Joey is scared. He is always scared. He is afraid something is going to happen. Afraid he may do something. So afraid he may do something that he has, on several occasions. That’s why the incarceration and probation. He’s OK talking about this with me. I’ve been in his boots, and it probably still shows, even after forty years. I still work the annual Ventura County stand-down, where we get forty or fifty vets come in out of the hills, the river bottom or off the road to get set up with health, social and legal services. Home from the boonies.
Joey is twenty four. His face looks younger, but his eyes look older. He doesn’t look directly at me, and is constantly checking for...what? He is an Iraq vet, home for less than a year and on probation, recently released from jail back east. He is visiting his estranged wife and eight month old daughter here in Ojai, where she came to stay with family and get sober. She is twenty three, and has a very supportive father, also in recovery from alcoholism. It is an awkward reunion.
We are sitting on a bench in front of an Alano club, and Joey is talking about Iraq, being on a scout/sniper team. I’m not asking questions about who, what, when, where...bad etiquette, if you’ve been. He’s in charge of the conversation, and that’s good. When I do ask questions, they’re about his health, is he OK, what’s shaking with the VA, about probation terms. He wants to get his probation terms moved to Ojai, and do his terms in Ventura County so he can see his daughter. His P.O. wants him to get help for PTSD. He is a violent offender, though you wouldn’t think it to see him. He’s been court-ordered to A.A. as well. Joey is already enrolled in the VA health care system, and rated ten percent disabled for nerve damage, so that part is done. That extends his health care from the normal two years to five. A PTSD diagnosis will up his rating and extend his health care even more, hopefully. He was hesitant at first to hook up with the VA, afraid it would just be more army. That kept me away from the VA for over thirty years. I’ve heard in some places it pretty much is.
He’s agreed to go with me Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, to the local VA outreach center, to talk with a counselor and see about moving his health care out here. Not today...it’s never today when I do this, never "OK, let’s go now." There always has to be a back door, some wiggle room. I’ve told him about my time in Viet Nam, two thirteen month tours. He had one in Iraq, six months, and a medical discharge. He’s as screwed up in six months as it took me two years to get. The technology of war has advanced since my time in, and the brutalization, all the way ‘round, seems to move faster and cut deeper. But the VA out here is good. My experience with them has only been good. I’ve heard and read the VA horror stories, and don’t doubt them, but that isn’t the way the VA treats us at Sepulveda or West L.A., or even at the local clinics. They are understaffed and underfunded, part of the ongoing national state of denial regarding the true cost of war, but they do a damned good job.
I’ll be going with him, to the outreach center first, then to the hospital, probably WLA, and to his first local clinic visit when it comes. To help him ask questions, so he doesn’t get lost in paperwork, so he asks the right questions, so he has the support to give answers that make him uncomfortable, that might show he isn’t holding his mud. To uncle him through the initial process here.
This is a hard process for me at times. These guys, and occasionally women, are my brothers, and sisters, in arms. I always want everyone to get a happy ever after, and I don’t think it happens very often. Forty years after, and I still have my...moments. But I think Joey is going to be OK. A sad process, as well. I have a stepson who pulled a tour assigned to the 1st MEF in Ramadi. He’s out now, and has attempted suicide twice. He has the look. I’ve seen it before. I think he’s going to make it next try.