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LAYING GHOSTS OF WAR TO REST -- Program allows
veterans from conflicts recent and long past
to confront trauma together.
Story here...
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?
storyID=551571&category=REGIONOTHER
&BCCode=&newsdate=1/8/2007
Story below:
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Laying ghosts of war to rest
Program allows veterans from conflicts recent
and long past to confront trauma together
By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer
COLONIE -- They came from nine states, this ragged band of warriors,
veterans of six wars.
They had seen the hell of war and they had all been damaged by it in
ways large and small, visible and not visible.
Now they were coming together to heal.
Two men recently returned from combat in Iraq -- their bodies as thick
and powerful as linebackers' -- sank to their knees on the carpeted
conference room floor, shuddering with sobs and crying as freely as
babies.
"I should have done something to save them," a beefy Marine named Ron
wailed. He was remembering buddies killed on battlefields during an
18-year career that spanned both the Gulf War and the Iraq War.
"Let it go. Let your pain go," Ed Bloch said in a low voice, tears
staining his cheeks, wrapping Ron in an embrace.
"We're here for you," said Bloch, 82, of Latham, a Marine platoon leader
in World War II and a member of Veterans for Peace.
He has spent a lifetime trying to atone for his own actions in 1945 when
he gave the order to machine-gun a village of mud huts in northeastern
China that harbored suspected Communist rebel sympathizers.
Bloch was among three dozen people who attended a four-day "veterans'
return retreat" at the Comfort Inn in Colonie, which concluded Sunday.
The retreat was called "Soldier's Heart," a Civil War-era euphemism for
post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
The retreat drew a mother trying to understand the psychological trauma
of her son, a soldier currently stationed in Iraq, who was shattered
when his best friend, an 18-year-old, was shot dead on a rooftop by a
sniper.
"I don't know how to help him," the mother said, recalling frantic calls
she got at 4 a.m. from Iraq when her son needed to hear a comforting
voice.
There was a young woman, a college student and ROTC cadet studying
occupational therapy in preparation for working with the wounded. She
sobbed as she described saying goodbye to her fiance on Friday. He was
on his way for training before deployment to Iraq.
"Thank you for your help and support when he's gone," she said.
"Soldier's Heart" has given a name to a cause and a grass roots movement
of retreats and workshops around the country.
It's strongest in Seattle, but is growing in Indiana and Colorado and
taking root in Albany.
Ed Tick and his wife, Kate Dahlstedt -- both psychotherapists in Albany
who have worked extensively with veterans suffering from PTSD -- led the
participants in meditation and visualization exercises, group therapy
and other sessions designed to heal deep psychological and cultural
wounds left by war.
The wounds on display were raw and searing, close to the surface,
whether the veteran fought five decades or five months ago.
"This history keeps repeating itself, and we're saying we're not going
to let it happen again," said Hugh Scanlen, 59, of Fort Davis, Texas, a
gunner on an Army helicopter in Vietnam.
"I'm seeing vets from Iraq on the streets now and they're lost," he
said. "I'm watching them go through what I went through, and that's not
right."
Scanlen said he denied his own PTSD symptoms through two failed
marriages and a string of personal problems before he began seeking
treatment.
"I'm here because we're not doing enough to help our troops coming back
from Iraq now," said Scanlen, who hugged Ron and wrapped an arm around
the shoulder of another Iraq vet named Peter.
Ron and Peter, who asked that their last names not be used, had come to
the retreat reluctantly after prodding from their wives. Tears flowed as
the women stood beside their men throughout Friday's heart-wrenching
moments of catharsis.
They described their husbands as depressed, isolated, irritable,
unemployed, broken in spirit and adrift.
They had urged their spouses to attend the retreat in an effort to get
some help and to save their troubled marriages.
It is hard to get a reliable measure of the psychological damage of
warfare. It's often under-reported due to feelings of shame. Many
veterans use alcohol and drugs to dull the pain.
A continuing study of combat units that served in Iraq found last year
that about 17 percent of the personnel have shown serious symptoms of
depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder -- characterized
by intrusive thoughts, sleep loss and hyper alertness -- in the first
few months after returning from Iraq. That rate is higher than for
Afghanistan veterans but thought to be lower than after Vietnam,
according to The New York Times.
"There's not enough support and help for our Iraq veterans coming home,"
said The Rev. Bill Rodefer of Akron, Ohio, who was a chaplain in the
Vietnam War, worked as an addiction-recovery counselor, and has treated
veterans with drug and alcohol dependencies.
Rodefer said he's witnessed the healing power of faith and
psychotherapy. With the help of his church members, Veterans for Peace
and others, he plans to use those skills to start a "Soldier's Heart"
program in Akron.
Tick, author of "War and the Soul" and other books on problems facing
veterans, predicted a surge of returning Iraq war veterans in need of
treatment.
He augments his treatment with nontraditional methods such as leading
vets on healing journeys back to Vietnam and Iraq, or participating in
Native American rituals and studying ancient Greek texts for
enlightenment on archetypal healing paradigms.
Tick's holistic approach can be encapsulated in a new term he's coined
for the far-reaching symptoms of PTSD. "Post-terror soul disorder," he
calls it.
"It is our culture that is disordered by war. It is a communal
affliction," he said.
Army National Guard Sgt. Steven Pension of Troy, who returned from a
one-year tour in Iraq in 2005, attended with his wife, Lauren, a peace
activist.
"I support her right to protest the war, which is the great thing about
a democracy," said Pension, who declined to discuss his political stance
on the war.
"I'm here because my wife has seen changes in my personality," said
Pension, 42, who does not think he has severe PTSD symptoms, although
he's found himself acting hyper vigilant while driving Capital Region
roads, continuously scanning for threats.
Pension was in armored Humvees hit a dozen times by roadside bombs while
on patrol around Baghdad, but he and his unit managed to avoid serious
injury each time.
Pension continues to grieve after five funerals he attended in Iraq for
soldiers in his company. Back home, he received initial counseling at
Stratton VA Hospital but found the methods "lacking the depth I was
looking for."
He tried the spiritual journey of the "Soldier's Heart" retreat at the
insistence of his wife.
As the group lighted a candle, a veteran tapped out a beat on a drum.
The Iraq veterans, Ron and Peter, let themselves cry openly, in a way
they said they had not done before.
Shoulder to shoulder, the others surrounded Ron and Peter who then
leaned back into the group's strong, sure embrace.
"Welcome home," they told the two wounded warriors. "Welcome home."
Paul Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at
pgrondahl@timesunion.com.
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Larry Scott
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