Discussion 1: Bright Futures-6411-wk11-1

Review this week’s resources, including the media on the military veterans on whom you focused throughout this course. Revisit their stories and consider their successes related to their trauma and traumatic reactions. What inspired you about their stories? If you know an active duty military personnel or veteran who inspired you, you may share this example in lieu of the media. For this Discussion, select one veteran that has inspired you.

Post( 2 to 3 pages) the identity of the veteran that you selected. Explain what inspired you about his or her story and his or her success in addressing their traumatic reactions. As a social worker, explain how this story can help to ignite your passion in working with active duty military personnel, veterans, and their families.

Be sure to support your post with specific references to the resources. If you are using additional articles, be sure to provide full APA-formatted citations for your references.

 

Required Readings

Dick, G. (2014). Social work practice with veterans. Washington, D.C.: NASW Press.
Chapter 16, “War Casualties: When a Service Member Dies” (pp. 261-274)
Rubin, A., Weiss, E.L., & Coll, J.E. (2013). Handbook of military social work. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Chapter 22, “Grief, Loss, and Bereavement in Military Families” (pp. 383-408)
Hire Heros USA. (2014). Success stories. Retrieved from https://www.hireheroesusa.org/category/success-stories/
Make The Connection. (2018). The effects of Traumatic brain injury. Retrieved from https://maketheconnection.net/conditions/traumatic-brain-injury 
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2017). Veteran’s success stories. Retrieved from https://www.va.gov/homeless/successstories/veterans.asp 
Wounded Warrior Project. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video
Program Transcript

CLAUDE BOUSHEY: My name is Claude Boushey, and I work for the Virginia
Wounded Warrior Program as a veteran peer specialist. My military service
started in 1983. I joined the army when I was 17 and retired in 2010.

STEVEN MATOS: My name is Steven Matos. I served in the United States
Marine Corps from ’98 through ’05, and I served in Iraq back in January ’03 to
August ’03.

RICHARD MALMSTROM: My name is Richard Malmstrom. I’m a lieutenant
commander in the United States Navy.

CLAUDE BOUSHEY: I was nearly killed in a helicopter crash June 13, 2004,
near Taji, Iraq. I was evaced out of theater– Iraq Theater– into Landstuhl. I broke
my back. I broke my leg. And they were saying that pretty much– a good chance
I might not be able to walk again or I might have some issues or I might not make
it through. I went through four surgeries, one lasting about 16 hours on my spine
and my leg. And I got a bunch of hardware in my body now. So my initial goal, for
me, was just to recover. The second goal was to get back in the cockpit and fly
again. And the third goal, for me, was to get back to Iraq.

RICHARD MALMSTROM: Probably the biggest experience, or the most notable
experience, would be when I was assigned to the 3rd Battalion 25th Marines. We
were assigned to the Sunni Triangle in Iraq, just outside of Al Asad, in 2005.
We’re at a place called Haditha, just along the Euphrates River. But while we
were there for seven months, we had 48 Marines who were killed in combat,
along with probably several hundred who were wounded in combat as well.

I didn’t want to go out too far into the field. I wanted to get as far as I could
without putting myself at undue risk, so I had to remain back a little bit quite
often. And as men were being killed and injured, they were often brought back
into our– inside the wire, and I would go up with the aid station and– primarily,
my first priority were those that were either already dead or those that were
expected to die very soon. But by the time they got to me, they were usually in
pretty bad shape by the time they were there.

And I would make sure that they were secure. I would make sure that we put
them into body bags, that we identified them. I made it a habit of mine to go and
put my hand on the remains and say a blessing for them, and I would say it for
the benefit of those that were there around us and for the families because I
know it was important for them. But I would say a blessing over the body– or
what was left of the body.

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

And soon after putting them into a body bag, we would put them on a helicopter
to send them back home so that they could be interred with the family. But it was
tough because I would go from there and then have to go take care of the
Marines that were left behind.

