Military bonds draw veterans to mental health jobs

This is a great article on veterans helping veterans as well as a reminder that after all this time, all this attention and all the new groups popping up online, less than half of the veterans needing help, receive it.

Military bonds draw veterans to mental health jobs
By Maria LaMagna
Special to CNN
August 8, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Study: Only half of U.S. service members with PTSD received treatment
18 veterans commit suicide every day, VA statistics show
Programs that train veterans to assist other veterans have popped up
"They let you talk about the stuff that's ugly," one veteran says

(CNN) -- Things probably should have turned out differently for Samantha Schilling.

The stories she tells have dark beginnings and could have had, under different circumstances, dark endings -- as so many stories for those in the military do.

Schilling, now 31, served in the U.S. Navy from 1999 to 2003. She was never deployed but worked as an information systems technician at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.

Several of her friends were killed during the 2000 al Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, which left 17 dead and at least 37 injured. Some of the injured were transferred to her base in Norfolk.

Many of the survivors suffered from mental trauma after the bombing. One of them, a man who had been aboard the ship, attacked Schilling and attempted to rape her.

That assault drove home the impact that active duty had on her colleagues' mental state.

"I experienced military sexual trauma, and that just inspired me," she said. "Coming back into civilian life, you're not the same person you were in the military. ... You carry with you all these burdens, all these stressors."

Schilling was released from service with an honorable medical discharge in 2003. Since that time, she has taken on a personal mission to help others who need counseling after military service. She's nearly completed a masters in a joint military psychology and neuropsychology program at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago and plans to finish her doctorate degree in 2015.
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