[Music] for many veterans the battles don't end when they return home invisible wounds like post-traumatic stress depression and traumatic brain injury can linger for years and often go untreated even though their impact is profound today I'm speaking with two veterans about the care and community that help them heal my name is Joe Harper I am a US Army infantry veteran I also help with veterans on the Fly and helped with the courage Foundation you were in the army yes I was a uh a mortman and we had a uh we fire away at a four dece mortar which is 4.2 in diameter for the four dece it's a it's a big big explosion down there it's a you know a 34 PB round going down the tube and coming back out and when you uh drop the round like this you're taught to follow the round down with your arms and your head so you're clear from the where where it goes off but the explosion happening right next to your head um but you know almost 5 years was time to get out you know infantry is is a hard [Music] life you know I I did my time I did what a lot of veterans do you know they get out um I met my lovely wife got a good union job had a had a family of three three awesome boys everything seemed to be going great for you know 20 years but then uh start realizing things you I started having memory issues I would forget guys that I would been working with for 25 years I would forget their names and I would just talk to them an hour before and I remembered their names you know there's a lot of a short-term memory issues I was having I had a friend one time he was he was an Iraqi veteran um also a mortman so we sort of connected and one day he come up to me he goes dude you got TBI I said what what do I got traumatic brain injury from you know I didn't go to war I didn't get blown up he goes okay but you got it you know cuz one thing I've you know you did a little research um and it come to find out that those rounds that I was dropping in the Army actually were like concussions every time your round go off it was a concussion and uh you know when you're dropping 30 40 60 80 rounds a day you know that's a lot of concussions in one day did you ever get checked for concussion protocol or anything like that when you were still in service no that you know it was the '90s concussions were nothing just work through it you know people started to worry about them when because of the football players MH um that really shed a light on what concussions are about and what's you know with the football players their concussions were collisions you know you hit something your brain hits inside of your your your skull and you know that's causes damage where blast injuries is the blast wave goes through and rattles the brain so that's a different type of damage mhm but still damage in those 20 years looking back on it now were there symptoms that you now realize you had oh yeah brain fog was definitely one of them um balance I really notice my balance especially you know I'm like to be in outdoors I I I struggled in the canoe because of balance um I thought I was just getting old but it it wasn't it was the it was a TBI so then I read one time where you know fly fishing can help veterans and stuff like that so I went and bought a cheap outfit and went and tried it I found an organization in Madison Wisconsin called Veterans on the Fly you know I don't know these guys but I'm gonna go try it I'm still struggling this whole time and then uh they were patient with me which was I'm thankful you know um struggling with the anxiety the anxiety the depression you know was the grumpy old that that nobody want to talk to because he's just grumpy everything you just you know you just bottle up and push it down and work through it but it still makes you grumpy Joe eventually went through a TBI assessment and was recommended for intensive Outpatient Treatment every day for 3 weeks he worked with psychiatrists therapists and doctors to confront the symptoms of his traumatic brain injuries that had been affecting him for the last 20 years and that was hard it was good as I say it was the second best thing I ever did in my life first one who was finding a find a woman that put up with me um and you had never had any mental health treatment before okay um so this was really the first time you were acknowledging that a you really were struggling with depression yes diagnosed and you're getting help yes after completing the 3 weeks of intensive treatment Joe connected with a fellow veteran through the courage Foundation to continue working on his symptoms uh my name is Dave Weber I'm a Navy veteran and uh I currently work for a nonprofit called the courage foundation and we helped veterans with one-on-one peer coaching peer support and we help veterans on their struggling with uh post-traumatic stress and and some tbis and U mental mental health stuff like depression when you were working with the veterans what do you see as far as their symptoms of PTSD they'll struggle being isolating isolating themselves um another thing is um being hypervigilant so in the military depending on their job a lot of times their survival is dependent on being hypervigilant noticing subtleties in a situation where something just moved or somebody's coming up behind me and then that same hyper vigilance vigilance that saved them in the military now you're in the grocery store and you're still hyper Vigilant you notice somebody move fast behind you or something's happening ahead of you and and all of a sudden the mind just starts racing and so this this Avalanche of emotion they can't handle it and have to leave their groceries in the store and just leave or do or say something they regret and so uh focusing on that is something that that I really like to zero in and it's helping them recogn ize what calm feels like before so that when they notice the tension coming out when they notice they're becoming hypervigilant having skills to be able to get themselves Calm before it becomes an avalanche of emotion so I would say isolation um hypervigilance is one another one is just adjusting to this new body you know an injured body what can I do now um another one is Regret it's like there's a lot of people that wish they had done something else or tried for a program and didn't get into it or had so much identity wrapped up in that particular um you know position and rank and everything else and now they don't have that and what do you do how much of that did you have to overcome personally to be able to do this work I yeah everything I had to overcome all of it and I think that's why for me it's I'm so passionate about it because it literally saved my life and so now I can when I share that like I can hear somebody talking through it and I understand what it feels like to to really feel like the lowest person on Earth and like how to be you know go from feeling completely worthless to taking that first step Dave includes many different aspects of peer support to tackle the complex struggles of veterans he gave me a glimpse into some of the calming techniques and breath work that he teaches in his workshops all right so your eyes closed seated comfortably exhaling out of my mouth just to help myself relax slowly inhaling through my nose just taking a moment to notice the sound and feeling of that breath so allow myself to settle down I'm noticing little tension wiggling my fingers wiggling my toes have my feet nice and flat so this is just practicing getting settled slowly opening my hands kind of like letting a butterfly go so we'll be cycling back and forth between tension and relaxation to feel that difference so let's begin by exhaling in three 2 one and exhale out of your nose or mouth all the way [Music] out what message would you have to any vets that are early in their journey of healing um I know a lot of vets a lot of men think you know going for treatment shows weakness it don't it actually shows strength you know it's just you're recognizing that hey I got something wrong with me let's go get it [Music] fixed funding provided in part by the Charles E KU Foundation committed to improving the lives of those impacted by depression since 2003