'Invisible wounds' follow veterans home

For a generation of veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, adjusting to life after combat presents its own set of challenges and wounds.

Many of them may not be easily visible.

Veterans say readjusting to civilian life after the anxiety and intensity of war takes time, effort and sometimes the support of other vets and care providers.

"Sometimes I wish my wounds were on the outside so everyone could see what I'm going through," said Ken Corry, an Air Force veteran who has been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Nobody can see this. 'What's wrong with the guy? He looks fine to me.' It's invisible wounds that are really hard to deal with."

The 30-year-old Bellevue resident did two tours in Iraq, and one each in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a member of an Air Force security unit. Duties ranged from securing bases in hostile areas to helping train Iraqi police.

He rattles off a list of physical maladies in the wake of his service. Many are the result of exploding mortars, rockets, and being tossed around in his Humvee.

"The stuff comes in. You're jumping on the ground. Ducking for cover. Then you come home and it's not the same as it was downrange," said Corry, president of Student Veterans of America chapter at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay. "You want to isolate. Push everyone away, your family and your friends, and just be left alone. It's difficult to get back to civilian life."

Warrior summit

Corry, other veterans and families of veterans shared their stories at a recent summit focused on getting services to veterans at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center in Ashwaubenon.

"We're trying to provide an atmosphere where veterans can find out what services are available to them and how to get in contact with those services," said Jeff Jansen, the lead facilitator for the summit. "We're also trying to get the clinicians — the social workers, the psychiatrists, the homeless advocates — in our area to know how to deal with veterans."

The summit traces its roots to a similar programs in Madison and Milwaukee.

The summit was in the works for months and included efforts from more than 30 agencies, ranging from Brown County Social Services to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and area colleges and technical schools.

Anxiety, depression, angry outbursts, sleep issues, nightmares, flashbacks, and a dislike of crowds are symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Traumatic brain injury brings some similar symptoms, along with issues like memory loss, seizures and confusion.

Between 10 percent and 18 percent of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to have the condition, according to the National Center for PTSD.

A survey this year of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America members indicated 44 percent of the 2,000 respondents said they had been diagnosed with PTSD, and 18 percent with traumatic brain injury.

Jansen, an Army veteran who works with the Brown County medical examiner's office, said the suicide rate of veterans is about 10 times higher than the civilian population.

"It's not just those that were in combat pulling the trigger, it's those that were in the hospitals treating the guys who came back from the (improvised explosive devices)," Jansen said. "There are Vietnam vets who still have issues and are looking for help. It's a big issue."

Embrace the new person

Dr. Michael McBride is a military psychiatrist with the Veterans Affairs hospital in Milwaukee who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said one of the biggest challenges for returning veterans is a sense of loss when they leave their comrades and a familiar culture.

"We try to help them understand that they've changed, they will never be the person they were before, and they need to embrace this new person," said McBride, the keynote speaker at the recent summit. "Their goal is to strive to be the healthiest veteran they can become.

"It's no longer the standard of 'I need to be like everyone else on the college campus,' that doesn't work," he said. "Living with war, that's never going to go away. ... Your recovery is learning to live with those memories in the healthiest way you can."

Aaron Schmallenberg, a 32-year-old former Army combat medic who grew up in Shawano and did two tours in Iraq, said he doesn't dream. He has nightmares. He's had seizures, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, difficulty in crowds, traumatic brain injury and problems with short-term memory. His younger sister helps take care of him.

Schmallenberg is enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay with aspirations to be a doctor. He said he loved the varied routine of deployment, and expresses reluctance to fit in with the routine of life after the military.

"It's one day at a time," Schmallenberg said. "I live one day at a time, but I plan for my future."

Veterans say other veterans are key resources in the transition to life after combat.

Ben Hirte, a 30-year-old combat engineer who attends UW-Whitewater, got out of the Army earlier this year after two tours in Afghanistan.

"There's that shared experience," he said about combat. "This experience is a very unique one to a very small portion of the population. It's a community that bonds quickly within itself and I think it needs to be connected to the larger community, but it is a process."

Hirte, who said he aspires to work with veterans and their families as a counselor following college, said he recognizes lingering parts of the combat experience in himself.

"You are trained to ... always be wondering: if there's a rocket attack or small arms fire, where do I take cover? What do I do? What happens if so-and-so gets hit?" he said. "To go from that to the civilian world, it's an adjustment."

A family affair

Post-traumatic stress disorder isn't limited to the troops on the front lines. McBride said PTSD can have a secondary effect on family members. It's an area he said he would like to the VA system to address.

"My wish would be, 10 years from now, we have family resource centers as part of our treatment programs where spouses, parents, children, are also getting care to help them understand the experience their parent went through," he said. "And to help them with their own story, the adjustment they have gone through as a family."

Schmallenberg agrees.

"It's the family members that are being left behind," he said. "People don't realize what they go through. They really don't. They go on deployments, too. It's just their deployments are here. They carry those burdens as well."

Jansen said a pair of committees plan to keep working on connecting veterans and communities with services. Part of the work will include providing resources and information to veterans and service providers in rural areas.

"This is a long-term process," he said.

Corry is continuing his education at NWTC. He's working toward degrees in graphic design and photography. He plans to continue working with fellow veterans on the transition from war to life at home.

He doesn't want to see them struggle, like he did.

"We've done things, and seen things, a lot of people can probably never imagine," Corry said. "But we're here now, today, trying to fit back into the world we once knew."

— nphelps@pressgazettemedia.com and follow him on Twitter@nathanphelpsPG or on Facebook at Nathan Phelps (Press-Gazette)

More information

Additional information about local veterans services can be obtained by contacting the Green Bay Vet Center at (920) 435-5650.

County veterans' service offices can provide direction to veterans seeking assistance.

¦ Brown County: (920) 448-4450

¦ Door County: (920) 746-2225

¦ Kewaunee County: (920) 388-7198

¦ Marinette County: (715) 732-7650

¦ Oconto County: (920) 834-6817

¦ Shawano County: (715) 526-9183

A full list of Wisconsin veterans' service offices can be found here: www.wicvso.org/your_cvso.htm

A U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs veterans' crisis line is available at: (800) 273-8255 and online at veteranscrisisline.net