I’m a Veteran. I Came Home Different After What I Saw

My family has always served in the military. My father was one of six brothers. They all went to World War Two, each in a different service and theater, and all came home.
I was around 10 when my brother-in-law was in Vietnam, which was impactful, and my sister was an Air Force nurse. I always wanted to follow their example and serve in the military and was passionate about serving the United States of America as part of something bigger than myself.
Originally, I wanted to be a pilot, but I didn’t realize until I went to the military recruiter that I was colorblind, so I didn’t qualify for flight status as a pilot. However, I had gone through nursing school.
So, I joined the Air Force as a nurse and was assessed into its aeromedical evacuation program, which is the long-range movement of patients. This program gave me opportunities to fly, see the world, and care for wounded, ill, or injured.
After joining, I served around the globe: In Iraq in both Gulf Wars, Somalia during the 1990s, Afghanistan late in the Soviet invasion, demining missions in Vietnam and Cambodia, work in Central America, and the Global War on Terror around the world.
There are countless stories. In the 1980s, I was part of a team that aeromedically evacuated Mujahadeen and their families through Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan to the United States and European hospitals.
During one of many missions, we evacuated Afghan children who were losing arms and eyesight due to candy and toys that the Soviets booby-trapped.
A young boy with damaged corneas was on one of the missions. During the flight, he was agitated and upset. I noticed a cassette tape in his bag and offered him the use of my Sony Walkman cassette tape player to listen to his music.
Within minutes of listening, the child relaxed and calmed. He was at peace.
Later I asked him if I could listen to his cassette tape and found it was the sound of a battle that had calmed this child: Helicopters, automatic weapons, rockets, chaos.
It struck me that this child had lived his entire life in a combat zone; it was all he knew.
In 2001, I was working in Special Operations Command. On 9/11, I reminded my colleagues about the story from when I was on a plane with a very young Afghan boy who was at peace with war. That child and his friends of the 1980s were now adults and were extremely comfortable with war.
During my time in Mogadishu, I have a lot of memories, both good and bad. I was there for quite a while, first during the humanitarian relief effort and then as the mission extended beyond Task Force Ranger represented in the movie Black Hawk Down.
The most profound and considerable impact on me, in my young career, was during that time in Mogadishu.
I witnessed absolute human deprivation. The people of Mogadishu ran out of places to bury their dead. There was widespread hunger. There was the violence of warfare. I was not trained or prepared for what I experienced.
I came home in 1993, and my wife said: “You’re different.”
This was before society had accepted talking openly about post-traumatic stress. I was also moving to a position that held a higher security clearance and great responsibility, so I just hunkered down and lived with it.
But the experience did change me. And it was just the beginning.
My son was born in 1992. When I came home from Iraq in 2004, he was 12, and he said to me: “Dad, you’ve changed.”
That was my last tour in Iraq, and it was tough. But by that point, people were talking about the need to seek treatment, so I went to different places to get some help. My search led to a program in Tampa at the University of South Florida, and that is where these changes became evident.
One consequence of my combat experience was that my vigilance increased, especially if there was a crowd or a lot of activity. I would become very controlling and focused on everything in the room. A friend said I’m like a sheepdog; I see chaos and want to manage it, and that’s who I am.
As a combat medic by trade, my instinct is to go toward the action, make some sense out of the chaos by treating people, and continue to move forward.
I don’t remember who I was before my deployments. But I feel like I’ve found a new normal now.
My family says I’m different, but I don’t know if that’s because of what I experienced or because I matured through the structure and discipline of the military and rising the ranks.
Is it because of combat? That’s easy to put your finger on. But is it due to other influences?
When I left the military, I went right back and worked as a civilian for the same Special Operations Command unit that I had left. So, I was surrounded by the military in an environment that I knew.
It wasn’t until I left there and came to run America’s Warrior Partnership (AWP), a nonprofit supporting veterans, that the transition to civilian life hit me.
As the president and CEO of an organization in the civilian world, I just didn’t know who to trust. That was my biggest struggle. I had no idea who was going to deliver, so I gave people the benefit of the doubt. But sometimes they didn’t do what I needed them to.
The “zero failure” and “mission first” mentality of the military was gone.
