Vets4Vets helps soldiers adjust to civilian life

Mike Sakal, January 9, 2009
Tribune – original article

After returning home from service in Iraq for seven months, Matt Randle said he felt like a foreigner in a foreign land.

As a medic with the U.S. Army’s 507th Maintenance Co. in 2003 in Iraq, Randle witnessed the unthinkable: fellow servicemen who had just been killed as he drove along roads headed into combat and arriving into small towns with 14 other soldiers, all of whom were expected to take it over and take the lives of the enemy.

In the months that followed in his return home, Randle said he was hypervigilant about his safety. He slept with a gun beside his bed, awoke every hour to check if the front door was locked and said he still has nightmares of the things he saw in Iraq.

“If you don’t have a way to start talking about things like that, it’ll eat you alive,” Randle, 27, said.

Randle and Sgt. Abel Moreno, both of whom have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, will be among 36 other veterans who served in either Afghanistan or Iraq attending a leadership conference this weekend at the Fiesta Resort Conference Center in Tempe for Vets4Vets.

Vets4Vets is a national nonprofit organization based in Tucson and has a mission of reaching out to peers who are readjusting to civilian life after spending long periods of time in combat and away from their families.

Randle is the outreach director for Vets4Vets, and Moreno serves as its development coordinator.

By traveling around the country and helping to form outreach peer groups, Vets4Vets provides a service for veterans from the same generation who share a common bond: a way to unload their emotions and come to terms that they no longer are living the life of a soldier.

“Our generation of veterans provide a network of support where people understand their experiences,” said Moreno, who grew up in Chandler.

After Moreno returned home from serving in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2002 to 2004, he also had experiences similar to Randle’s.

“My biggest adjustment was coming back and providing for my family and figuring out what I was going to do,” said Moreno, who has a wife and three children. “When I was in the service, I was in charge of other men. When I was out of the service, I worked different jobs and had to get used to not doing the same things I did in the service.”

The number of veterans who have served in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 or in Iraq since early 2003, now stands at 1.8 million, according to statistics from the Veterans Administration in Washington.

“Who understands the experiences of a veteran better than veterans themselves?” Randle said. “These conflicts have been going on for a while, and it gets to be trying.”

Workshops assist veterans struggling to cope

by Astrid Galvan – Jan. 11, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic – original article

It took a year for Mike Ergo to get help after he realized he had post-traumatic stress syndrome.

The 25-year-old former U.S. Marine and two-tour Iraq war vet was too embarrassed and prideful to seek assistance.

“It’s counterintuitive to what I was taught (as a Marine),” he said.

Soon, a neighbor who was a Vietnam War vet, along with the fear of losing his family and girlfriend, convinced Ergo to pay a visit to his local veteran center in Northern California.

That led him to Vets4Vets, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to helping Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans though peer support groups.

Ergo has attended six Vets4Vets workshops that have helped him overcome PTSD symptoms like anxiety, which he said led to excessive drinking amongst other things.

After a lifetime of being a social person, Ergo couldn’t understand why he suddenly became physically anxious, sometimes unable to get himself to school and staying at home all day.

On Saturday, Ergo was one of about 30 war vets who gathered at Tempe’s Fiesta Resort, on Priest Drive and Broadway Road, for a weekend conference hosted by the Tucson-based organization.

The vets engaged a series of support groups where they shared their experiences and issues resulting from their time serving the military.

Abel Moreno, director of community development and media relations for Vets4Vets and an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran himself, said men and women came from all over the country to participate in the organization’s 37th weekend workshop.

More than 1,000 vets have come through the workshops since the organization was founded about two years ago.

“We make sure they can come and feel at home,” he said.

Some dressed in bright pink polos, others in black T-shirts with skulls, they all have one thing in common: They lived traumatic experiences while serving their country.

And they’re not embarrassed to let their guard down, hug each other, even cry.

During one intense session, a group of six young men listened intently to their peers as they shared stories of flying rockets, dead bodies and the consequences of living such experiences.

One vet said he was culture shocked upon return to the U.S.; another said he would get angry at seeing smiling faces when he’d witnessed so much turmoil.

However different their experience might have been, the vets shared a common knowledge that adjusting to life after war, especially when inflicted by PTSD, required help and support.

For Matt Randle, outreach director for Vets4Vets and an Iraq war veteran, the organization is a step in getting them that help.

He said the organization, which has about nine groups across the country that meet regularly, hopes to expand so that every community has a local group that vets can go to.

“We do the best we can in situations that are put in front of us,” Randle said of fighting in a war. “We need a place to be OK processing that.”

For more information: www.vets4vets.us

Back on Campus

I wanted to take a moment and blog about something that I am dealing with on a daily basis. I am a full time college student at the University of Arizona as well as the Outreach Director here at Vets4Vets. As I walk around campus on my way to class I am always struck by extreme contrast I feel between myself and every other student that goes walking, biking or skating by me. I see the innocent and unknowing look of youth and inexperience on them. When I sit in my classes and we are encouraged to speak up I hear the book knowledge that I am trying to acquire coming from them and I hesitate to add my worldly knowledge to the conversation. It can be such an overwhelming mix of feelings, some days it is anger at their lack of real knowledge, others it is sadness for my lost college experience. I am fortunate to have been involved in a number of peer support groups over the past year with many veterans going through the same or similar situations. The thing that has been most helpful to me while I trudge through the rigors of college is the presence and encouragement of other veterans. I have meet many other vets though the Student Veterans of America, the U of A Student Vets club and Vets4Vets workshops. It turns out that most if not all fo us have struggled to acclimatize to civilain life, especially at educational institutions. I am often reminded that the majority of society doesn’t have a clue about the sacrifices the men and women in uniform make everyday. I am also reminded that other men and women who served understand exactly how I feel most days and are feeling that way too. I hope that if you are a veteran reading this and are having difficulties readjusting or finding your way that you would seek out other veterans at the VA, the Vet Centers, student veteran groups through SVA, the National Veterans Foundation, US Vets or one of the many Vets4Vets support groups (either local or national workshops). College is tough for anyone to get through without support, but for a veteran who is not just changing lifestyles but changing cultures, languages and careers this challange can feel insurmountable. It doesn’t have to be this way, find a support system that encourages your growth and potential and you will find success.

Doc Randle – OUT