and Mary will call me the next day, and be like, “Leslie,
don’t you know that this is available,” or “I can take care
of that for you,” and that is the only way because I have
So I finally ...
seen nobody. I took my son home because he wasn’t
safe where we were. tackled the doctor,
Guice: Shannon, how about you? …
and I said, ‘Look, you
Maxwell: We had a lot of information offered to us in
have to help us. I’m
the military treatment facility, particularly right when
we got there. We were inundated in that initial phase.
not a neurosurgeon.
That gets a little overwhelming for caregivers, so trying
to remember that and sort that out after we got home
I’m not a psychologist.
was more difficult.
For myself and a lot of other caregivers, we relied
I’m not a therapist. I’m
on Web sites. I certainly relied on, again, the Marine
just a mom.’
Corps, the Marine liaisons. Now the Wounded Warrior
Regiment, which has stood up since, does send out little — Leslie Kammerdiener,
blurbs of information to notify the families. mother of a wounded soldier
And a lot of it was through nonprofit organizations.
Once you tap into one nonprofit organization, for the
most part, they’re pretty good about sharing informa- single warrior as their after-battle buddy, that’s what you
tion and getting you to other nonprofit organizations. So need to be doing. So thank you.
there is some partnership going on there.
Kammerdiener: I think that, you know, obviously I would
Guice: [I have] one question, and it’s the same for all of love to wave the wand and take this whole event away, but
you: If I gave you each a magic wand, and you could wave knowing that that’s not going to happen, I think I would
it and make one thing change, what would it be? make the support system just there everywhere. Every-
where you turned, you have information; everywhere you
Maxwell: I would say the education process prior to turn [someone knows] who to call because the hardest
retirement, separations, and the PEB. There are min- thing is trying to struggle and swim through, you know,
ute details like whether to take a normal retirement or how many organizations between the DoD, the VA, and
a medical retirement or whether to [cross] this “t” or not having one iota of an idea on how to do it on top of try-
check this box that are really not quite explained. So ing to keep your son alive, and trying to keep your finances
I would change that process so that there is a strong afloat when you have no job. And, you know, try to keep
advocate at that point [who’s] educating the family, your daughter mentally stable to go with this. Just sup-
[who’s] advocating [and] reviewing the packages to port. It has to be there somewhere.
make sure that the PEB package that is put in really
gives a good description of the injuries set forth so that Christensen: I guess the one thing I would say is in the
you don’t have the difficulties that some of our retirees course of our study, one of the things that became very
are facing with lower disability ratings or making deci- apparent to us is the distinction in the help that those
sions that affect their pay status. with TBI and PTSD didn’t get relative to those with
more visible wounds.
Koch: If I had a magic wand, I would make cognitive reha- For example, DoD, if you meet certain medical quali-
bilitation a DoD obligation. … And the other thing I would fications, you know, you need help with activities of
do, which we try to do with everybody we come in contact daily living, you know, dressing and bathing and eating
with, and that is to make them recognize that this is their and those things, you can get the support of a nonmedi-
personal responsibility, they have to take ownership of the cal attendant, or in other words, you can get your family
care of these people, and it’s a direct one-to-one. member who is caring for you some per diem basically
It’s good to belong to organizations and institutions to help them financially just a little bit to cover some of
that help with these things and to contribute your time their expenses while they’re caring for you. That’s not
in that way, but if there is any way that you can help one available to those with PTSD and TBI because they can
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