Families of war veterans don't get the help they need

We don't get the help we need to help them and that is a fact. It has been a fact in this country since the first battle. Men and women serving in the military are always first on the list to do whatever the leaders of this country say needs to be done and then they come last in the minds of the general population. After the "movie quality" action is over and done with, the national media outlets find better things to cover so they move onto it ignoring what is happening to the people we sent in. When they come home, there is even less coverage of what is happening to them and as hard as it is on them, it is even harder on their families.

Families of war veterans don't get the help they need, officials say

Written by
Jon Walker
FILED UNDER
News
Families are the new casualties of war, service officials said Wednesday at a Sioux Falls forum.

"Have we taken our eye off the prize?" said Phil Ringstrom, an American Legion spokesman.

Ringstrom said divorce and family discord are problems far outpacing the government's ability to help veterans returning from war.

He spoke in a roundtable at Legion Post 15 where 25 officials from Veterans Affairs and other agencies discussed issues that rural service members face, such as access to care and strain on families. The Rehabilitation Committee of the Minnesota American Legion came to Sioux Falls to sponsor the session because service needs of Minnesota overlap with South Dakota.

Ringstrom, a former Vets Center leader in Sioux Falls and now a Legion committee member in Minnesota, said the military has trouble keeping up with the needs of its modern forces.
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Familes of war veterans don't get the help they need, officials say
Familes of war veterans don't get the help they need

We've come a long way since the days when men like my husband came home from Vietnam and were expected to "just get over it" and get on with their lives. When I met him in 1982 there was nothing available in terms of support for families, so it was up to us to do the best we could for them on our own. Many of our families fell apart and some kids ended up hating their Dads instead of being able to know why they acted the way they did. We were under so much stress that something as simple as going home at the end of the day left us regretting having to go home to one more day of turmoil. "Would he be himself today or would the stranger take over?" took over thoughts with experience taking out more and more strength to stay. Hope was hacked out of us and we knew there was no place to turn to.

What I would have given back in those days to know I wasn't alone, that there were things I could do to help him heal from what Vietnam did to him and be happily married again? We had to learn the hard way how to get there and live in a "new normal" world of living with PTSD.

It was for this reason I wrote my book, For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle. I wrote it for wives like me but in 2001 as I was still searching for a publisher, September 11th happened. I knew what was coming and PTSD would be worse for Vietnam Veterans, so I self published it in 2002 because troops were going to Afghanistan and talk of sending them to Iraq began. I revised it later and put it up on the web for free.

I can tell you first hand that we need the right kind of support and not just talk about doing it. We need someone to tell us what we are doing wrong as much as we need someone to explain what all of this is all about. I've been trying to do that for almost 30 years but I'm one person and there are well over a million families just like mine needing to learn. The support groups are great for what they do but they don't do it all. They hold the hands of the families instead of leading the way out of the darkness. These families don't want to be held. They want to be empowered. Give them the tools they need to heal their families and let them run with it. Don't just tell them you understand when you don't know what it is like. Find people who made it and find out how they did it. Learn from the experience they had to learn the hard way and stop talking about just the problem without giving any solutions.