This is my second appearance to the Veteran Serves Veterans with JT Torress. The focus is Combat Veterans and PTSD. Enjoy the show and hope you can join us on 1/6/2016 at New England Liberty House for the third talk: PTSD and the impact on the family relationship.
Part I
Part II
This Veteran’s Day, I ask you to spend a few minutes to thank the family members when you see the veterans.
Last week, my sister who is in Taiwan, sent me a news link in Taiwanese Newspaper, talking about a Gold Star child’s encounter with a soldier.
This news made me feel really sad. This boy has never met his biological father. However, years later, seeing another soldier still reminds him his father.
A couple days later, I saw this news about whether death sentence should not apply to the Veterans.
After reading the news, what made me feel really sad was the section they described how many people testified on this veteran’s behave and the trauma he suffered. It made me feel really said that those people cannot do anything for this veteran until it’s too late. This veteran’s family and friends and the victim’s family and friends are going to live with this for the rest of their lives.
Combat veteran’s PTSD is not their individual issues. It is a community issue. When you say “Thank You for your service” to a veteran, I ask you to remember there are many people behind this veteran who support him/her through deployment as well as their continuous battle with PTSD.
My collaboration with New England Veteran Liberty House (NEVLH) started on October 6, 2015. This is an open group for the veterans from different eras to get together and to share their success and difficulties in the transition from military life to the civilian life.
One night I was watching a show (Cedar Cove) and heard about this from the show. A veteran said this to his girlfriend:
Well, in basic training, it’s drilled into you that your survival is dependent upon the guy in front of you and the guy behind you. But then you return from serving, and all you do is shut everyone out. You need your buddies as much in peacetime as in wartime. It’s a total disconnect.
This is the goal for this group. No matter how you are doing, good, bad, or ugly, come to take your brothers and sisters’ hands or give them your hand.
My goal is to provide my insight from a therapist’s perspective based on the “theme” coming up from the discussion every Tuesday night. Please come and join us when you can.
I feel very honored and so happy to be interviewed by JT at New England Veteran Liberty House at Lawrence. The interview is aired at Lawrence Community Access Television.
Grace Chen, Ph.D, LMFT 