Center gives help to soldiers after war

July 22, 2008

Center gives help to soldiers after war
Facility opens Wednesday

BY R. NORMAN MOODY
FLORIDA TODAY

Robert Thompson regrets not seeking the counseling help he needed when he returned from Vietnam.

Now decades later and still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Thompson finds comfort in the counseling and group sessions offered at the new Melbourne Vet Center.

“The help here has been excellent,” he said. “I was a bucket of bolts not quite put together.”

Vet Centers, like the one in Melbourne, are opening at an accelerated pace around the country to cope with returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who need help making the transition from combat zone to civilian life.

The Department of Veterans Affairs will celebrate the grand opening Wednesday of the Melbourne site, the first one in Brevard County. The center, which provides counseling and referral services for veterans and their families, began limited operations in January.

Thompson said young veterans should take advantage of the new centers, designed to be less intimidating and more accessible than the more standard veteran hospitals.

“I feel like if they do that, they would be much better off and they could keep their families together,” Thompson said. “I encourage them not to be the macho type and come in.”

Many young veterans come home eager to get back into the life they led prior to deployment and often ignore or don’t understand problems they may be having, counselors said.

“For every service member who comes home there is some type of readjustment,” said Ronda Denning, an Iraq War veteran who is a readjustment counselor at the Melbourne Vet Center.

Established in 1979, Vet Centers offer counseling and psychological services for such things as port-traumatic stress disorder and other combat-
related problems.

Veterans can also get job referrals, participate in anger management groups and receive marital, family and substance abuse counseling.

Jack Maloney, team leader at the Melbourne center, said 23 new Vet Centers opened or are opening this year and 39 are being added in 2009. There are about 270 around the country.

“There’s been a surge in our funding because Congress realized that our returning vets are in need,” Maloney said. “The Vet Center is young and growing.”

The site in Melbourne, in the Sarno Plaza at the corner of Sarno and Croton roads, has framed photographs and prints of troops from Vietnam and more recent wars decorating its walls.

The counselors are combat veterans, including Denning, a captain with the Florida National Guard who recently returned from a year deployment in Iraq, and Maloney, a Vietnam veteran.

“You know that they’ve been in your boots,” said Thompson, 67, of Palm Bay.

Counselors said that too often veterans realize that they have a problem but believe that they can handle it themselves. Often it’s a family member who encourages a veteran to seek help.

“A lot of them are coming in because of spousal requests,” Maloney said. “What we try to do is to let them know that they are not alone. It’s a normal response to an abnormal situation. They come in here and they find that they are not alone.”

Contact Moody at 242-3651 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

To read Senator Posey’s comments from the Grand Opening dedication, please click here.