For a friend, a special way to ask for help
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The guy has been a friend of John Powers since their middle school days in Cumberland. When Powers headed for the University of Rhode Island, his friend headed for the Marine Corps.
His friend came back from Afghanistan in 2005.
“I saw his life fall off the face of the earth,” says Powers. “He couldn’t get a job.”
It has been two years, and still Powers worries. His friend will be OK for a couple of months, then get caught in that dark, frightening confusion that the Marines never prepared him for. He’ll stop calling.
So Powers did something. He is 23 and he did something extraordinary. He looked at his friend and saw hundreds and thousands of others lined up behind him with the same terrible uncertainty about what’s going wrong and what should be done about it.
“I started reading and writing,” he says.
Friday, August 24, 2007
“I saw his life fall off the face of the earth,”
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thank for taking interest in the story and my friend who is battling with life after his OEF deployment. Keep in touch, John@operationvets.com
ReplyDeleteFor too many, combat does not end. It just keeps going on and on, claiming lives, futures, families. None of it has to happen if they get into treatment as soon as possible. We need to catch them before they turn chronic. Recovery rates are a lot higher the sooner treatment begins. Yet even with the chronic, there is hope. My husband came back from Vietnam in 1971. He wasn't diagnosed until 1990. He began to receive treatment in 1993 from the VA. Although he will never fully recover, his quality of life is better. He is alive again. There is hope for all of our combat veterans facing PTSD, just as there is hope for anyone with PTSD, as long as they get treatment.
ReplyDeleteThe best results have come from the coupling of psychiatric help along with spiritual help. If their minds and souls are healed together, they can move mountains. For too many the trauma also brought the feeling of being abandoned by God. It left an emptiness within them. I've seen results from people who have emailed after they got into treatment and most have moved on to help other veterans, heal their lives as well as restore a connection with their families.
I'm grateful to every blogger out there working on PTSD. Together we can make sure what happened to veterans like my husband, will never happen again. They will not be forgotten and abandoned. Holding our hands out to them when they come home, is the best way to support them when it really matters.