Business cards, not bullets, were flying thick and fast, but all you had to do was scratch the surface to realize that lives were on the line, nevertheless.
“I was just lost …”
“I was out there by myself, homeless with children …”
“His wife found him hanging in a closet …”
With the Department of Veterans Affairs and the government of Iraq locked in a full-out battle to see which one can generate more negative headlines, a couple dozen veterans of the post-9/11 wars gathered at the Park Bar in downtown Atlanta last week to network over lunch.
The slogan of the host organization, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, pretty much said everything that needed saying: “We’ve got your back.” The unspoken and unnecessary subtext, of course, being: “… which is a good thing, because you can be pretty damned sure that nobody else — and especially not the suits in Washington — does!”
Not that anybody present had come to rag on the VA or cry in their beer over the screwed-up-ness of the world at large. Like all veterans, everywhere and in every time, this generation learned long ago that, when the chips are down, the one you can count on is the one right next to you, staring down the barrel of the same impossible situation you’re looking at.
“There’s nobody in a white hat coming to save you. It’s on you,” in the words of BriGette McCoy, a Gulf War-era vet who was there networking with the younger fry.
McCoy’s business card reads: “Women Veterans Social Justice.” Part of what she does is use social media to connect veterans with organizations in the community that can help with whatever problem is dogging them.
Sometimes, she said, with the ones whose inner demons are breathing hot and heavy down their necks, she doesn’t even wait for them to admit that they’re in crisis. She watches their Facebook pages and reaches out to them PDQ if she senses that they’re slipping down the rabbit hole, especially if it’s 11 p.m. or 2 a.m., when no VA clinic is open.
“We can’t solve the problem,” McCoy said. “We can help diminish the pain.”
Not far from McCoy’s table, Justin Jarrell and his mother, Terrie Cummings, handed out cards for their firm, Follow Me Realty. On the back, the card says, “We proudly donate a portion of our earned commission to The United States War Veteran’s PTSD Foundation, Inc.” Cummings and Jarrell also offer free real estate services to vets decorated with Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars with valor or higher honors.
On 9/11 Jarrell was already in boot camp. He did four deployments — Afghanistan, Iraq, Iraq, Afghanistan — the last in 2011.
His family knew after the third one that he was in bad shape, mentally and emotionally, but he couldn’t see it.
His attitude, he said, was: “This is me. Deal with it.”
Looking back now at that “me,” he said simply, “I was a monster.”
The VA was instrumental in his finding his way back, as were the family members who insisted he get help. Now he tries to be that steadying voice for others who are walking the same dark road. Like the guy who tried to hang himself and, another time, swallowed a handful of pills.
What Jarrell would rather not think about is what he and all those others bought with the price they paid. He certainly didn’t think about it when he enlisted, he said.
“I was always the guy who stayed out of political discussions,” he said. “I signed up because I wanted to go fight.”
He doesn’t watch the news out of Iraq, but these days it’s more or less impossible to avoid, and with it, the memories of all the guys who died.
“And for what reason?” he asked quietly.
Best case, for him, would be that the VA will be forced to reform itself. Absent that? About the only sure result he can see is this: “Some folks up in Washington made a lot of money.”
Like Jarrell, Eric Rollins wonders what his friends died for. But he said he has only ever talked about it with one other veteran.
Partly, he said, that’s because “why?” is the last thing soldiers are encouraged to think about.
“It’s the culture: You do what you’re told. You salute the flag pole and move out,” he said.
Partly it’s that he doesn’t want to remember all the losses, all the deaths.
Which can be a problem, he said, when every time you visit the VA you see a different doctor. By the time the fourth one asks you how your buddy died, you’re in no mood to answer.
“And then you’re one of those angry vets,” he said with a little smile.
Rollins gives the VA its due. “I wouldn’t be here today but for help from the VA,” he said. “I’ve gotten back to being sociable. I want to be with people. I’m slowly getting myself to believe that everything’s not going to blow up.”
On the other hand, he said, after more than eight years of active duty, the only career advice he was given when he got back was to sign up for unemployment. Having enlisted straight out of high school, he felt left behind by the friends who now had college degrees.
Today, he’s a local leader in the Iraq/Afghanistan veterans group, encouraging vets of his generation to hang together and make waves when they have to, even if it goes against every ounce of their military training.
“Hurry up and wait” may be an unavoidable fact of life when you’re wearing the uniform, he said, but it shouldn’t be an unavoidable fact of life once you’re out and dealing with the VA.
“Now we’ve got to secure our safety,” he said. “I’m trying to make sure we secure it for the next generation.”
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