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Reentry programs
help soldiers adjust
(November
2006 Issue)
By Ami Albernaz
As troops return home from overseas deployment, military offices
and veterans centers are working to help soldiers transition to
civilian life as smoothly as possible, making adjustments to best
meet soldiers' needs.
The New Hampshire National Guard's "Reunion and Reentry" program
is among the first in the country to require that all returning
troops undergo at least one counseling session upon returning home.
The program began last year and since then, 65 percent of soldiers
have elected to continue receiving counseling after the first session,
says Col. Deborah Carter, a human resources officer with the New
Hampshire Guard.
"They may not have serious cases - they may have trouble readjusting
into home roles with a spouse, for example - but when you have a
military culture based on a machismo framework, the fact that we're
at 65 percent is a phenomenon," Carter says.
Almost all soldiers who served in Iraq will have some transitioning
issues, such as difficulty sleeping or hypervigilance, she adds.
One of the goals of "Reunion and Reentry" is to help soldiers work
through these issues before they escalate into more debilitating
problems.
The program was developed with the help of Vietnam veterans who
say they would have benefited from the services now available to
returning soldiers. "Some have said, 'Had I known some of these
things were normal upon coming back, I wouldn't have thought I was
crazy,'" Carter says.
In the wake of findings two years ago that roughly one in six soldiers
who served in Iraq reported symptoms of major depression, anxiety,
or posttraumatic stress disorder, while only 40 percent of these
soldiers sought counseling, military branches and veterans centers
have been working to expand and call attention to available mental
health services and erase the stigma attached to receiving them.
Because all returning National Guard members in N.H. must attend
at least one counseling session, no one is singled out, Carter says.
Other New England states have been refining their services as well.
The Massachusetts Guard's demobilization program focuses on making
returning soldiers aware of all the resources available to them
and their families, says Maj. Winfield Danielson, a spokesman for
the Massachusetts Guard. "Our basic premise is to make sure soldiers
are aware that there can be readjustment problems and that there's
nothing wrong if they're having trouble readjusting," he says.
Family readiness groups are a cornerstone of the Massachusetts
Guard's program; in debriefing sessions, families receive the same
information as the returning troops. "Sometimes it's the family
members who see signs of an issue first, so it's important that
they know what's available as well," Winfield says.
Chaplains have also played an important role in counseling services.
"People will turn to clergy first because if you go to psychologist
or a psychiatrist first, you might be seen as having a problem,"
says Laurence Bazer, acting joint forces state chaplain for the
Massachusetts Guard. He adds that people do not always appreciate
that deployment - be it to Iraq, Afghanistan or a more stable location
- is stressful. "Even if there are no bullets flying, separation
can cause issues," he says. "Spouses will tell me they tell other
people their husband is stationed in Kosovo, on a peacekeeping mission,
and the other person will say, 'Thank God they're not in a war zone.'
But it's still a separation."
Veterans centers throughout New England are seeing "more and more
[returning soldiers] each month," says James Garrett, Ph.D., deputy
regional manager for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The
centers in the northeast region, which includes New England, New
York and New Jersey, employ 15 soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan
in order to help newly returned troops know what to expect.
By expanding the reach of services, the goal is that, in the years
ahead, soldiers now returning from overseas will not experience
the horrors known to some who served in the Vietnam War.
"We don't have a magic pill, but we do believe in early intervention,"
Carter says. "The earlier we intervene, the more likely that losses
will be minimized."
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