I remember watching the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 from my couch. It was two days after my birthday and I was sitting in my living room with my sister, Weez. Our eyes were fixed on the television, silent. It was that moment in which I began to turn my attention toward trying to understand the Middle East, trying to understand the sacrifices made by the noble 1% of U.S. citizens who give everything so that the other 99% of us can know freedom. 8 years later I have only begun to scratch the surface.
“The tide of war is receding,” said President Obama in his announcement last night about the draw down of U.S. troops in Afghanistan beginning next month. I heard those words with mixed emotions – happiness that our troops will begin to leave a war zone that has caused so much pain in their lives and the lives of their families, and sadness because I have some concept of the war they will face within themselves when they return home. And it’s this latter point that motivates me to keep pushing forward with Compass Yoga and my focus on using yoga for therapeutic purposes to help people dealing with the effects of PTSD.
This motivation led me to attend the New York State Health Foundation’s event “Paving the Path Back Home: Mobilizing Communities to Meet the Needs of Returning Veterans“. The purpose of the event is best summarized by a short video that was shown during Colonel David Sutherland‘s speech: “When our vets return from serving their country, let’s make sure their country is ready to serve them.” There are a lot of concerned community members who want to help; I am one of them. There are a lot of veterans and their families who want and need help when they return home. This conference wanted to provide information and inspiration to close the gap between the two.
New York State Health Foundation‘s President and CEO James Knickman gave the opening remarks and Colonel David Sutherland, Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – Warrior and Family Support at The Department of Defense, gave a heart-stopping speech. It was part of his 50 States in 50 Weeks tour to raise awareness about the needs of returning veterans and their families. He didn’t use notes. He never paused. He never cracked, and every word carried a strength and profound emotion that made every listener sit up and take note. By the end of his speech I had an enormous lump in my throat and teary eyes. After his last word, I shot up out of my seat to join the standing ovation faster than I ever have in any audience. (You can learn more about Colonel Sutherland’s initiative Vets Prevail by visiting this Facebook page and website.)
A few facts revealed at the conference
The conference sought to dispel a number of rumors about the process of returning home from deployment:
– 1/3 of returning vets receive an inadequate amount of care. 1/3 of returning vets receive no care at all, to say nothing of the lack of care of families of veterans.
– “We don’t come home to big government. We come home to our communities. We come home to you. We trust you.” ~ Colonel David Sutherland. Most returning veterans and their families seek help, support, and services in their communities, not on military bases. This makes the development of community-based plans crucial to their health and wellness.
– There is a “Sea of Good” out there. There are 4,000+ vet organizations in the U.S. The challenge is not finding people who want to help, it’s connecting those people to the veterans, who aren’t always readily visible in their communities.
– The DOD and the VA are two separate government agencies and there is a good-sized gap that exists between them. Community-based organizations should focus on helping to fill that gap, not compete with the VA. As Dr. Alfonso Bates, Chief Officer of Readjustment Counseling Service at the VA so simply said, “There is plenty of work to go around. Cooperation is the key.”
– Welcome home events are incredibly valuable experiences for returning vets, and they are only the tip of the iceberg. If organizations and individual community members really want to help veterans and their families, then they need to commit to be in this for the long haul. The needs of vets will change over time, and we have to be with them through those changes.
– And this last point is the one that really got me. It was confirmation of another piece of work that I know is so critical for Compass Yoga to carry-out. The children of vets are a population that needs so much support, and they get precious little of what they need.
A personal note
I’ve talked on this blog about my own struggles with bouts of PTSD brought on by specific incidents in my life. These incidents gave me only a small idea of what these returning vets are going through. What you don’t know is that I also understand what it’s like to be a child raised in a traumatic environment, to watch family members whom I love so fiercely wrestle with trauma and feel helpless in the process. And it’s that experience that I know in great detail, and where I am completely confident that I can guide children of returning vets toward happy, healthy, productive lives.
I will put those children first, where children deserve to be
I will never accept that kids are too far gone to be helped, nor will I let them be defeated
I will not quit on them or let them quit on themselves
And if and when they fall down, I will make sure to help them lift themselves up
We want to be well. Unfortunately, we’ve been told for too long that the way to wellness is often through a pill, treatment, supplement, or some other external force. Sometimes, these methods are necessary but they are corrective. They wait for us to be sick rather than keeping us well.
Christa Avampato 