It was a reserve battalion, so many of the men had been friends for years. They
weren’t just guys who met a few months ago and then started to deploy. But they
were high school buddies and friends from grade school that they now saw blown
to pieces, missing heads, missing arms, legs– so damaged that the bone
structure just didn’t hold anymore. You could flex the body any way you wanted it
to or any way you wanted it to move so you could get it into the body bag. So I’d
go right from putting them in the body bags and sending them home to taking
care of their buddies as best I could.

STEVEN MATOS: I was part of the initial push into Baghdad. I don’t think
anybody’s really ready for that. It takes that first gunshot to go by your feet for
you to realize, holy smoke, I’m really getting shot at. And of course I’m giving you
the edited version. But that’s– it’s– a lot of people say before they go, I’m ready
to do this, do that, and when that first shot goes over your head or hits in front of
your feet and stuff hits the fan, that– OK, I have to go ahead and remember my
training and do what I was trained to do.

I got wounded the first day of war. March 21, 2003, we got caught in a minefield.
It was a Iraqi gun position. We went into the position. We took over the guns.
They were still hot. Realized there was a bunch of holes in the ground– looked
like rat holes– sand rat holes. Realized that something wasn’t right. Within about
two hours of us being there, the first one that went off injured a chaplain’s driver.

During that time, I ran down the field telling everybody to get back into their
vehicles. And about five feet from my truck, one of the staff sergeants is pulling
out a gurney out of a ambulance to set up a triage for the ones that had just got
injured. And he took two steps back and set one off, and it took his right leg from
the knee down, and it also hurts seven others– at the same time, myself.

My injuries were treated on the spot. I was walking around with a limp for a
couple days and started smoking heavily. I wouldn’t get out of a vehicle without
checking the ground. I was just a little nervous on stepping on something myself.
You’ve got a better perspective on what’s going on around you because you’re
always looking around and you’re always trying to make sure that everything is
OK.

RICHARD MALMSTROM: The mobile assault platoon– as they call it, they
dropped me off down in heat, and they took off to go take care of some other
missions. And I was getting myself settled in, getting ready to do some services,
and I felt a blast. My door actually popped open. I could feel the impact from a

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

blast. And I thought something just hit right outside my door, so I grabbed all my
gear and went outside.

I didn’t see anything immediately, so I went to that battalion aid station, and I
could see the plume of smoke from the other side of the Euphrates River, so it
was quite a ways away. And again– had to sit and wait for the injured and the
KIA to come in. One of my close friends was medevaced out and– waited for
weeks to hear of what happened to him.

And in the meantime, they brought back one of the KIA, and he was– from the
torso down, he was gone. He was hit by a suicide vehicle borne IED, and it took
him– from the waist down, there was nothing left. And they brought them in. We
had him in the body bag. I said my blessing. And the– what they call the Combat
Operational Center– called up and said do we have all the pieces and parts, or
do we need to go looking for everything else?

So we opened it back up and started looking through, and we found four– or two
left feet and two right feet. We found the feet of the bomber along with the feet of
the marine who was there. And we started to have this conversation. Well, what
do we do with the feet of the bomber? And the gut reaction of a lot of the people
there was to throw them out in the dumpster. Throw them out with the garbage,
and let the dogs take care of these feet.

And as chaplain, part of my job of being command adviser– it was my task to
stand up at that point and say, no, you can’t do that. We have to treat them with
respect and dignity. We have to put them in a bag. We have to send it off to Al
Asad, and we need to return it to the family, if we can. We need to do whatever
we can for his grieving mother, to return these body parts so they have
something.

And that was a pretty difficult spot to be in, to have to argue on behalf of the man
who just blew up a Marine who’s laying right there. That was a difficult one.

The most notable, aside from that, was just the sheer volume that we had. I was
very close to our snipers. Their hooch, as we called it– the place where they
lived– was just right down the hallway from me at Haditha, and so we got
together all the time. I was very close with one of the Corpsmen who was
attached to them.

And one day, they called me up and they said well, we just lost two of our sniper
teams. So seven of these snipers were– their position was compromised, and
they were killed. Excuse me. So they asked me to go in and tell the other snipers
what had happened.

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

And to make matters worse, one of the younger brothers of the sniper– he was
so impressed with his brother, so enamored by his brother, that he decided to
join the Marines as well, so he was in our battalion also.