Another time, I went to a Chamber of Commerce business meeting and found it very hard to get a read on people.
In the military, if you walk into a room full of people, you often know everyone’s seniority and background because of their uniform: Rank, awards, unit, and decorations.
It was then that I came to a hard realization that most take for granted: You have to talk to people to find out information. That was one of the biggest things that struck me during my transition to civilian life.
At AWP, we feel that every veteran should be known in their community. They should be known to the nation, and they should be celebrated. And to do that, it involves finding veterans and having a conversation with them.
Our first step is to find veterans ahead of a personal crisis and build a relationship with them, educating them about and connecting them to different opportunities—work, education, health, housing, and more—to improve their quality of life.
A lot of people assume that veterans are, in some way, “broken” or “damaged goods.”
But that is not the case. Veterans may work in a different way, but we’re highly functional people who are focused on leadership. We volunteer at a substantially higher rate than those who have never served in the military.
AWP also advocate for veterans when they hit a roadblock somewhere because veterans are often the worst people at advocating for themselves. They either just don’t, or they do it clumsily, and don’t move forward. We help them to make progress in their lives.
Importantly, AWP will work with anybody and everybody. We will collaborate with any organization or agency if it’s in the best interest of the veterans and they’re willing to do what they say they’re going to.
If an organization promises a veteran that it will deliver a service and don’t follow through on that promise, then that organization doesn’t just fail AWP, it fails the veteran, and it fails the society that has promised to look after those who served.
However, AWP has been very successful in collaboration with partners, and our casework success rate is nearly 90 percent, one of the best rates among veterans groups in the nation.
America’s Warrior Partnership works with partners and communities nationwide, and has programs set up in five communities throughout the United States, mostly as a bridge between community-based services and national resources.
Every day, AWP is on the ground finding and assisting veterans. The work is both rewarding and successful, and I’m proud of our team and our partners.
We also have a suicide study called Operation Deep Dive™, in partnership with Duke University School of Medicine. Operation Deep Dive™ is the first of its kind that truly knows the identity of every single service member who died in the last 10 years: Their name, cause of death, and their military history. It is an ongoing study, and at least eight states have participated or sent data to collaborate.
Whether it’s a nonprofit group, local government, state government or the VA, there are a lot of groups and departments and agencies available that provide resources for veterans. But finding veterans and connecting them to resources is still a challenge—and one that AWP is trying to fix.
However, some problems in the veteran’s community are structural, including some of the issues surrounding the Department of Veterans Affairs. Every part of the VA is in a silo: Health care, benefits, suicide prevention, etc.
At AWP, we approach mental health differently, as each veteran is unique and requires a “one-size-fits-one” approach. Counseling is a tool, but must be used as part of a holistic look at a veteran that also takes into consideration things like employment, transportation, financial stressors, access to health care, housing, benefits, etc.
All of that must come together, and AWP is trying to be part of the solution.
In the past nine months, AWP has identified 217 veterans who had suicidal ideation within the last 30 days. And we have served every single one of them. They’re all still alive. They’re all still connected.
However, 94 percent of them came to AWP not seeking mental health or behavioral health services. They came to us seeking something else, such as housing support or financial assistance.
The only way to truly reach AWP’s mission of ending veteran’s suicide is to attack one of it’s main culprits: Hopelessness. And hopelessness isn’t a mental health diagnosis. When you feel that there is no hope, that you have no way out and there’s no way forward, that’s tragic.
Like me, every veteran has a story. And we can, and should, give these veterans their hope back. Sometimes we need to do more to ask questions. Sometimes we need to do more to listen.
While there is a lot of work to be done, groups like AWP are out there on the front line every day doing the work, alongside our friends, partners, and the VA.
Our nation holds veterans in high regard, with good reason. Veterans are in every community across the country and are an essential part of the fabric of our national identity. We can’t let them down.
Together, we can do better.
Jim Lorraine, the president and CEO of America’s Warrior Partnership, served in the U.S. Air Force as a Flight Nurse with nine combat deployments and retired as the Deputy Command Surgeon for the United States Special Operations Command after 22 years of service. He became the founding director of the United States Special Operations Command Care Coalition and served as Special Assistant for Warrior and Family Support to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
All views expressed are the author’s own.
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