Veterans Ride 2 Recovery of PTSD

Meeting the California Challenge
GREENFIELD RIDER PEDALS TO HEAL PTSD
Santa Maria Times
Brian Bullock
October 18, 2013

For Estevan Rojas, a Marine Corps veteran participating this week in the Ride 2 Recovery’s California Challenge, his war wounds didn’t become evident until six years after he returned from Iraq.

The Greenfield native was a rifleman in a company that took part in the initial invasion, motoring from Kuwait to Baghdad. Rojas was discharged in 2005 after serving four years and returned to his hometown.

It wasn’t until 2011 that his wife Maria pushed him to seek treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. Rojas said he’d become aggressive toward his wife and children, easily agitated, and he couldn’t sleep through the night.

Gil Ramirez at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Menlo Park helped Rojas deal with his demons through cycling.

“When I got out of the Marine Corps I thought I was fine,” Rojas said during a break from the ride in Old Town Orcutt. “I didn’t know what the symptoms of PTSD were.”
read more here