The insurgents had taken his body, and we couldn’t find it. And they were doing
things to his body. So I had to sit with this young Marine while we waited for his
brother to be found and– had to sit and counsel with him, get him calmed down,
and try to refocus him on what was now his new task while they were waiting to
find his brother.

And then immediately following that, we sent out some quick reaction forces to
try to find the men who had done this, and we lost 14 men in– it’s called an AAV,
an Amphibious Assault Vehicle. So we lost 21 guys in three days. It was
overwhelming. You can’t even imagine what that’s like to lose so many people in
such a short amount of time. And you go through a funk for a while afterwards
until– for years afterwards. It takes a while to get past something like that.

There were times too where I would see the aftermath of an event and take care
of those Marines as they came in. And then as my Corpsmen would come in,
they would describe to me all the things that they’d done to try to keep these
Marines alive. And they would describe, in detail, everything– the way the scene
looked, how the bodies were positioned, the extent that they went through to try
to keep these men alive.

One of them– he was trying to give mouth to mouth resuscitation on one of these
Marines, and there were so much internal bleeding that this Marine had vomited
blood back up into his mouth as he was trying to resuscitate him. And so he had
the smell of blood on his breath, and I could smell that. And having him describe
everything that happened, along with seeing the aftermath, it’s another one of
those images that gets imprinted on your brain, that you can’t escape from.

I was having the flashbacks, the intrusive memories. I can remember– probably
the worst one I had was I was– as a reserve chaplain, I was serving as a school
administrator along with being an associate pastor, and I had set up some
training for my teachers. And I set up a room for them to get training on CPR.

And when I walked into the room to see the dummies scattered all over the floor–
and it’s just the training dummies that just has the head and the torso– and in my
mind’s eye, I was seeing the real thing, not just a training dummy, and having the
same visceral reaction to it– increased heart rate, the sweating, the inability to
concentrate, all of those things. It was just like I was back seeing these things
again.

So I had a lot of the intrusive memories. I had trouble concentrating. I had trouble
remembering simple words, like telling my kids to pick up their bowl to put it in
the sink. I had to motion to the– pick up your– your– you know, your– the thing.

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

And my boys would say, you mean the bowl, and it’s– yeah. I couldn’t even think
of that.

I think what really freaked me out was– I was sitting at a stoplight one time and
not knowing where I was. I’d stopped at a stoplight and for a good minute or so, I
didn’t know if I was going to work or coming home from work, why I was in the
car, what time of day it was. I had no clue what I was doing in the car, period, or
how I got there. And it shook me quite a bit.

I found myself very short-tempered– could go from 0 to 60 just like that. It took
nothing to get me to lose my temper. Didn’t want to even go outside for a
fireworks display around 4th of July. The sounds, the sights, the smells– all of it
was too familiar. Even just driving down the road, seeing an animal that had been
hit with a car– it would bring back memories, and I would see these things. Even
in the church giving communion, I would see the faces of some of these dead
Marines sometimes.

It was very difficult– had a lot of the intrusive memories– numbing, as well– had
a hard time showing empathy. One of my secretaries– when I returned home,
her son was murdered on her doorstep, or on his doorstep. He was shot in the
head in front of his daughter, and my immediate reaction was well, there’s just
one. What’s everybody so upset about? It’s only one. Let’s have the funeral, and
let’s get back to work. And I didn’t see the problem with it.

I was smart enough not to say that out loud, especially talking with the mother. I
knew the right thing to say, to say I’m sorry for your loss, and this is awful and
terrible. But inside, I just couldn’t connect. I just didn’t think that it was that big of
a deal. Took a long time to regain some of that empathy, and eventually, my wife,
God bless her– she finally said well, you need to go get some help. And she was
at the point of saying if you don’t get some help, I’m going to leave.

So eventually I said, well, OK, fine. I’ll call the VA. They got me in to see a doctor
right away and– started seeing somebody and talking with them. But that took
about three years of working on it. It didn’t happen overnight. It took about three
years of talking with a counselor to get through to the other side and finally get
onto an even keel, and then to turn those experiences around and use them for
positive experiences rather than negative.

