Maine:Veterans plan Post Traumatic Stress Disorder program

Coping with stresses of war
Veterans plan Post Traumatic Stress Disorder program

By Jane Andrews


BELFAST — Dan Avener can’t stand the noise of helicopters and gunfire because they remind him of the war in Vietnam.


He was visiting a friend at a gas station when the town’s noon whistle went off and he found himself in the grease pit with no memory of how he got there. He was working in the field as a surveyor when a gun collector decided to test an AK-47 rifle. That time, he came to lying flat in the mud, but didn’t recall “hitting the dirt.”

Avener was never diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but he had heard and read many articles about veterans suffering PTSD and he decided to attend a seminar in Portland recently. He found there is a high rate of suicide and violence among veterans who suffer from the disorder.

Now, he would like to find out how many people in the Midcoast area would be interested in hearing a counselor from the Veterans Administration hospital in Togus speak about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the Belfast Free Library sometime this summer.

He and Ed Robeau, who counseled veterans at the Veterans Administration hospital in Togus until he retired, plan to set up a panel to raise awareness about the problem that afflicts veterans of all wars and will invite Major Ciro Olivares to speak.

Robeau and Olivares, both licensed clinical social workers, worked as counselors in the PTSD program at Togus where Olivares is still employed.

Olivares is an army veteran of the Iraq war and Robeau served in the air force during the Vietnam war, but wasn’t in a combat position.

“Olivares has seen people killed by rocket attacks in Iraq and came close to being killed himself,” Robeau said. “There’s no safe place.”

No firm date has been set for the program at the library, which would be open to the public and focused especially on returning Iraq veterans.

Robeau said the possibility of the Maine National Guard unit serving again in Iraq makes it even more timely.

Avener sent letters to the American Legion and the VFW Club inviting them to sponsor the panel to lend legitimacy to the event and said he may contact Waldo County General Hospital next.

He said counselors would explain what the problem is, what its symptoms are and how and where it can be treated.

Avener hears about prescriptions without counseling, and doubts that pills are enough. He said the main idea would be to point suffers in the direction of counseling and other therapies, since one veteran’s solution doesn’t always help another.

Avener is now 60 and he keeps reading and hearing about the problem.

“World War 2 veterans in their 80s have been diagnosed with PTSD,” he said.
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