Success Story Roy
“You can’t take a 19-year-old brain and subject it to the constant threat of death or injury by rocket fire and expect it not to be affected,” Roy R. says of his year in Phu Bai and Danang during the Vietnam War and his subsequent 30-year struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Roy wasn’t an infantryman in the U.S. Army. He was a combat engineer, responsible for building roads for the troops through the jungle and demolished infrastructure of the Vietnamese countryside. But, as he points out, “There weren’t any frontlines in Vietnam. If you were there, you were in it. Everyone had the opportunity to get killed. Rockets were regularly coming down on our heads, and we were constantly under fire.”
After serving his country in Vietnam, Roy left the military in 1969. He spent a few years experimenting with different jobs: songwriter, administrative clerk, house painter, and loading dock worker, before enrolling at the New England School of Broadcasting.
So began a nearly 20-year, successful broadcast journalism career. He moved from market to market, at first for radio jobs in places like Putnam, CT and Hyde Park, NY. A friend lured him to Abilene, Texas where he got into television, and then to San Antonio. Along the way, he won awards for commercial production and jingle writing.
Eventually his career took him to XTRA-TV in San Diego, where his PTSD overwhelmed him. “It was Vietnam telling me, ‘It’s time to deal with me now.’” Depressed and unable to function, he left his job and went home to Massachusetts to “re-charge his batteries” on a friend’s suggestion.
But things only got worse in Boston. He became agoraphobic, staying inside with the blinds drawn all the time. He drank too much and avoided people at all costs. Roy lived this way for about eight years before deciding to choose between suicide and getting help. He chose the latter.
In the mid-90s, Roy went to the VA in Worcester, MA. He credits his counselor with saving his life with medication, therapy, and straight talk about “where I wanted to be in five years and how I was going to get there.”
Within a few years, Roy had earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism, magna cum laude, from UMass Amherst. But child support complications, exacerbated by the years when he couldn’t work, forced him to live in a van on a friend’s property. After deciding he was too old to live like that, Roy came to Veterans Inc. on Grove Street in Worcester, MA, which was a “godsend, giving me breathing room,” he says.
Looking back, Roy thinks soldiers from the Vietnam era were particularly susceptible to PTSD because of feelings of isolation. “In earlier wars,” he says, “a group of men trained as a unit, were sent to fight as a unit, and returned home as a unit. That meant you had an instant support system. In Vietnam, by contrast, it was the “army of one” approach. When I got to Phu Bai, I didn’t know a soul.”
Veterans Inc. gave Roy the support system he had lacked. “Just being in a group of guys going through the same thing, rubbing elbows with them, is like being back in a military unit. I think that’s the most important aspect of this place – the built-in support system.”
Roy is far from alone in waiting to get help for his PTSD. “A lot of guys think they can handle this by themselves, but the mind won’t let you suppress feelings just because you don’t want to deal with them. Eventually the situation surfaces and demands attention.”
He emphasizes that veterans shouldn’t try to fix this by themselves. “You can have friends and family who will listen to you for a while, but they are not qualified to help you overcome this.”
Having become a convert to the need for medication to treat PTSD – “as I understand it, when people are trying to kill you, it alters the interior of your brain,” he explains – he is happy to be using less medication than before. Since coming to Veterans Inc., he has started depression and anxiety counseling. “I’ll always be dealing with this – PTSD, depression, shell-shock – whatever you call it, it’s my life.”
At 62, Roy isn’t expecting to revive his once flourishing journalism career. However, he is having fun helping out a good cause, producing public service announcements for the Worcester Animal Rescue League at Channel 13 community television. He hopes to create programs or videos for another good cause eventually: helping veterans and others recognize the symptoms of PTSD.
Success Story Keri-Anne
Keri-Anne served in the U.S. Army from 2006-2008. After finding out late into her first year of service that her father had been diagnosed with cancer and would not make it through the next year, she decided to leave the service early to care for him. This was a hard decision for Keri-Anne, as she had hoped to make a career out of the military.
After her father passed away, Keri-Anne had nowhere to go and no one to turn too; she felt helpless. But once she found Veterans Inc., things started to turn around.
Now 24 years old, Keri-Anne and her 18-month-old son came to our program in early September 2011 after poor family relations and lack of child care left Keri-Anne homeless. She also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had a service-connected physical disability for which she was receiving no assistance.
As soon as Keri-Anne entered the program, she immediately met with case management to address her goals. As a single mom, her concerns were mainly focused on her son, including enrolling him in daycare, as well as obtaining training so she would become more marketable in the workforce.
Keri-Anne’s case manager worked with her to develop a plan of action, assisted her with VA and other benefits applications, and referred her to several ancillary service provider partners. Action was taken immediately to assist her in obtaining income (temporary assistance through the local Veteran Service Officer for State Chapter 115 benefits), obtaining her son’s birth certificate and her ID and social security card, all of which would assist her in getting her son enrolled in daycare and with her finding employment.
Her son was immediately enrolled in Veterans Inc.’s Little Patriots Early Learning Center, providing her with childcare and parenting support. Prior to his enrollment in Little Patriots, Keri-Anne says that her son wasn’t very verbal or social, but once he enrolled in Little Patriots, his motor and verbal skills increased tremendously. He’s so curious about everything around him and has a pretty good vocabulary for a two year old.
Keri-Anne is now actively engaged in mental health counseling and is receiving benefits from the VA for her service-connected physical disability. She has moved into her own apartment and taken some classes through Veterans Inc.’s employment and training department with the hopes of going back to school in the fall to finish her degree.