Coming home - Volunteers offer professional help to veterans coping with aftereffects of Iraq or Afghanistan

Accustomed to helping people deal with their emotions, Portland social worker Carol Levine was floundering with her own feelings less than a year into the U.S. war in Iraq.

Old enough to remember — and regret — the animosity that had greeted so many soldiers returning from Vietnam three decades earlier, Levine had been hearing about the challenges of homecoming for present-day veterans, particularly the citizen soldiers who make up the majority of Portland’s military population.

“I was feeling so helpless,” Levine said.

But out of Levine’s conflict was born the Returning Veterans Resource Project NW, an effort by a collection of Portland-area psychologists, social workers and other mental-health professionals to help returning soldiers get their lives back together.

Since the project’s creation less than two years ago, each of the 21 participating therapists has agreed to provide free counseling to a veteran back from Afghanistan or Iraq, walking the soldier through what can be a minefield of adjustment — for as long as soldiers and families need.

The service is welcomed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, whose officials say that for some veterans, it is tough to ask for help — from the government or anyone. Most don’t want to acknowledge they’re in counseling — much less talk about it publicly.

“Sometimes it’s just the potential of the stigma against seeking help,” said Jim Sardo, who leads the VA’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder program for the Portland metro area.

Capt. Michael Braibish, a public affairs officer for the Oregon National Guard, said commanders strive diligently to let soldiers and veterans know the military is committed to providing the needed services. Nevertheless, among many soldiers and veterans, he said, “There is a genuine concern that there is a stigma and that there won’t be the confidentiality.”

The counseling represents a generous commitment by the therapists, considering a weekly 50 minute session at between $90 and $120 can be costly over several months or even years.

Regardless, the therapists are in it for the long haul, Levine said.

Guy Burstein, a licensed clinical social worker in Portland who helped organize the group, said he has always questioned the need for war. “But I also honor the loyalty and service of our soldiers and their pain. This is a way to help ease that pain.”

Less than a year after the war’s start in March 2003, Levine said she had begun to hear a common thread of symptoms experienced by returning veterans — spouses who came home unable to sleep or who were hypervigilant — even in relaxed settings.

Or those who said the Fourth of July, with all of its fireworks and explosives, was a nightmare.

Remembering the division over Vietnam that gripped the nation more than 30 years ago, and the resentment and even violence that greeted many returning soldiers, Levine said she was frustrated and concerned.

Talking with a colleague over coffee one day before work, Levine told her friend she wished she could do something to make a difference.

“You can,” her friend said.

Levine picked up the phone and began calling other colleagues. One after another said they were eager to lend a hand.

Burstein and others helped research details about liability and insurance. To join the project, a therapist must provide a copy of his or her license as a mental-health professional.

Mandy Martin, a VA coordinator who talks with returning veterans about available resources, tells them about the Returning Veterans project.

“Sometimes there is a comfort level, and a soldier might choose to use outside services,” she said. “It is one more resource for the veterans to be able to use.”