Fredericktown veteran lives with PTSD
Ray Corcoran, a Vietnam War veteran from Fredericktown, shuffles through a stack of documents pertaining to his service in the war and disability benefits related to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Deborah Gilpin and Ray Corcoran, who run Deborah’s School of Dance in Fredericktown, both have both diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The business partners have helped each other through tough times, and hope their background will help troubled children and teens who take classes at their studio.
Ray Corcoran sits in a chair as Deborah Gilpin teaches a class at Deborah’s School of Dance in Fredericktown.
Ray Corcoran holds the rope for dance student Erin Oleery as part of a workout at Deborah’s School of Dance in Fredericktown.
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Ray Corcoran and Deborah Gilpin hold the rope for Hannah Binns at Deborah's School of Dance in Fredericktown.
Raymond R. Corcoran answers to two names: Herk and Herkel.
Hospital nurses gave him the former name, a shortening of “Hercules,” the day he was born, December 21, 1946. He tipped the scale at 10 pounds, 9 ounces.
Later, while attending parochial school, he came home every day with bloody knuckles. His teacher, a nun, cracked him with a stick each time she called his name – Raymond – and he failed to respond.
“I didn’t know that was my name because no one called me Raymond,” said Corcoran, 68, of Fredericktown, while alternating between drags on a Pall Mall and sips of coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “I thought she was the meanest woman in the world. Why does she work for God?”
His speech is well-articulated and peppered with curse words. Despite not learning how to read until age 31 (a result of dyslexia), he writes eloquently about his experiences fighting in the Vietnam War and dealing with the aftermath of post-traumatic stress disorder.
This particular chapter of his life began shortly after his 17th birthday, at which time he dropped out of high school. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s speech – “Ask not what your country can do for you” – he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He also needed a job to support five brothers and sisters.
The call of duty came on Memorial Day 1965. He landed in Chu Lai with the first troops to fight in Vietnam – the “guinea pigs,” he called them.
That’s when his alter ego began to emerge.
It allowed him to disconnect from the hell of war. It enabled him to fight, to kill and to survive another day. When he returned home the following year, a friend who noticed a change in his personality started calling him “Herkel,” a slight variation of his nickname.
It became more than just a name, though. Herkel lingered. The dark persona appeared in angry outbursts and vivid nightmares. It destroyed the joy of fireworks and rock concerts. It made it hard to live.
Fifty years later, Herkel is still a part of Herk.
“I have a 19-year old, crazy, ex-Vietnam vet trapped in my head, and every once in a while he tries to take control,” he said. “And it’s a big battle between me and him of who’s going to run the show.”
For years, Corcoran struggled to understand what he was experiencing. Unable to put it into words, he handed an album of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” to his psychiatrist.
Before PTSD had a name, Corcoran was told he had a nervous disorder. Another doctor told him he was a paranoid schizophrenic with an alternate personality.
“I didn’t alter the personality,” he told his doctor. “The war altered it.”
Years later, he was diagnosed with PTSD, a result of the horrific things he had seen during the war. He is one of about 8 million adults in the United States who lives with the disorder, according to the National Center for PTSD, a program within the Department of Veterans Affairs.
PTSD stems from a harrowing event that was experienced or witnessed, and the most common triggers are rape, assault, natural disasters, accidents and war. The national center estimates that about 30 percent of Vietnam War veterans have had PTSD during their lifetime. For Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, it’s between 11 and 20 percent.
Dr. Jessica Hamblen, acting deputy executive director of the national center, said one symptom of PTSD is reliving the painful event over and over again.
“In PTSD, when you’re reminded of the event, these thoughts come sort of out of the blue in some cases,” said Hamblen, a clinical psychologist. “You’re at work, or you’re driving down the street, so you can have intrusive thoughts … that remind you of what happened.”
Psychotherapy and medication have proven to be effective treatments for PTSD, Hamblen said. Simply talking about the traumatic events can ease some of the pain.
”I think there’s a lot of fear that people have that if they finally talk about it they’re going to fall apart. I think that’s seldom the case,” she said.
Other symptoms of PTSD include avoiding certain places or situations that serve as reminders of the event, negative thoughts and hyperarousal, which can cause someone to easily feel alarmed, threatened or angry. Hamblen said about 80 percent of people with PTSD also have another diagnosis such as anxiety or depression.
Corcoran has experienced all those symptoms. The smell of oil and tar reminds him of Cosmoline, which was used to clean and preserve firearms during the war. Fireworks look and sound like the illumination flares used to light up the jungle at night.
After coming home from Vietnam, Corcoran looked forward to celebrating Independence Day with his wife and newborn child, but the experience forced him to relive battle.
”When they did the finale, I just freaked right out like I was back in Vietnam,” he said. “I started pushing people down, and I left my wife and kid there. Took off. I don’t even know how they got home.”
He still has nightmares about Vietnam every night. Sometimes, he dreams that he is a Vietnamese villager running from bullets and trying to save his family. He and his wife, Peggy, sleep in shifts, never sharing the same bed.
“I have a hard time staying in bed at night because I have horrific dreams, and I dive out of bed and into the wall, and I beat myself up every night,” he said.
Crowds of people are a source of anxiety, and he finds it hard to relate to others who don’t have PTSD. Perhaps that is why he connected so easily with longtime friend Deborah Gilpin, who is also his business partner.
Together, they run Deborah’s School of Dance on Front Street in Fredericktown. Gilpin also was diagnosed with PTSD stemming from traumatic events she experienced as a young woman.
She credits Corcoran for helping her realize that her symptoms stemmed from PTSD. She had seen several doctors before receiving a diagnosis.
“Anything you can’t deal with at that time because of whatever your situation is, then it’s going to come back and it’s going to be part of your life forever,” she said of PTSD.
Corcoran also fought to be recognized as a sufferer of PTSD. In 1996, he submitted a compensation claim to the VA, and cited his time in Vietnam, which included witnessing the deaths of hundreds of Vietnamese and a French journalist.
In a letter sent to Corcoran that same year, the VA contested the number of deaths and wrote, “The board recognizes that the veteran’s combat service was stressful, but the evidence fails to demonstrate that he was so traumatized by his experiences that he has a resulting psychiatric disorder. Consequently, we must conclude that service connection for post-traumatic stress disorder is not warranted.”
It wasn’t until September 2012 that the VA granted his claim and acknowledged that “a clear and unmistakable error was made.” He was awarded a settlement of more than $200,000, which he used to purchase the dance studio. He has another hearing scheduled for additional compensation to which he believes he is entitled.
He said he still grapples with guilt stemming from the war, and he views the dance studio as a second chance to help children.
“I hurt a lot of kids in my life in Vietnam. I made kids suffer. I take full responsibility for that,” Corcoran said. “So I think in my own sick way, I try to make compensation now and do penance and try to help kids as much as I can.”
He said the studio provides an affordable option to children from low-income neighborhoods, many whom have experienced their own challenges in life and view dancing as an outlet.
“I’m too old to try to fulfill my dreams, so I try to help other people fulfill theirs,” he said. “Then you have a sense of worth. Once you do that, you can leave this world and say, ‘Hey, I’ve helped a lot of people. I’m not as bad as I make myself out to be.'”