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PARROTS AND WAR VETERANS TEAM UP IN HEALING
PROGRAM -- Rescued and abused parrots are
helping
the veterans turn their lives around.
Story here...
http://www.reuters.com/
article/domesticNews/id
USN3124336920070531
Story below:
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Parrots, war vets team up in L.A. healing
program
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A dog may be a man's best friend. But for some
traumatized war veterans, parrots are proving even more of a help.
Rescued and abused parrots are helping the veterans turn their lives
around in a unique program launched officially on Thursday at a Los
Angeles Veterans Affairs facility.
The parrots -- which sometimes pluck their own feathers when stressed
out after years in cramped cages or abandoned by owners -- are thriving
too in what organizers say is an exercise in mutual healing.
"Both the veterans and the parrots have suffered some kind of traumatic
stress. Both are learning to build compassion and empathy together,"
said Lorin Lindner, the psychologist behind the Serenity Park Sanctuary
at the V.A.'s headquarters in the Westwood section of Los Angeles.
After years working with homeless, drug and alcohol addicted
ex-servicemen and women, Lindner took some of them on a trip to a parrot
sanctuary in Southern California and noticed how well the former Vietnam
and Gulf War veterans were responding to the wild birds.
The idea for the Los Angeles sanctuary was born, and 14 parrots now live
there, fed and cared for every day by a small group of war veterans.
"I am one of those guys who could be on the streets or in prison if it
wasn't for this," said Matthew Simmons, 33, who served in the 1991
Desert Storm offensive in Iraq.
Simmons entered a downward spiral of nightmares, alcohol and
prescription drug addiction that ended in a two-year prison term for
assault before he was released and started work on the parrot program a
few months ago.
Hanging upside down and squawking angrily at the strangers gathered
outside her enclosure, a white cockatoo called Sammy fell silent after
being coaxed down by Simmons.
"I was isolated and angry. Now everything has changed. The parrots were
the catalyst. You have to be open and honest with them. Now I deal with
people too in a much more open way," Simmons said.
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Larry Scott --
