Veterans find "soldier-to-soldier, peer-to-peer support"

'They have a connection with each other that's beyond words’

By Denise Whitaker

SEATTLE -- The battle never ends for wounded veterans. They fight trauma every day they're home.

But now in Washington, there's a new approach to help them find healing.

It starts as most first encounters do, with introductions. The men, standing in a circle in the woods in Snohomish County, take turns.

They're all wounded veterans who fought terrorism and now fight to repair their wounded souls.

About half are American. The rest are Israeli.

"When people come back from overseas, they bring that baggage of combat, whatever traumatic experiences they go through. And that can isolate people," said former Army Ranger Sam Barrett.

The isolation is gone here; it's soldier-to-soldier, peer-to-peer support on the path to what Barrett calls "traumatic growth."

"They have a connection with each other that's beyond words. They share with their eyes," said Rabbi Chaim Levine.

One of the Israeli soldiers said a soldier's friends and family just want everything back to normal, get back to life as you lived it before war, before your wounds. That, he said, is unfair to even ask. You cannot be normal again, he said, but you can find a place, a way to cope.
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'They have a connection with each other that's beyond words’