Center Moriches (United States) (AFP) - Roger King was 19 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 2005. He left four years later after two deployments in Iraq, where a sniper's bullet nearly cost him his life.
Once home,
he faced a new set of problems in his return to civilian life on New York's
Long Island, including a suffocating sense of anxiety and difficulty being in
group situations.
King was
suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a traumatic brain
injury (TBI) -- two afflictions sadly common among veterans of the largest army
in the world, bogged down in seemingly endless conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Increasingly
depressed by the challenges of his new life, King began drinking.
This
solidly built 33-year-old man quietly confides that he attempted suicide --
twice.
Russell
Keyzer -- another New Yorker -- joined the National Guard shortly after the
September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Now 42, he
suffers from flashbacks, insomnia, panic attacks and other PTSD symptoms
following two years with NATO's multinational force in Kosovo, where periods of
relative stability alternated with violent outbursts.
After
returning home in 2008, Keyzer sank into a life of drinking and depression. His
marriage came crashing down and he found himself homeless. On no fewer than
seven occasions, he says, he attempted to kill himself.
Today, King
and Keyzer say they are doing much better, thanks in large part to an aid group
for veterans, the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project, a non-profit
organization created in 2012 in tribute to an army medic who killed himself in
2008 after returning home from Iraq.
'More
needs to be done'
King and
Keyzer spoke about their darker times at a recent "Wellness Day"
organized by the association at a park in the coastal village of Center
Moriches.
Veterans
enjoyed a picnic, a salute to the US flag, yoga, meditation and kayaking -- all
activities intended to foster a sense of security and camaraderie.
Some 20
organizations also set up stands to offer assistance.
"More
needs to be done," King said. Groups like the Dwyer Project "should
have been done in World War I, World War II, Vietnam."
He now
leads a group of a dozen veterans for the project. They meet weekly.
"We
thought of AA, NA," he said, referring to Alcoholics Anonymous and
Narcotics Anonymous, but "it's like you never really thought maybe this
might help for veterans."
Now, King
added, "the compassion and the caring is getting there."
Keyzer
agreed.
"If
the proper resources were there when we came home, we would not be in this
position ... We would not have turned to drugs, we would not have turned to
alcoholism," he said.
But he
added: "Things are slowly changing for the better every day. There are
more and more veterans' programs out there."
Peer
support
Psychological
support groups like the Dwyer Project have indeed been multiplying across the
United States, as the world's leading superpower struggles to help its 20
million veterans -- nearly 10 percent of the adult population -- overcome their
challenges and thoughts of suicide.
Many recent
veterans are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the proud and smiling men
and women who assembled in Normandy last week to mark the 75th anniversary of
the D-Day invasion during World War II.
More than
6,000 veterans -- many of them gun owners -- killed themselves each year from
2008 to 2016, according to a report published late last year by the US
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
By
comparison, a total of 6,951 American troops died in major war zones between
2001 and 2018, according to an analysis from Brown University.
Faced with
those sobering statistics, the VA -- which administers some 1,200 hospitals and
clinics -- has made suicide prevention a priority, establishing a hotline for
troubled veterans that is among the most heavily used in the world.
Increasing awareness
The
Veterans Crisis Line was launched in 2007 with a staff of 14; it now has more
than 900 employees, with three call centers across the country including one in
upstate New York, director Matt Miller told AFP.
The number
of incoming calls has grown steadily, now totaling some 650,000 a year, he
said.
"We
are all increasing in our awareness" of suicide, he said, not just among
veterans but among all civilians, where the rate -- while lower than among
veterans -- has been climbing.
Fifty years
after the hell of Vietnam and more than 17 years after US troops first
intervened in Afghanistan, "there is a lot more awareness" about
veterans' needs, said Marcelle Leis, who heads the Dwyer Project after 20 years
in the Air National Guard.
But she
quickly adds: "We have a lot of work to do."
Unlike the
norm during the Korean and Vietnam wars, she said, troops sent to Iraq or
Afghanistan often serve "multiple tours" and struggle while
"going back and forth in this constant state of hyper-vigilance."
As they
cope with the difficult return to civilian life, veterans have an added
handicap: in their former military culture, asking for help could be seen as
showing weakness.
"A lot
of what we do is education to ask for help and garner support -- and learn that
that's a sign of strength," Leis said.
She is
cheered by the fact that many Vietnam veterans, even as they battle their own
demons, have been quick to join support groups to help younger veterans.
"It is
giving them a new sense of purpose, and helping them heal," Leis said.
'My blood
is pumping'
King
credits a Vietnam veteran as the first person to encourage him to seek
psychotherapy, a crucial step on the road to healing.
While he
admits to still having difficult moments, the former Marine, now married and
the father of a three-month-old, has plans for the future: with a newly earned
history degree, he hopes to work as a high school teacher.
And while
he still misses the adrenaline rushes of combat, his weekend job as a
firefighter helps make up for it.
"The
alarm goes off, my blood is pumping (and) I'm going out to save somebody,"
King says with a smile.
More than 6,000 American war veterans kill themselves each year. Support groups are bringing veterans together in a bid to stop the deathshttps://t.co/RR57ZYQuVD— AFP news agency (@AFP) 13 juni 2019
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