A veteran has opened up about his experience and struggles after joining the Army in the wake of 9/11.
Jason Jepso says he was working as a preschool teacher’s aide but I wanted to do more in life and decided he wanted to serve his country.
Jepso said his basic training and AIT at Fort Knox was so tough that not everyone even passed.
“Some soldiers don’t even get through training,” he said. “The drill sergeants tear you down and try to bring you back up again.”
When other soldiers would cry after drill sergeants would smoke them, he said he was not affected.
“A drill sergeant would get into my face and yell: ‘Why don’t you cry?!’
“I didn’t have an answer,” Jespo recalled.
Things were different once he graduated training and arrived at his unit at Fort Irwin as a cavarly scout, he said.
“After a day of maneuvers and drills, our M113 tanks were parked in line just as the sun was going down. Three of my fellow soldiers called me over to where they were sitting.”
This was when he first experienced hazing from other soldiers as many new soldiers experience when arriving at their new units.
The three soldiers held him down and began to wrap him in duct tape.
“They taped my mouth shut,” he said. “After they wrapped the tape around my body, I was left lying on the ground in a fetal position.”
“This is it. This is how my life is going to end,” he remembers thinking as he was having trouble breathing with his mouth covered.
He claims the soldiers then presented him to their section leader as a “trophy they had captured in the wild” before cutting off the tape and releasing him.
“I walked away from that experience thinking I had been broken,” he said. “My psyche and my mental state would never be the same,” he added.
He claims after that experience he began to fail at performing his duties as a soldier, such as keeping up in runs, ironing his uniform, and even following orders.
Things got even worse for him after he decided to skip his chain of command and report soldiers in his unit smoking marijuana to a “higher officer.”
“The taping incident began a downward spiral where my life became one of mental anguish,” he said. “I was constantly on guard and suspicious of those around me. I felt paranoia and began experiencing delusions which affected my every action.”
He believed he had “special powers” and was using mind control so the other soldiers would leave him alone.
One day while on his lunch break, he decided to walk into an Army mental health office because he thought his special powers would be useful to them.
The counselors decided to evaluate him on the spot, and he claims he admitted to hearing voices.
“I heard a soldiers say: ‘Yes you are hearing voices,'” he said.
“I actually started laughing thinking I am fooling them and had special powers.”
The Army diagnosed him with schizophrenia and sent him to the Balboa Navy Hospital in San Diego for further evaluation.
At the Naval Hospital, he was diagnosed with schizotypal, which is a personality disorder characterized by deficits in social and interpersonal skills.
Their recommendation was to give him a 100% disability rating and an honorable discharge even though schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is likely genetic, according to studies.
He says he stopped taking the medication the Army prescribed him because nobody forced him to and he was eventually separated after performing menial tasks while waiting for his paperwork to go through.

“As a veteran, I felt like my country and my fellow soldiers had betrayed me,” he said.
He blames this hate for his behavior after leaving the army, such as heavy drinking, gaining weight, and chain-smoking cigarettes.
He even began to be angry at his parents for not giving him money.
“I thought my parents could hear voices too, and the voices were telling them not to give me money.”
He eventually decided to steal from them.
“I stole money from my mom’s purse to purchase cigarettes,” he said.
He was eventually arrested after trying to sell stolen CDs with their new packaging still on at a used CD store.
“If the police hadn’t shown up that evening, I don’t think I would be here today,” he said.
He says years of reflection have allowed him to forgive those who punished his poor and sometimes illegal behavior.
“I now understand that those around me at that time did not know how to handle an individual with a mental illness and who was out of control,” he said. “I forgive them.”
Writing about his experiences helps other veterans with mental health issues, he claims.
“Those who know me well know that I feel good when my writing helps someone who is a mental health consumer or a mental health advocate,” he said.
According to Newsweek, Jepso is a writer who advocates for those who have received a diagnosis of severe mental illness.
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