This post was originally posted as part of the American Counseling Association Blog Project. Original post can be located HERE In a previous post, I discussed how veterans experience more challenges than just PTSD and TBI, the primary conditions that most community members are aware of. In order to provide some deeper Read more…
“Man, you just don’t know. A part of me died in that city. I walked in there thinking I was Captain America, and walked out feeling like Doctor Doom.” The changes that happen in people can be stark and startling. Have you ever met someone after a long absence, and Read more…
When we talk about “forgotten veterans,” we often think of those who served in the Korean War. Many veterans of that conflict feel as though they got lost between the WWII Generation and the Vietnam Veterans. I once had the honor of working with Sergeant Major (Retired) Raymond Moran, a Read more…
Have you ever had one of those moments, somewhere between two and four in the morning, when your eyes spring open and you find yourself staring at the ceiling, hoping that you can get back to sleep but knowing that it’s probably not going to happen? Then the thoughts start to Read more…
This post was originally posted as part of the American Counseling Association Blog Project. Original post can be located HERE The mental health and wellness of those who have served in the military is of critical importance to the veteran, their family, and the community in which they live. There Read more…
This post was originally written in July of 2016 in response to two ambush-style attacks by former military service members in Dallas and Baton Rouge. For the second time in two weeks, a former service member has committed a heinous and horrifying attack on American soil. Are these the only crimes that Read more…
Of the things I enjoyed about my military deployments, one of the most unique was: free books. Wherever I was deployed to around the world, there was always a room, a tent, a building, in which books were donated to be sent overseas to the troops. Inevitably, I always returned Read more…
Let’s get the “Killing Machine” argument out of the way. I don’t know about you, but I have successfully refrained from engaging in cold-blooded pre-meditated murder after I left the service, and I have twenty-two years of service and three combat tours. It is human nature to fear what Read more…
Everyone has a story. You just have to listen to it. As a mental health counselor working exclusively with veterans, it often surprises me how difficult it is…and also how easy…for a veteran to be able to tell their story. The impacts of combat, deployments, or even just military Read more…
In late 1999, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I jumped out of an airplane in the fog. Through the quirks of assignments during a 22 year Army career, I’ve only had the pleasure of two Airborne assignments out of eight or nine different ones. Those two were three years as Read more…