This story was submitted by Sue Hannibal of Fayetteville, NC.

In September of 2006, the coordinator of our upcoming 35th high school reunion at Kenmore East HS in Tonawanda NY (outside Buffalo) screwed up the reunion website email so that for about 3 days, all of us who had registered were getting slammed with all the emails of our classmates instead of the emails going to the site.

I happened to see an email written to  the group by a classmate that I never met, (checked him out in the yearbook) and his military signature line indicated he was an Army officer stationed at Ft. Bragg. At the time, I was living in Vista, CA, north of San Diego.

I was and still am in private practice as an intuitive healer specializing in the treatment of childhood abuse/trauma and combat PTSD. I sent him a quick note to say that I didn’t remember ever meeting him in HS,  but that if he had any PTSD or trauma from his service in Iraq, I would be happy to treat him for free over the phone. I referred him to my web site, and immediately regretted it because I figured that a conservative military officer would take one look at a medical intuitive clairvoyant healer and probably think I was a witch or something.

To my surprise, he did call the next day and we started chatting. Almost immediately, he said the word “ambush” and got triggered. His voice got louder, he was breathing hard and I could sense his distress. I said, “you’re in it.. do you want a sample of this healing stuff I do? All you have to do is repeat what I say and tap with your fingertips on the release points where I tell you.” He said, “OK, let’s do it.”

Knowing only that he was ambushed, I led him through a healing procedure to release the terror, anger, anxiety, etc. inherent in that experience. It took about 5 minutes of acupressure tapping, ie ” Iraq–the ambush–they tried to kill me– they tried to kill all of us–I thought I was going to die that day– but I didn’t die– they didn’t get me that day– all of a sudden they were everywhere– they hit us, etc. ”

After 5 minutes of tapping, (see YouTube from 2004, title Erase Combat PTSD with EFT) we stopped and after a moment he said, ” do you mean to tell me that I’ve been going to the VA twice a week for 2 years for nothing? It’s gone. What did you do to me?”  His anxiety and explosive anger over that ambush and the death of a good friend was released and has not returned.

He came out to San Diego to meet me over Christmas/New Years 2007. We fell in love and were married in August 2007. So far, we’re living happily ever after. He is going to deploy to Afghanistan in January 2010 and I am continuing to treat combat vets for PTSD.

After years of doing everything that twenty year olds do to mess up their lives, I finally gave in and enlisted in the Army. Considering I was an out of the closet gay man for more than five years, it was a hard decision. Basic training was tough, but do-able and advanced language school came next.

Then I met the man who would one day become my husband. He was coming out of the shower and I was going in. What followed was a bizarre game of cat and mouse before a date of beer and pizza. My husband didn’t even know we were on a date until I held his hand in the movie theatre.

What came next took us both by surprise: an emotional rollercoaster, discovery, and finally discharges under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy. Surprisingly, that upheaval was only the first in a long series of events that have taken through Washington, D.C., Phoenix AZ and law school, and now to Los Angeles.