“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” One of the things that I’ve noticed when working with veterans, and something I’ve experienced myself, is the tendency to feel like we’re about to be discovered as a fraud or a phony. It’s like we’re the Great Oz, building this Read more
I did something stupid once. Admittedly, I have done many different things at many different times that could be viewed as questionable from an intelligence standpoint, but here I’m referring to a particularly stupid thing that was done at a specific time. As my unit was leaving Iraq in December Read more
There are some movies that are helpful when trying to explain combat and the impact of experiencing combat to those who haven’t been there. I’m not talking about Hollywood, although I do have a love-hate relationship with war movies. I don’t have the experience of Vietnam, but something tells me Read more
I’m amazed at some of the stuff that I’ve picked up over the years that I served in the Army. I’ve noticed that, for veterans, the objects they’ve accumulated take on an almost talismanic property…not that they’ve been imbued with some mystic powers, but they’ve certainly been given worth beyond Read more
This post was originally posted as part of the American Counseling Association Blog Project. Original post can be located HERE Consider what it was like when you first realized that you were part of something bigger than yourself. Maybe it was a team in school, or arriving for your first day Read more
Skip wasn’t the same when he came back from the war. By many accounts, including his own, he was a pretty “good boy” growing up, active in his community, doing well in school. It wasn’t easy growing up in Detroit, he didn’t know his biological father, but he and his Read more
This post was originally posted as part of the American Counseling Association Blog Project. Original post can be located HERE In a continued effort to expand the topic of veteran mental health beyond PTSD and TBI, I thought that I’d give a deeper look into the mindset of the former military Read more
Veterans are good at blowing stuff up. For most veterans, blowing stuff up is a skill that is taught in basic training. How to throw a grenade. How to place a Claymore mine. How to fire an AT4, a shoulder-mounted rocket. For some veterans, their occupational specialty taught them how Read more
Our country can’t have a discussion about veteran mental health without talking about the extreme outcome of failure to address it: veteran suicide. On August 3rd, 2016, the Department of Veterans Affairs released a 45-page summary of a study by the Office of Suicide Prevention, titled Suicide Among Veterans and Read more
This post was originally posted as part of the American Counseling Association Blog Project. Original post can be located HERE As part of this series of articles that explores the psychological impact of a veteran’s military service that goes beyond PTSD and TBI, the concept of Learned Helplessness is a significant factor Read more