make fun of me.

17:09

You're still just you.

17:23

Matthew

17:23

eventually received a purple

17:25

heart. And Helen still works part

17:27

time doing humanitarian aid relief in war

17:29

zones. Their son's middle

17:31

name is Wilson. in honor of

17:33

Matthew's friend who was killed in Afghanistan, and

17:36

they're expecting their second child in February.

17:46

That's all for this episode of the StoryCore podcast.

17:48

It was produced by our lead producer, Eleanor Vicili

17:51

and edited by Jared Sport, who's our senior

17:53

producer. Our technical director

17:55

is Jared Floyd, who also composed

17:57

our theme song. Our associate producer

17:59

is Max Young

17:59

Rice. Our fact checker is Erica Anderson,

18:02

and Jasmine Morris is our story consultant. To

18:05

see

18:05

what music we use in the episode, go to storycore

18:08

dot org, or you can also check out original artwork

18:10

by Lynn Lucia. For

18:12

the Story Corp. podcast, I'm Camilo Kashani.

18:15

Catch

18:15

you next week.

18:25

Support

18:25

for this podcast comes from the Corporation

18:27

for Public Broadcasting. a private corporation

18:30

funded by the American people.

18:33

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