1. Understanding Special Care Issues with Veterans
Linda Harrison, LPCS, CCS, MAC

2. Thank You For Your Service

4. War quotes…
A great war leaves the country with three armies — an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

5. War quotes….
What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. Bertrand Russell
War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead. ~Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

6. Understanding the soldier’s experience
Many veterans volunteer for service and others were drafted.
Volunteers enter the service with the belief that they are fighting for a cause which may or may not remain true for them. Upon returning to the US, these beliefs stay with them. How family and citizens respond to their service affects their self worth.
Many veterans experience stress of leaving family, extreme stress of war, loss of fellow soldiers, desensitization to death, suffering, and removal of most basic needs (safety, shelter, food, water, medical care, hygiene) for hours, weeks, months, years.
Survivors guilt.
Soldiers are conditioned and de-conditioned.

7. “War is Hell”, William Tecumseh Sherman
I confess without shame that I am tired & sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies […] It is only those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrills & groans of the wounded & lacerated (friend or foe) that cry aloud for more blood & more vengeance, more desolation & so help me God as a man & soldier I will not strike a foe who stands unarmed & submissive before me but will say ‘Go sin no more.’ Willian. Tecumseh Sherman

8. Trauma and stored memories
Trauma and stored memories lead to….
Somatic experiences of war in the body leads to…
Physical and mental symptoms of depression, anxiety, panic attacks,
paranoia, feelings of helplessness/hopelessness, avoidance, hypersensitivity to loud sounds, large crowds which may lead to…
Attempts to suppress or cope with symptoms with substances, high risk behaviors,
Some will have ongoing physical injuries such as TBI, loss of limb or body functions, paralysis, neurological ticks,

9. Veteran Videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK6oOokHFyQ

10. How do we assess and develop a treatment plan for veterans, specifically?
Physical needs:
Mental and Emotional needs:
Family needs:
Trauma treatment needs:
Social and Community needs:
Gender Specific veteran needs:

11. What Veteran’s Services are available in your area?
ASHEVILLE: Helios Warriors HENDERSONVILLE: The Veterans Healing Farm