Transcript
You know, no one says that because you're in this world
and you served your country for God knows how many years
that everything is going to be a bed of roses.
I think maybe five or 10 percent of the soldiers
who come back from a war find their bed of roses.
The rest of us come back,
we find roses, but it got thorns in it.
Before I took PTSD treatment, I was like a Tasmanian Devil
or a time bomb, like my psychiatrist told me,
waiting to explode.
After working for a company for over eight-and-a-half years
as a travel agent, they took away my job.
I was very upset at first that I was one of the people
chosen to be laid off.
If I had never went to PTSD group session,
I probably would have something very stupid.
You know, when I was coming up in New York as a child,
my father got killed early, and I joined a gang
because I wanted that male companionship.
So, I joined the Army, and it was a different gang now.
The soldiers that you train with, you sleep with, you eat with,
you know, these are family.
And you go over to war, and you watch them die
right there before you, you know?
I was the Platoon Sergeant.
I was in charge, and when one of us didn't come back,
it was like a emptiness inside of me
because it was like I'd failed.
I can't tell you the number of days I've cried.
You know, even now, in-between jobs,
Monday through Friday I go to the VA hospital
because sitting at home, any type of isolation
is definitely a death trap for me.
I'll apply for some jobs, read my e-mail,
see who's responded to my resume,
and I may walk around the hospital
just seeing who may need assistance.
It doesn't matter what branch of the military they were in,
every Veteran I've come across in the VA hospital
is like a family member.
We call each other Vet.
"Hi, Vet." "Hi, Vet," you know?
You know, and, uh...
But it just makes me feel like I'm among family members.
I'm with my family.
My social worker, at the VA hospital,
convinced me to go to PTSD treatment.
I went to that orientation, and I stood up near the door
because I knew if I didn't like it I was walking out the door.
And as each person went around and introduced themselves
and told a little bit about them, I'm like, "Oh my God."
It's like a mirror, you know?
Everyone sounded like me.
Isolation, temper.
It's almost like they had tapped into my mind,
and each one told the same story.
And I'm like, "Oh my God, I got PTSD."
And so I pulled up a chair and sat down, you know.
Going to the PTSD treatment,
I learned to talk and communicate, like I'm talking now,
because talking and understanding what happened
helps me a lot.
So yeah, I mean, you're feeling dismayed, you know,
that's part of human function, psychologically.
But you know, you can overcome that dismay, that depression
by allowing something positive to be done in your life.
It's there, it's right there in front of me.
You go to the VA hospital, you see a Veteran struggling
to get down the hallway to his clinic, go help that Vet.
That's positive.
And you feel good inside.
How could you come home and feel negative?
You helped another Vet!
I'm telling you, spending a day helping people out
and job searching, taking humble advice,
all the things they teach you in PTSD group session,
how to overcome obstacles and problems, it works!
It works if you work it.