[spiritual_emergency]

My apologies if this story has already been shared in this space. I just came across it this morning and thought others might benefit from hearing it.

Vet-to-vet counseling heals new and old soldiers

By Rachel Straus
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Vet-to-Vet founder Moe Armstrong crisscrosses the country establishing peer support centers for veterans. At his Cambridge, MA home, he takes a momentary rest. (Courtesy of Matt Stone)

Moe Armstrong came back from the Vietnam War a changed man. Diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia, Armstrong considered himself doomed.

Upon reading Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” about the horrors of a Veterans Administration psychiatric ward, he abandoned any hope of receiving adequate medical care from the government--especially when he learned that he was being transferred to the very same institution described in Kesey’s book.

From 1966 to 1984 Armstrong, a former high school football captain, wandered the West Coast, addicted to alcohol and drugs. At a New Mexico social services center, he started sharing his history with other mentally disabled people. By disclosing his experiences to his peers, Armstrong realized that he felt better. He also imagined a more hopeful future.

Today, Armstrong, 61, crisscrosses the country in support of an organization called Vet-to-Vet. His goal is to give veterans an independent forum where they can talk together about their mental and emotional scars. Because no social workers or doctors attend the veteran-run meetings, Armstrong’s Vet-to-Vet is unique.

Working with Dr. Robert Rosenheck, director of the VA Northeast Program Evaluation Center, whose published papers demonstrate the advantages of receiving peer support, Armstrong has become a national figure in the mental health field. Despite speaking engagements and network news coverage of his efforts to destigmatize mental illness, Armstrong sees himself first and foremost as a war survivor.

“I refuse to forget that part of myself,” said Armstrong, a man with a positive outlook despite all the pain he deals with. “I’m nuts. It’s part of who I am, and what makes me good at what I do.”

As a new generation of veterans return from a new war, the psychological traumas incurred from military service present a major obstacle for those re-entering civilian life. In the July 2004 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, a study found that out of 6,000 surveyed soldiers returning from Iraq, 1,000 reported symptoms of depression, anxiety or PTSD. In February, a Government Accountability Office study found that one out of seven VA medical centers surveyed reported being unprepared to care for the mental health of more veterans.

In the hope that overburdened VA hospitals will begin referring veterans to Vet-to-Vet, 26 centers have been established, from Albuquerque, N.M. to Madison, Wis. “There is going to be a boomerang effect,” said Armstrong of the coming wave of Iraq war vets. The aggression, hyper-vigilance and de-sensitivity that helped them survive the war will become liabilities, Armstrong said. Vet-to-Vet can be the balm for their trauma. “Moe has given a model of how to be at peace with yourself,” Rosenheck said.

In the next six months, Armstrong will travel to 13 states and more than 35 cities to jumpstart Vet-to-Vet centers and to strengthen pre-established ones. With grants written by Rosenheck and others, the fledgling organization is offering training programs, where vets learn how to facilitate Vet-to-Vet’s hour-long group meetings. “It’s a rowdy session,” said Rebecca Clark, a social worker who has assisted the Vet-to-Vet group in Albuquerque.

The group meetings are egalitarian, with conversations loosely organized around books written by mental health experts, including Armstrong. Last September, at a West Haven, Conn., Vet-to-Vet meeting, 12 veterans read aloud from a book about taking responsibility for mental illness, instead of relying solely on disability benefits and medication. They also discussed ways of combating depressive cycles, which are marked by anger, self-destructive activity and isolation from society.

Roy Brown, director of the West Los Angeles Vet-to-Vet and a veteran with a diagnosis of manic depression, said of his first Vet-to-Vet meetings, “What I found out there within a week and a half’s time was about as much information as I got in 20 years of being in the VA system.” Brown also gave an example of how Vet-to-Vet differs from the VA. “I have a couple of people,” Brown said, “who were given up by the VA because they are murderers.” In Vet-to-Vet, “these same people developed self-esteem and found hope.”

Although Vet-to-Vet is run by mentally disabled veterans, Sandra Resnick, associate director of the VA Northeast Program Evaluation Center, explained that “it is not trying to replace professionals” like doctors and social workers. Resnick, the lead author of a paper about Vet-to-Vet recently published in the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, said that Vet-to-Vet’s aim is to be financially separate but structurally connected to the VA. “We are trying to be partners with the VA,” she said.

Though Vet-to-Vet primarily serves Vietnam veterans, it will provide a non-judgmental and supportive environment “for the next wave of veterans,” Armstrong said. “It may take several years” for young veterans “to notice or need Vet-to-Vet,” he added.

Source: Moe Armstrong: Vet-to-Vet Counselling

See also: Hugh Massengil: Madness is a Doorway

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[Troy]

There are ppl who care

[Capp]

True about many people who care...
In my location in Georgia, we have a therapist who has devoted his life to Veterans with PTSD. Nam to Now peer support groups have benefited all of us.
One issue for current female Vets is sexual trauma. When you think someone has your back, and no one stands with you after a rape, is incredibly horrendous and heart breaking...the enemy is not supposed to be your fellow squad members.
That I know of, most of the nurses in Nam didn't go through this...we had some pompous rectal orifices in disguise as physicians. It took about one push before they realized we were not their handmaids, and began showing respect for us.

