May 6, 2007

AFTER THE HORRORS OF WAR, A HELPING HAND AT HOME

By Margo Nash

When soldiers from the Connecticut Army National Guard returned from Afghanistan two weeks ago, barricades could not stop their families and friends from greeting them as they got off planes at the Army Aviation Support Facility in Windsor Locks.

“We busted through,” said Capt. Lauri Tinelle of Colchester, who said she had not seen her husband, Sgt. First Class Jason Tinelle, 40, for a year and a half.

The 500 soldiers from the guard’s 102nd Infantry Battalion left for Fort Bragg, N.C., in January 2006, were sent to Afghanistan that April and took part in more than 1,450 combat patrols aimed at disrupting Taliban operations.

One battalion member was killed. Staff Sgt. Joseph E. Phaneuf Jr., 38, of Eastford, died in December when his armored vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.

Five years ago, Sgt. Tinelle left for Bosnia when his daughter, Jessica, was a month old. Now home, he began the process of catching up with her. His wife, a nurse in the National Guard, said that while she was glad he was home, she was also adjusting to her new role in the family.

“You’re used to doing everything your own way,” she said. “You’re used to being the boss of everything. You kind of miss that actually.”

Resuming family life after a deployment is just one of the challenges facing soldiers and their families. One in three veterans of the war in Iraq, and one in nine of the military operation in Afghanistan, face mental health problems, including depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

In March, the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services began an $810,000 program to support those who have served, are serving or will serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. Staff members taking calls at a confidential 24-hour hot line (866) 251-2913) provide information about benefits and help with bureaucratic red tape, and, if needed, make referrals to 135 social workers, psychiatrists and substance-abuse counselors around the state who have been trained to counsel people connected to the military and are offering their services free. The counseling is available to spouses, children, siblings, parents, grandparents and significant others.

“These allocations of resources put Connecticut ahead of the curve,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the veterans’ group. “What we have seen so far is that cities and states have responded much more quickly than the federal government, because that’s where the impact is felt first. There is going to be a huge flood of people, and the V.A. is not prepared.”

The state’s program will provide a therapeutic setting apart from that offered by the military or Veterans Affairs Department, said Dan Olshansky, who, as a health care system manager for the Department of Mental Health, is in charge of carrying out the program. “We hope we will provide an important complementary service for veterans and their families who may not have had services in other ways because of concerns with confidentiality or eligibility,” he said.

As of the end of February, 10,813 active-duty and reserve members whose legal or home address is listed as Connecticut have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Defense Department statistics.

State Representative Patricia Dillon, a Democrat from New Haven, said she got the idea for a military support program during the buildup to the war in Iraq. “It seemed to me there would be a heavy reliance on reserves and National Guard,” she said. She was able to secure money for the program in 2004, but technical problems had to be worked out.

Since then, state and federal officials, military representatives and veterans’ groups have helped develop the program and build relationships with existing support groups for military families. The state National Guard, for example, has a family program that is open to spouses, parents, grandparents, children and others close to members and reservists.

Many who have contributed to the planning of the state’s support program are Vietnam veterans, energized by the recollection of their own lonely and painful homecomings.

“There was no welcome home,” said Linda S. Schwartz, the state veterans’ affairs commissioner, who was an Air Force nurse in Vietnam.

“I think that is why so many of us want to make sure that they are welcomed home. We have a saying among veterans: ‘Never again will one generation of veterans turn their back on another.’

Giacomo Mordente III, veterans’ affairs director for Southern Connecticut State University, helped with training in the military support program. Mr. Mordente, also president of the National Association of Veterans’ Programs Administrators, said his group was trying to get the federal government to re-establish grants to colleges for hiring full-time veterans’ affairs counselors to help the increasing number of returning veterans take advantage of state tuition waivers and the G.I. bill. “There is a sensitivity and awareness of what they are facing and what they need,” he said.

Getting used to everyday life can take time for some veterans, said Rick Scavetta, who now works in New Haven in media relations and served for 14 years in the military, including in Afghanistan, leaving last year as a sergeant first class. One of his assignments was as chief of media relations for the American-led coalition headquarters in Bagram, Afghanistan, and he was also a civilian correspondent for Stars and Stripes in Baghdad.

When he came home last spring, he did not realize he had post-traumatic stress. “You’re walking down Frontage Road and one of those six-wheel dump trucks comes whizzing by, and when it locks up its brakes, all of a sudden you’re diving behind the bushes,” he said. “It takes you back to a place of absolute terror.”

At a Veterans Affairs hospital, “I got a handshake and an ‘I’ll call you,’ ” he recalled. Later someone from the hospital called offering medication. Mr. Scavetta wanted counseling but could get only 15 minutes in the early morning because he worked during the day. “I felt like there was nowhere to turn,” he said. “So I started speaking out about it.”

Now he runs a blog called The Bunker (bunker-chatter.blogspot.com) and was the keynote speaker at a training session for the state’s support program. People who come out of the service, he said, “need to know the first six months can be awful, and the next six aren’t much better.”

After he spoke at the training session, Mr. Scavetta said, a V.A. counselor approached him and he later received counseling at a time convenient to him.

He added that he had finally stopped looking for Taliban on every rooftop.