Vietnam vet, wife help new generation of veterans

Vietnam vet, wife help new generation of veterans
Times Online
By Rachel Morgan
Posted: Saturday, October 26, 2013

AMBRIDGE -- Rich and Connie McCracken will mark their 46th wedding anniversary in December. But life hasn’t always been a celebration for this Ambridge couple.

Rich served as an Army corporal with the 5th Special Forces, 1st Group in Vietnam from 1968-69, while his wife was home with their first child, born just five days before he left. Rich returned home one month after his daughter’s first birthday.

And Connie was ready for their new life to start.

“I had all these plans for us, how our life was going to be,” she said.

But for Rich, who suffered from anxiety, depression, flashbacks, isolation and addiction, moving on wasn’t easy.

“When I came home, I gravitated (toward) alcohol to kind of suppress my thoughts,” he said. “I thought that I was crazy, that I was literally crazy. And I didn’t want to tell anybody. I thought it was just me, the war did this to me and nobody else and I’m just this way.”
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