Families Seeking Help For Their Veterans Find It… Thank God

I felt a great wave of relief upon reading Tom Ricks blog entry, A soldier’s mother wanting to help her son, which draws attention to a remarkable exchange of ideas and suggestions in response to a mother’s request for help with her veteran son’s impending homecoming.

The new issue of Army contains a thoughtful set of exchanges from the CompanyCommand website between a mother wanting to help her son as leaves active duty and others who have been through similar experiences.

The mother, whose name is just given as Judy, said that after her son’s tour in Iraq, she found him “cold,” and “filled with hate for the Iraqis.” He shook when other cars on the road were came close. She asked, “Can we help him?”

While not a combat vet, I can sympathize with her question and the situation she was in. I am happy to see support networks of varying degrees existent to help meet the needs of returning soliders.

My own limited experience with such matters is highlighted by the return of a shipmate who went on an “Individual Augmentee” deployment in support of OIF. When he returned, he exhibited significant changes, largely for the negative.  Matters reached a boiling point when his wife ran to a young Ensign riding his bike to the Exchange one afternoon after liberty call. Her husband slammed the car door on her arm in a rush to get her out of their vehicle because he felt there was about to be an impending attack from a Japanese dockworker’s slow-moving transport van.

Austin got the help he needed after that, but his marriage and work life were put under unnecessary strain for the first five weeks or so back because people missed the signs he was having difficulty readjusting to peacetime life and his own struggles with his experience in conflict.

Kudos to those reaching out to these families in their time of greatest challenge: the homecoming. Our combat veterans and those who love them deserve no less.