The Battles Continue for Veterans

I met Frank at the Vet center where he is going to college. Frank is an operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veteran with two tours, he has seen more than any 27-year-old should ever have to. He is struggling to work through what happened while he was deployed and since his return to the “real world”. Since his return home he has been battling multiple fronts and having to fight different fights. Frank was married and has a six-year-old daughter, now he is divorced and lives alone. He has been battling with the Veterans Administration (VA) over his disability, causing frustration and anger. He has been going to college but struggles dealing with the younger generation. He has recently added a battle within himself, the battle over how he feels about his time in Iraq. His emotional issues have taken over his life. Not only is he battling what he saw and had to do in Iraq, he is having to deal with emotional issues that followed him home.

Those issues have played a huge part in his families struggles. He and his wife have divorced like so many other veterans’ whose relationships have suffered the same fate. When Frank left for the first deployment he was not married. He did not want to get married to his girlfriend because he worried he would not make it back. The first deployment affected him a little, but he felt it was nothing he could not handle. After his first deployment he and his girlfriend got married and had a daughter. They had been married about 3 years and he was again called to deploy. This time he had a wife and daughter to be concerned about. Like all good troops he went and did his duty. Frank explained how he remembers the first time his problem with PTSD was noticed. After about 8 months in theatre Frank’s Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) started to get concerned, he noticed Frank had become careless and would lose his temper more often. He finished his deployment and returned home to his wife and daughter. When Frank returned, he was happy, but it was not long before the return honeymoon period ended. About a year later his wife left with his daughter because of his drinking.  Frank was not the same guy she fell in love with. Up until this point Frank had been reluctant to get help from the VA. He finally took that step for help, but it was too late for his relationship.     

When Frank finally took the step to get help from the VA, another battle started. The VA is a huge bureaucratic nightmare and can be frustrating. His first step was behavioral health, he was placed on a waitlist. He soon became frustrated and came to see me while waiting for his spot to open up. About 2 months later he was called and given an appointment. Once it was all said and done, he received an 80% disability rating for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). During this time working through the VA bureaucracy he decided to start college.

Frank explained how he was nervous about going to college. No one in his family had taken that step. He started using his post-911 education benefits. He soon found that there were battles he had to fight in college too. The college is a state-run institution and the education program is a federal program. Frank had to deal with two different bureaucracies, as a rule bureaucracies do not play well with each other. Once he was done with battling dueling bureaucracies he had to deal with immature students.  These students don’t understand him and asked, “stupid questions” like “did you kill someone?” or “was the war worth it?” This became a battle he had to deal with, he had to maintain his composure and keep calm. They did appear to affect him, because he started to have another battle within himself, was the war worth it since ISIS had taken large chunks of Iraq?    

Frank, like some other veterans now question what they were fighting for. He was glued to the TV for a while when ISIS invaded Iraq and the Iraqi Army lost control of the land they had fought so hard, shed blood, and died for. He has stopped watching the news because it brings up the negative emotions he has been trying to suppress. Even before ISIS took over parts of Iraq he was struggling to deal with the cost of the war. Frank tells very few about how he feels about the wars. He converses with other veterans who have spoken up, but he keeps his comments to a minimum. He is caught in a battle with himself and his feelings, he does not know how to feel. Frank feels if he does not care about what is going on in Iraq then he is disloyal to those who we lost. If he feels anger all his emotions he has worked hard to suppress will arise. Frank feels he should want to go back and recover what he had fought so hard for.

I am seeing more and more veterans struggling with the situation in IRAQ and I don’t see an end to it. I have talked to several in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines who, like Frank don’t know how to feel. They mourn the loss and casualties of their brothers, while questioning whether it was all worth it. This is a hard place to be, it is difficult to feel your brothers died in vain, it’s a hard pill to swallow but many are starting to fight the battle. These are the same feelings the Vietnam veterans have been feeling for years, was it worth it. Only the individual veterans can answer that question.

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