Tag Archives: veteran

In Portland, One Vet Finds Peace with Puppets

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By Forrest Burnson, News21

PORTLAND, Ore. – By day, Clint Hall, an Army veteran and supply chain analyst, works with spreadsheets to track shipments for Adidas Group. By night, he takes to his sewing machine to make hand puppets and plush animals.

Hall calls them “wiggle whales.” They’ve become more than a hobby; Hall has started selling them on Etsy.

“The puppets are silly,” the combat veteran said. “That’s why I enjoy making them so much.”

After serving Infantry tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hall returned in 2005 and was honorably discharged in 2007. Following his return home, Hall was diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder.

In addition to therapy, Hall, now 35, found a creative outlet in making puppets. He looks at making puppets as a way to work through whatever problem he is mulling.

“It’s a problem-solving tool for me. And it happens to add value to my life,” he said. “Because then I have something positive to share with a friend, or give to somebody.”

For one veteran, distance learning outlasts post-war complications

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By Anthony Cave, News21

The “compact” feeling of a classroom can be overwhelming for students who are military veterans.

Post-9/11 veteran Stephen Michael DeMoss, 27, said that he “burned out” during the fall 2012 semester at Florida International University. He struggled with Post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism.

“I had to be hospitalized, I almost had to drop my classes,” said DeMoss, who served in Iraq in 2005-2006.

The classroom setting troubled DeMoss so much he took evening classes, which met when the campus was less crowded.

“A lot of people can sometimes be a little stressful, you don’t get there early enough and you have to squeeze between a lot of people,” said DeMoss, an international relations major.

Despite a flurry of emails and invitations from the FIU veterans group, DeMoss said he did not seek help. However, change came in the form of an internship.

In spring 2013, he moved to California for a semester to join his wife, who was an intern with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

That move meant that DeMoss had to take all his classes virtually. He improved academically.

“I guess I had the mindset of being very independent. Online is a lot easier,” DeMoss said.

DeMoss still has a few classes that he must take on campus in Miami before he graduates, but a government job is already in his sights.  DeMoss has an internship scheduled this summer with the U.S. Department of the Treasury in West Virginia.

He hopes to work for the U.S. Department of State some day, but Treasury has a plan too.

“This internship with the Treasury Department; they train me up,” DeMoss said. “Once I graduate, I have a job, if I want it.”

Navy veteran confronts trauma with exposure therapy

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By Riley Johnson, News21

Jason Patterson, seen here in Saddam Hussein's office in the Baghdad Presidential Palace in 2004, served in the unit that governed Iraq after the invasion. (Photo submitted by Patterson)

Jason Patterson, seen here in Saddam Hussein’s office in the Baghdad Presidential Palace in 2004, served in the unit that governed Iraq after the invasion. (Photo submitted by Patterson)

Jason Patterson’s traumatic experiences in Baghdad’s Green Zone no longer trigger anxiety in parking lots.

The 45-year-old Navy veteran saw a parking lot as a “death trap” with the openness creating easy targets for car bombs. Patterson’s daily stress over six months as a communications support officer in 2004 Baghdad seemed “like six years,” he said.

Patterson retired from the Navy in 2009, but his Iraq experiences crept up on him in ways he didn’t readily notice. On grocery trips in his La Vista, Neb., hometown, he’d park at the far end of the lot, fearing bombs, he said.

In March 2012, Patterson sought therapy for his post-traumatic stress through the Veterans Affairs hospital in Omaha. The program – prolonged exposure therapy –is one of an array of PTSD treatments allowed by the VA. A therapist would ask Patterson to talk about his trauma, and on his own, confront the situations that triggered it.

Terry North, director of the PTSD program for the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System, said that prolonged exposure therapy is designed to help veterans “develop a more balanced view of the world. With trauma, their world turns into ‘The world is a dangerous place.’ ”

In his sessions, Patterson would close his eyes and recall his traumas.

“That’s how you open the gate,” he said.

Parked alone in his silver Honda Civic, Patterson confronted his anxiety. The first few times he’d abandon his one-hour goal and leave after 10 or 15 minutes. But over 12 weeks he began to feel more comfortable. He learned to close his eyes, and think of fishing.

Patterson doesn’t fish more than once or twice every few months in the summer, but fishing helps him cope, he said.

“It brings joy, excitement and a sense of peace,” he said. “As long as I’m fishing, I don’t care.”

Walking for their brothers and sisters

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By Chase Cook, News21

Top from left to right: Ruck Up members and Veterans AJ Paige, Nicholas Leone, Don Spencer, Eddie Brown and John Pajak pose for a photo with team member (bottom) Sue Barton, and Miles for Military team member and veteran Angie Guss. These seven participated in the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk in Washington, D.C. The 16 to 18-mile walk is held each year in a different city by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to raise money for suicide prevention efforts. This year's walk attracted about 1700 walkers and 300 volunteers. (Photo by Chase Cook, News21)

Top from left to right: Ruck Up members and veterans AJ Paige, Nicholas Leone, Don Spencer, Eddie Brown and John Pajak pose for a photo with team member (bottom) Sue Barton, and Miles for Military team member and veteran Angie Guss. They participated in the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk in Washington, D.C. to raise money for suicide prevention efforts, which attracted about 1700 walkers and 300 volunteers. (Photo by Chase Cook, News21)

With the flag of the Green Mountain Boys — the Vermont National Guard — tucked into the straps of his backpack, Eddie Brown stands among fellow veterans awaiting their 16-mile walk.

Brown is part of the Ruck Up team, Veterans who have served in Panama, Macedonia, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. They all are in the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk to remember service members who died by suicide and to support veterans struggling with mental illnesses.

An estimated 22 veterans commit suicide a day, according to a February report by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Three of Brown’s comrades-in-arms have committed suicide since his last deployment three years ago.

Brown and other veterans say that one of the main reasons for suicide is a disconnect between those who fight and those who don’t.

“I hate to put this stereotype out there, but civilians don’t understand us,” Brown said. “We are our own little community, brotherhood.”

The Ruck Up team of five veterans came together for the overnight walk to not only remember the fallen, but to remind non-veterans that a community fought for their country and some now feel abandoned or lost among those they swore to protect. Ruck Up teamed with Miles for Military, which featured family members of servicemen, women and veterans who have committed suicide.

The walk took the two groups throughout downtown Washington, D.C., passing the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and other historical sites as they completed the 16-mile journey. They began at 7:30 p.m., and crossed the finish line around 4 a.m.

AJ Paige, a Panama and Gulf War veteran, walked for his fellow rangers who committed suicide. Paige thinks the estimated number — 22 veterans committing suicide a day — is higher. Veterans back from deployment are cast into the world without their battalion, their unit, their platoon, Paige said.

“The day you discharge, you are the most lonely person in the world,” he said. “It is like being cut off. It takes a long time for folks to realize they are not alone.”

One of the ways non-veterans and others can help veterans struggling with suicidal thoughts is to listen, those in the group said.

“We are not strange. We are not mutants. We are your brothers, your sons, your sisters, your moms, your dads and we aren’t any different than when we left, but we’re scarred,” Paige said. “If people aren’t willing to deal with that, we are going to continue getting lost.”

If you or a loved one know a military service member or veteran in emotional distress, please call the Veterans Crisis Line at 800-273-8255 (Press 1).