CLAUDE BOUSHEY: The things I went through through my recovery were both
physical, mental, and emotional. Believe it or not, the physical part was a lot
easier to cover than the mental and emotional because you knew– mentally,
physically, you know you got a broken leg. It needs to heal. That bone needs to
grow back. You have a crushed spine, so the spine needs to grow back. Those
were easier.

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

Dealing with the mental part– I actually lost a buddy in combat during my
recovery, so that was pretty hard, hitting that portion. Accepting what you are
now, walking around or getting wheeled in a wheelchair– walking with a walker
or a cane, having things attached your body that’s not supposed to be there– to
help you recover, of course. But it’s mentally draining because you want your
body the way it was before June 13, 2004. And once I accepted that hey, this is
the new you, things got better mentally and emotionally. And it was a lot better on
my family, as well.

There was a time– rooms like this– I’d sit in the dark and just hang out and relax,
and that was my time because I just want to reflect on really what happened. And
you go through a phase of woe is me, why me, why’d it happen to me, why
couldn’t it happen to anybody else. I never did anything wrong. Why did it happen
to me?

So you go through that phase, and you go through a phase– whoa, man, I
destroyed a $6 million helicopter. I let my unit down. They’re one less helicopter
in the fight in Iraq. So you go through that phase– was like why– I let my unit
down. I want to go back.

And so September ’05 is when I went back on flying status. And then we started
gearing up for the next tour for Iraq, and I volunteered to get on the next boat
over, to the next tour with my unit. So that was a goal that I need to fulfill because
mentally I felt that I didn’t get the job done the first time because I crashed right in
the middle of the tour, so I got sent home. And I wanted to complete a full tour for
me, mentally. I was offered other positions– the PCS– to change duty stations
and go somewhere else that was not deploying, but I elected to stay there and
deploy with the unit.

STEVEN MATOS: I got back in August of ’03, and it wasn’t really the best
homecoming. I ended up getting divorced. I ended up losing my youngest son. I
went home to see my mom and dad and my brother and grandmother back in
New York, and that was nice, but living here in Virginia– I just dove into my work.
I just did everything that I could to keep busy.

My sleep was horrendous. I wouldn’t fall asleep til 7:00 in the morning the next
day. I’d be up all night– just couldn’t sleep until finally– body was tired enough
that I would just pass out.

Relationship wise, the smallest things set me off. I don’t care if it was a little bit of
spilled milk or just a dumb question– then I’m jumping at the hinges. And that’s
when I realized, OK, something’s not right. And I got in trouble. I had a incident at
home where I got arrested, and I ended up doing time in jail for it. And that’s
when I realized, yeah, something’s wrong. I need help because this is– it’s
getting to the point that it’s dangerous.

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

RICHARD MALMSTROM: I’ve met vets that have tried just taking the
medications to make it go away, and I’m a firm believer that that doesn’t work.
That may be part of it for some people. It may help them get over the hump, but I
think in the long run, just dealing with it, talking about it, getting it out the open
and dealing with it helps in the long run.

CLAUDE BOUSHEY: Your body mentally and emotionally go up and down as far
as the hardships on the family and on yourself– as far as what you go through.
You need people to talk to. You need people to encourage you. You need a
mentor to look up to and give you that next step to shoot for. I didn’t have that. I
had my wife looking out for me. I had my friends calling me quite often.

So having been down at the bottom, you kind of know how it feels to give back a
little bit. That way you can see into people’s eyes, as far as their recovery. You
can tell them what you’ve been through, in some cases, and that way they can be
encouraged to move forward. Always give them something to move forward for,
versus– it’s pretty much like being on first base. You want to get to second base,
and it’s just– they circle first base forever. They can’t never get to home. So
that’s an analogy I use– is give them a resource or service for them to move
forward– or goal.

STEVEN MATOS: If you’re looking for help for your PTSD, always know that
you’re not alone. That’s the biggest thing that we all look for, is for– being able to
connect with someone that’s either been there and done that or has done the
same thing as you and is looking for a helping hand. Never, ever think that hey, I
might have done something that, deep inside, is killing me. But someone else
has done the same thing– not something just as bad, or maybe even worse.

