“There is no doubt that my time in the Marion County Veteran’s Treatment Court saved my life

In Ocala, special court for veterans learns more about PTSD

Ocala Star Banner
Joe Callahan
March 5, 2019

“There is no doubt that my time in the Marion County Veteran’s Treatment Court saved my life,” White said on Tuesday after he listened to a PTSD seminar organized by Marion County Veteran’s Treatment Court.

Sgt. Jason White, an Ocala native, had just retired from the U.S. Marine Corp in 2014 after serving 10 years and two tours in Iraq.

White, 33, who was in the Florida foster care system as a child, arrived home to his wife of five years and his 5-year-old daughter, both of whom were strangers due to his service, White shared on Tuesday.

White has been battling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ever since he returned home.

When he returned home, he had many tell-tale stressors. Besides childhood trauma from his time in foster care, he stressed about being a husband to a wife he had never lived with and a father to a child he barely knew.

Those struggles led him down a dark road, he noted. Erratic behavior and substance abuse led to a divorce, which he said devastated him.

All that changed a couple of years ago. An incident with his ex-wife led him to court on a misdemeanor charge and subsequently into the open arms of officials with the Marion County Veteran’s Treatment Court.

White says treatment court, founded nearly seven years ago, provided the headlights to help steer him off that long, winding dark road.

Today, he has joint custody of his daughter and now helps veterans as a Florida outreach coordinator for the PTSD Foundation of America.
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