“If you take a community and really give it a thorough going over, you’re going to find a lot of veterans who are down by the wayside, who do not have health care, and who don’t know where to turn.”
M
r. Stroud internalized his feelings and hesitated to seek help because in the military culture it is taboo to talk “outside the circle.” Thus, he says, seeking help from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) “was a tough step for me.” Despite the VA’s help, his problems cost him his marriage. “My wife and I quit communicating,” he said, “because she simply did not understand and didn’t want to go to therapy sessions. She thought it was just that I quit trying. She didn’t understand what I went through and why I was closed off.” Mr. Stroud, who lives in Hutto near Austin and who is in- volved in veteran support activities as military affairs director for ArmedZilla, an online social networking community for veterans, service members, and their families, is one of thou- sands of veterans returning home from the wars in Afghani- stan and Iraq who are dealing with physical and mental health issues. And while numerous government agencies and private groups help returning veterans, some experts call for greater community awareness of the issues facing our former fighting men and women, and how physicians, educators, employers, and others in the community can help them. Now, a national organization based in Austin addresses that
very issue. I SUPPORT VETS (ISV), a veterans’ advocacy group founded in January 2011, plans to unveil this month a series of online and onsite training courses designed to help physi-
22 TEXAS MEDICINE March 2012
cians, nurses, first responders, educators, corporate manag- ers, and others understand the unique needs of veterans. Stephanie Moles, ISV founder and executive director, says the goal is to help com- munities care for veterans and their families.
“Based on the recent find- ings of the Pew Research Cen- ter, nearly three quarters of our population does not have an understanding of today’s veterans.” And with the end of the Iraq war, some 40,000 men and women are “return- ing to their communities from combat earlier than expected, and it is necessary that we — the public — educate our- selves to ease their reentry.” Austin oncologist John Costanzi, MD, a retired Air Force Reserve flight surgeon, says preparing primary care and emergency physicians in the community to care for vet- erans could be critical because the VA system is stretched thin. “When you look at the sta- tistics, the VA hospital system
is doing a good job for our troops, but they’re limited,” said Dr. Costanzi. “They’re running at full capacity, and they can’t take care of everybody. What this group [ISV] wants to do is develop some training programs to make the medical commu- nity aware of this problem and to guide them in taking care of these people away from the VA hospital system.”
A new veteran According to ISV, nearly 23 million veterans and service mem-
bers, plus their family members, live and work in communities across America, including 1.7 million in Texas alone. Federal statistics show 5.5 million of those veterans are disabled, 1.8 million are women, and 4 million served after 9/11. An additional 220,000 veterans leave the military each year,
the group says. Pew Research data also shows that 48 percent of post-9/11 veterans say they have felt strains in family relations as a result of their military services, and more than 40 percent report dif- ficulty readjusting to civilian life. The VA estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, while Pew says the veteran unemployment rate tops 11.5 percent. Matthew Evenhouse, MD, a Cleveland, Ohio, emergency physician and SWAT medic, says part of the problem is that
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