And there’s always somebody on the other side who would like to help you. Most
Marines don’t want to admit that they have PTSD because it makes you look
weak. You don’t want to tell a leader hey, I think my head’s mixed up. They’re
going to tell you hey, go home and sleep it off and come back tomorrow and you
should be OK.

So you just learn to put it in a back burner for as long as you can, and that’s the
bad thing. I got back home in ’03, and I didn’t have my first incident until ’06. And
when it happened, it was just a explosion of emotions that were put away for so
many years, and– which is why I got in trouble.

CLAUDE BOUSHEY: I got involved in the Wounded Warrior Program when I was
injured and during my recovery. I knew how it was to recover from almost nearly
getting killed, coming back, recovering recuperating, rehabbing, going through
with that whole experience– hit rock bottom, pretty much.

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

And being able to come back and help other veterans, to help them with issues
that I faced and help them with other issues that are facing most veterans today,
was my driving force for helping other veterans when I retired from the army.

RICHARD MALMSTROM: I encourage all the service members I come across to
join things like the American Legion or the VFW so they can find some of these
kindred spirits to swap war stories. And it’s more than just braggadocio. It’s more
than just that. You’re not just bragging about what you’ve done, but it’s more of–
sharing those combat experiences and lightening that load just a little bit.

CLAUDE BOUSHEY: I do a lot of outreach– try to bring combat veterans to the
group because once they come to the group, they can connect, get with other
veterans– camaraderie– instant camaraderie, instant– it’s a peer-to-peer
approach that we use– nothing clinical. There’s no doctors. There’s no clinicians,
therapists or anything. It’s pretty much a combat veteran talking to another
combat veteran.

It’s a approach. It’s not the best method. It’s a method– acceptable method. So
that’s the approach that we use here at the Virginia program– the Virginia
Wounded Warrior Program. What works for veteran A may not work for veteran B
, so you got to use a different approach. And having a peer mentor, or a peer
veteran specialist that we do here at the program, definitely will help someone
guide through those hurdles and issues so we can get them to the right resource.

STEVEN MATOS: The Wounded Warrior Program is awesome because you’ve
got guys from almost every service. You got your Marines, you got your army,
you got your navy, you got your air force, you’ve got your reservists– and you get
to see from every single perspective you could imagine of– OK, Marines do this,
army does that. And you get to understand what their job really is, and you get to
see what somebody else has gone through.

I’ve met a couple of guys that were in Iraq same time that I was, doing a
complete different mission. And– hey, I didn’t know about that. That’s pretty cool.
I wish I was there for that. So you get that perspective.

And then you also get that camaraderie and that family feeling that– I look
forward to Tuesdays because it’s like going to see a cousin or aunt because it’s
just that feeling of family. I can go ahead, go in and speak about my problems,
and I know somebody’s going to help me out that day.

And you can go to a daily check-in to see how your week was from last week. So
if you have any issues at home that you’d like to talk about– see if anything is
bothering you. It might be anniversary of the date that you got hurt or a date that
you had to put somebody down, and that was always weighs heavy on folks. And
then we might find a topic. If somebody says something during their check-in that
we could all talk about, we’ll all talk about it.

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The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video

RICHARD MALMSTROM: So talking about it is probably step number one. Or I
should say recognizing that it’s going to happen, that you’re not immune to it, is
step number one. Step number two would be to talk about it. Talk about what you
saw what you saw. Find a counselor, somebody that you trust so you’re not
breaking any confidences, and talk about those things with that other person,
along with how they’re affecting you, how those images in your mind are sticking
with you.

I could tell you hundreds of things that have stuck in my mind over the years of
just things that people have described to me, and they become real to us, as
well. So they can really affect us the same way that it affects somebody else.

The Effects of War and Combat – Full Video
Additional Content Attribution

IMAGES:
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MUSIC:
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Studio Cutz Music Library
Carrollton, TX

©2013 Laureate Education, Inc. 9

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