On Monday, before the fireworks start, Corbin Ortiz will go into his basement and turn up the music to drown out the sounds of explosions in the sky.

The Air Force veteran was home eight months when he experienced his first post-deployment Fourth of July, after being stationed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan for 6 1/2 months.

“I dropped to the ground every single time,” said Mr. Ortiz, 25, of Maumee. “I still have that reaction where I just want to drop, especially if I’m not expecting it. I’ll hear it, do a stutter step, get lower. I have to turn on music and put on headphones and do whatever I can to distract myself from that.”

A trigger for post-traumatic stress, regardless of a formal diagnosis, can be any loud noise — including fireworks, which seem to be on display nightly this time of year. Several local veterans said organized fireworks, like a city-sponsored event, are a less-harrowing reminder of combat, and that one-off neighborhood displays or a singular explosion from curious teenagers tend to be more unnerving.

Psychologists at the Toledo Veterans Affairs Community Based Outpatient Clinic said each veteran handles post-traumatic stress differently. Some who have struggled with fireworks in years past might want to re-engage and go to a show with their families; others prefer to not have the experience.

There are veterans who seek additional services in summer months, anticipating coming fireworks.

For those veterans, their treatment “focuses more on how do we get through these difficult few weeks, having unpleasant experiences, unscheduled fireworks going off around you — what does that look like?” said Carissa Wott, a clinical psychologist at the Toledo VA.

Amy Bixler, the Toledo VA supervisory clinical psychologist, said the center does not see an influx of veterans seeking services around the holiday, but veterans who haven’t sought services in awhile might come back around.

“They just want some additional support during the start of summer or July,” Ms. Bixler said.

There are campaigns that pop up, mostly online, that ask people to not set off unsanctioned fireworks. Veterans can order yard signs for free from an organization called Military with PTSD. The red, white, and blue signs read: “Combat veteran lives here. Please be courteous with fireworks.”

The signs are available on a first-come, first-served basis as donations are made to fund printing and shipping. Signs can be ordered online at shopmilitarywithptsd.ecwid.com. Similar signs can be purchased elsewhere online.

The National Center for PTSD estimates that of the servicemen who served in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, 11 percent to 20 percent experience post-traumatic stress disorder in a given year. Veterans of the Gulf War are affected at a rate of about 12 percent, and Vietnam veterans are affected at a rate of about 15 percent.

Of all Americans, about 7 percent to 8 percent will experience PTSD at some point in their lives, according to the National Center for PTSD, a branch of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Vietnam

Jim Farley was 21 years old when he spent a year in Vietnam as an infantryman.

“Every time a loud noise happened over there, someone got shot or hurt or killed,” said Mr. Farley, a Berkey, Ohio, native who now lives in Hillsdale, Mich. “We were in a lot of ambushes. That starts out usually with an explosion and a lot of automatic weapons fire.”

His first Fourth of July back home “was just terrible. I literally wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere,” he said. “It brought back too many bad memories.”

It's been 46 years since Mr. Farley was in combat, and he figured time would heal those wounds. At a recent party, as everyone was leaving and cleaning up, someone popped a balloon.

“I about ate the bar,” he said. “I don't think you ever get away from that reaction.”

Muscle memory takes over when a veteran is startled, Ms. Wott said.

“When veterans who have PTSD hear fireworks, what happens is that sound is similar to sounds they've heard in the past through traumatic or difficult events,” she said. “The body responded the same way it did in the past; it doesn't differentiate between past and present.”

Veterans might experience an increased heart rate, shortness of breath, muscle tension, shakiness or tremors, and increased adrenaline.

Gulf War

During Operation Desert Shield, Rex Davis, who served 2 1/​2 years in the Marines, said the silence was almost harder than the constant gunfire.

“When it's really silent, you never know what's going to happen,” said Davis, 45, of Toledo, a writer for Toledo Streets.

Now, though, it's the noises that bother him: gunshots, the backfire of a car ...

“They bring back memories I don't like to think about too much,” he said.

There have been times, Davis said, that he’s been startled by an unexpected noise and flinched or ducked. More than once he’s been called out for it, he said.

“It bothers me,” he said. “Make fun of me if you want to. Call me names. You don't know the [stuff] I've seen.”

Last year, a couple of kids in the Harvard Terrace neighborhood in South Toledo used coffee cans to craft a few “homemade bombs.”

“I don't know what the hell these idiots were doing … but they blew one up. I went outside; I didn't know what it was,” said Colman Garcia McCord, 55. “They blew up another one. … I hit the ground. I was on the ground. I was, like, flat. You get flat on the ground so you don't catch a piece of metal.”

Mr. McCord spent about six months in Iraq, from September, 1990, to March, 1991, during Operation Desert Storm. There, as an Army infantryman, Mr. McCord’s job was to shoot missiles at tanks.

“Our job was to basically lay ambush and sneak up on tanks and blow them up or sneak up on other things and blow them up,” he said.

Mr. McCord's unit would come under fire, figure out where the enemy was shooting from, and call in an airstrike or “shoot bigger missiles than what I handled.”

“When we were in control of making loud noises it wasn't so bad, but when they came out of nowhere, bad things happened,” he said. “Then you start getting nervous about them.”

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Adam Eilerts, 43, of Sylvania, spent 18 years in the Marines before retiring due to an injury. He served three tours, one of them — from 2006 to 2007 — in Fallujah.

“IEDs were something that occurred daily,” he said.

Every single day, he said, a vehicle exploded or his unit was engaged in a firefight. His unit lost 22 men.

It took three years for him to be able to see fireworks.

“The first two years, I just stayed out of the way. I stayed inside,” he said.

Now, if he's taking his children to see fireworks, he feels OK because he knows what's coming. The unexpected fireworks, though, still rattle him. Once he had to confront some neighborhood kids who were setting off fireworks at a rapid pace.

“I got pretty agitated,” he said.

Outside there was smoke. The smell from the explosions lingered.

“Wow,” he said. “It takes you a second to remember where you're at.”

Any veteran interested in services can call either the Ann Arbor VA, 734-769-7100, or the Toledo Community Outpatient Clinic (which is part of the Ann Arbor system), 419-259-2000. A veteran in crisis should call 1-800-273-8255 and press 1.

Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.

First Published July 3, 2016, 4:00 a.m.