Transcript
(light music)
I had a temper growing up
and my feelings were easily hurt.
My skin color was real black,
and I got teased in my own
family about my darkness,
as well as outside my family.
Everybody called me
black Jeff, black Jeff,
black Jeff, black Jeff.
They would laugh, and I
would get angry and angry,
and you know.
I had no experience in fighting,
but I knew that I could get real loud
and be like a little
bitty chihuahua, you know?
But I'll show you my teeth.
I was hoping my teeth
would scare you off of me
and I'll never have to bite you.
(birds chirping)
You know, my experiences in the military
as far as dealing with racism
was just a series of things that happened
based on the fact that
I was a black soldier.
When I first was deployed,
it was myself and another black soldier.
When we got to the unit,
they ran out and they
said, "Well, welcome.
We're glad you're here.
We've been waiting on
our generator mechanics."
And they didn't ask us what our job was.
We were the people that were gonna be
running the telecommunications equipment,
one of the most important jobs there.
That's the job we actually came to do.
(birds chirping)
We had a captain, every time he'd
hand out the worst detail,
he kept getting us.
From the time I got there
until the time I left,
the color of my skin
once again was an issue.
(car running)
(mellow music)
While I was over in Kuwait,
I was a message delivery carrier.
I had the task of traveling
to the notorious Death Valley.
It was called Death Valley
because it was bodies,
burning bodies, dismembered bodies.
And then we had the bombs
that was a possibility.
I did that run at least 85 times.
It created a lot of anxiety and fear.
If I was a white soldier,
I probably would've got a Bronze Star.
(mellow music)
The trust factor, I
don't think it was there
as far as being able to share,
and say, "Look, hey, this
is what's going on with me.
This why I'm drinking like this.
This is why I'm smoking all the chassis."
You know, "Something is
really eating my lunch,
and this is my medication."
I never told anybody.
When I got back from combat,
I was sent to Germany,
and I continued to drink and drug,
and I had no idea that what
I had went through in Kuwait
was like, still turning inside of me.
I didn't know.
I was very easily agitated.
This aggression finally boiled over.
My stepson, he told me
that a man had hit him
for spray painting his name
on the basketball court.
I snapped.
And before I knew it,
I had a real good run in
with the guy, and I hurt him.
I beat him up pretty good.
That landed me in court martial
because the guy was actually a captain.
I take full responsibility for what I did,
but I know that everything
that I had been through
shaped my response.
It was very difficult to
establish trust in the VA
being able to help me
because of all the stories I had heard,
passed down stories of racism.
(mellow music)
Well, long story short,
2012, I went to the VA here
in Dublin, and I enrolled in,
it's called cognitive
behavioral therapy, CBT.
And I did that for 12 weeks.
That's when I came to terms that I got it.
For three years, I worked out
my medicine with this doctor.
That was a process of saying something
that black Jeff would never say,
well, we'd tell you how I feel.
This doctor, he never fought me.
He was more like, "Listen,
I'm here for you."
Now I work peer support,
so I'm like, you know,
I'm like the frontline when it
comes to veterans coming in,
needing somebody to identify
with them right off the top.
And it's like, "Listen, man,
I've been right where
you at. I understand."
You know, I went to work the other day
and this veteran saw me,
and this is a white veteran,
and he hugged me, and he said,
he said, "Mr. Jones," he
said, "I thank you, man."
He said, "I thank you.
You really been helping me."
And I'm like, "Yo, man, hey, you know,"
look, this what I do.
You know, this what I do."
(soft music)