I can't help but wonder how this rape issue is going to be addressed for these women...
Cap

[FerretGuy5]

I am a Viet Nam Vet with PTSD, but atypical. Nam was fun times for me. What happened was the treatment after I returned home. I got my PTSD watching a man burn alive at a rocket factory and witness to an aircraft crash where I was first on site. I mention atypical PTSD in that I have never used an illegal drug in my life, not even marijuana. A little too much alcohol in the Army and till I was about 25, but it never involved work or legal problems.

The dividing line in Nam was TET. I was pre TET when we still thought we were going to win the war. After TET, the men were demoralized. The real factor is we should have learned from Nam that as with the current war it is not PTSD from events in Iraq that are as much a problem as the realization of events after. Wars are simply a waste of lives and the effects last a lifetime or generations after.

I mention I am also 61 years old. I was in Viet Nam from October 1966 to November 1967 in USASTRATCOM, 1st Signal Brigade, Long Lines Battalion, HQ Company,. I was in and around Saigon, Pleiku and Hue on a two man ground survelliance radar team. While the Army didn't have snipers, this was very similar. But the equipment was such as to save me from being put in too much danger. They would blow me and the radar up rather than risk it being captured. I was 19 years old on entry to Viet Nam. But the way I split the name, Viet means South. Nam was the actual country. The enemy was the Viet Mihn or Patriot Namese. Sometime after TET the two words got intermingled into Vietnam. Others cringe when I refer to Viet Nam as being the happiest time in my life. I enjoyed it, though there were a few moments of terror. Most of it was like a tropical vacation in an overly hot and humid country with lots of activity in depopulating and destroying some beautiful rain forest and other flora and fauna.

Any Nam Vets want, e-mail or PM me. I got to witness two rescues of troopers from double click land mines. It ain't like in the movies. They use an entirely different technique. Then there were a few stories about the snakes and the poor security in obtaining some of the house girls. All of which these stories have some humor in them.

(Oh that radar. They rather have it intact than destroy it. It was worth a couple million. So, I got fantastic air support if I so much as saw three rice farmers toting their AK47 or RPGs through the jungle. Only if I were about to be overrun did I fear the consequences. And the closest it came there was 14 T38 tanks at 1-3/4 miles. They never knew I was out there and had called in an air strike. Three waves of F4 or A4's took care of that. I never was informed which of the planes did the attacks. But assume it was F4 as they took off from two land bases and A4's were never seen except for carriers.

[Capp]

TET was my baptism into Army nursing...

I'm glad your experience there was fun time for you.
So your PTSD is not combat related?

Jme, but the events I witnessed sent me into robot mode in order to function.
Not all of us had addiction problems during our service there...we were too busy doing other things.

[FerretGuy5]

Originally Posted by Capp

TET was my baptism into Army nursing...

I'm glad your experience there was fun time for you.
So your PTSD is not combat related?

Jme, but the events I witnessed sent me into robot mode in order to function.
Not all of us had addiction problems during our service there...we were too busy doing other things.

I got my PTSD after NAM. I was on riot duty in Washington DC after the MLK and RFK assassinations. I got shot at there without a chance to reply as we had no ammo.

In Viet Nam I say I was never really in combat. I did my work at a distance. But it wrapped up when I was shot by friendly fire from a dim wit myopic Special Forces from a helicopter. I got shot through the right lung. I dearly wanted to return the favor but could not raise my right arm to do so. My role in the field, I was not really in much danger. I had expensive equipment protecting me. It's not like I was taking hikes through the jungle.

I worked at a rocket factory after. A couple mishaps there really gave me PTSD. I don't want to get graphic. But solid propellant rocket fuel, like C4, cannot be extinguished. So you look on hopelessly while things happen.

My biggest threat in Nam was actually the snakes. I had plenty of run ins with cobras and slinkies.
I may have drank a bit too much in Nam but not addicted then or after. On the quizzes I score zeros for addictions. I never even tries marijuana though I was exposed to plenty of it.

[FerretGuy5]

Originally Posted by Capp

TET was my baptism into Army nursing...

I'm glad your experience there was fun time for you.
So your PTSD is not combat related?

Jme, but the events I witnessed sent me into robot mode in order to function.
Not all of us had addiction problems during our service there...we were too busy doing other things.

I'm glad I was out of there before TET. Had I been there, I would have been at Hue and that was in the thick of it. There weren't supposed to be that many left. Westmoreland's head count was way off.

[Capp]

Re the rocket factory mishaps...
Many of our wounded were crispy critters.
Macabre words to push away the gruesome sights and sounds that stay with you. There were some that begged to be put out of their pain, especially the ones with severe burns to their lower extremities...they did not want to go home in that condition.

We also had our fair share of wounded from a jet jockey over-shooting his mark. The dead of course didn't know; those they did were royally POd, and that is using polite words. There was more of that than the public was told, and it was years before it was common knowledge that you had to get permission to return fire--while in a friendly area.

The name of one of my younger brothers is on the Wall.
The other died of brain cancer associated with exposure to Agent Orange.
My last nursing sister crossed over a bit over a year ago...
One of my buddies committed suicide over the holidays.

It just keeps giving and giving.

Cap