New veterans court aims to help soldiers struggling at home

If this Marine had been treated for PTSD instead of forced to use alcohol and drugs to cope, then he wouldn't have been discharged. There would have been one more Marine receiving treatment and sent back to the job he loved but instead, there is one less Marine, without help and a less than honorable discharge.

While Veterans Courts acknowledge the fact there are complicated issues tied to service, service organizations have yet to adapt. They will still not allow anyone without an honorable discharge into their groups. It doesn't matter what the circumstances were. It doesn't matter that for too many, legal issues can be tied to their service. Remember the years when it was reported soldiers were being diagnosed with "preexisting personality disorders" instead of PTSD? They were discharged under less than honorable as well and they received nothing.

Wheeler's trouble started on his way back to Minnesota. Like the other Marines in his unit, he used alcohol and marijuana to numb his memories. He failed a drug test one month before his discharge and spent 30 days in the brig.

New veterans court aims to help soldiers struggling at home
by Jessica Mador, Minnesota Public Radio
March 22, 2010

Chaska, Minn. — The Pentagon estimates that as many as one in five veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will suffer from mental health problems as a result of their military service.

Many returning veterans with conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder get in trouble with the law. Some wind up in the criminal justice system for years while their PTSD goes untreated.

This summer, a new court opens in Hennepin County to divert these veterans from prison, and get them the services they need to recover.

Veterans Treatment Court aims to help veterans like former Marine Jonathan Wheeler.

With his two children napping upstairs, Wheeler's townhouse in Chaska is quiet. But until recently, things weren't so peaceful.

Wheeler pulls open a sliding closet door he ripped out of the frame, in one of many violent rages.

"Pictures that used to be hanging here are gone, because I broke them," said Wheeler. "I broke a lot of pictures of my wife and I. I don't know why I was so mad at her. I wasn't. I think I was just taking it out on her. But I broke a lot of pictures and ripped up a lot of stuff that was memorable, because of how angry I was. I took my anger towards something else, an object or something."

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New veterans court aims to help soldiers struggling at home