Vietnam vet trains horses to help soldiers with PTSD

Vietnam vet trains horses to help soldiers with PTSD
ELIZABETH, CO
(KUSA/NBC)

A Vietnam veteran is training horses to help other veterans deal with post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

John Nash grew up on a farm in North Minnesota where he trained them the old fashioned way: He broke them.

"We broke their spirit. That's where the phrase breaking a horse comes from, from breaking their spirit," Nash said.

Life and war would eventually lead Nash from his farm in Minnesota to the jungles of Vietnam.

A Specialist 5th Class with the 1st Cavalry, Nash volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army.

He did a one year deployment in Vietnam. During that year, he lived the realities of war.

The 19-year-old soldier, who grew up breaking horses, in the end, had the same thing done to him - by war.

Nash was haunted by what he had experienced in Vietnam, but worst of all for him was living with one question.

Why had he survived when so many of his friends had not?

"Was I broken? Yeah, I was broken bad," Nash said. "I was broken to the point of total hopelessness."

The hopelessness manifested itself in the form of PTSD.

In 1967, little was known about PTSD and even less was offered in the form of treatment.

John Nash and other veterans were left to deal with the demons on their own.
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